BlackBerry (BBRY) has completed its acquisition of Secusmart, a German data theft and anti-eavesdropping solution provider, after receiving regulatory approval.

Michael Cusanelli, Associate Editor

January 2, 2015

2 Min Read
John Chen executive chairman and CEO BlackBerry
John Chen, executive chairman and CEO, BlackBerry

BlackBerry (BBRY) has completed its acquisition of Secusmart, a German data theft and anti-eavesdropping solution provider, after receiving regulatory approval.

BlackBerry expects the acquisition to strengthen its position in the secure enterprise mobility space and improve end-to-end security offerings on its portfolio of mobile devices, according to the announcement.

“The acquisition of Secusmart underscores BlackBerry’s longstanding commitment to being the best in enterprise mobile security,” said John Chen, executive chairman and CEO at BlackBerry, in a statement. “With the benefit of Secusmart’s talented team at BlackBerry, we look forward to building on our leadership position in mobile security at a time when cybersecurity breaches and data theft pose ever-growing costs and threats to governments, companies and consumers.”

Secusmart and BlackBerry have worked together for a number of years, most recently on installing the SecuSuite for BlackBerry 10 solution in a deployment at Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security.

BlackBerry announced the acquisition in July. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“We’re thrilled with the acquisition as we see significant opportunities to accelerate innovation for high-end secure communications solutions,” said Hans-Christoph Quelle, managing director of Secusmart. “Having successfully partnered since 2009 to provide Secusmart’s voice and data encryption capabilities to BlackBerry’s gold standard security portfolio, we look forward to introducing Secusmart’s solutions to more of BlackBerry’s government and enterprise customers around the world.”

CEO John Chen has spent the past year bolstering BlackBerry’s efforts to provide additional features and device security amidst the company’s falling market share, as enterprise users continue to switch to Android and Apple (APPL) devices. Chen told Reuters in November that the company would focus on selling a small set of smartphones in fiscal year 2016 to turn a profit, following BlackBerry’s goal of driving cash flow in fiscal year 2015.

BlackBerry also turned heads when it announced its collaboration with Samsung to deliver an Android-based solution that combines BES12 enterprise mobility management with Knox security-equipped Galaxy and Note devices. The collaboration marked the first time the company’s BES platform would be available on competing devices.

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About the Author(s)

Michael  Cusanelli

Associate Editor, Penton Technology Group, Channel

Michael Cusanelli is the associate editor for Penton Technology’s channel properties, including The VAR Guy, MSPmentor and Talkin' Cloud. He has written articles and produced video for Newsday.com and is a graduate of Stony Brook University's School of Journalism in New York. In his spare time Michael likes to play video games, watch sci-fi movies and participate in all things nerdy. He can be reached at [email protected]

 

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