BlackBerry Ltd Appoints Ex Sony-Ericsson CTO To Lead ‘BTS’

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BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) has appointed Dr. Sandeep Chennakeshu as president of the Blackberry Technology Solutions business group, a newly set up unit, the Canadian company said in a statement. Innovation efforts is the major area of focus of this newly formed segment including several core tech assets such as QNX embedded software, Project Ion, Certicom, Paratek and BlackBerry’s portfolio of approximately 44,000 patents.

Chennakeshu to push BlackBerry turnaround efforts

Chennakeshu had over 25 years of experience in the industry and was the president of Ericsson Mobile Platforms and CTO of Sony-Ericsson prior to joining the Canadian smartphone maker. The new president of the company is the inventor of 73 patents.

The beleaguered smartphone maker is losing ground despite many efforts and has dropped in the mobile share ranking with only less than 1% share, along with profits that are at the lowest levels compared to the previous years. At this point, Chennakeshu will have to put an extra effort to fix the issues in the company’s bottom line.

CEO John Chen is upbeat on the company citing that both new BTS business unit and arrival of Chennakeshu will take forward the company’s turnaround efforts by sharpening the secure embedded applications and the collaborative M2M communication. Chen said that he is pleased that Sandeep has decided to offer his service to BlackBerry and lead BTS. He added that QNX, Certicom and Paratek are strategic and technically innovative assets with capabilities to offer services to much wider global markets.

“Combining all these assets into a single business unit led by Sandeep will create operational synergies and new revenue streams, furthering our turnaround strategy,” Chen said.

QNX offers massive potential

QNX from the company is a core asset helping it to speed up the turnaround. The technology is used by the automakers to enable drivers to connect in cars multimedia systems with mobile devices. The Canadian smartphone maker is also looking forward to offer technology to businesses and people to connect to other machines over the Internet using their mobile device.

BlackBerry is losing its grip on corporate and government clients gradually, and rivals are hogging the long time loyal customers of the company. Chen is hopeful that the updated software that handles security for company issued devices will retain the customers. The new software update is compatible across various platforms like Apple iPhones and other devices based on Android.

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