The software push that BlackBerry is envisioning is being taken to another level by the company?s CEO John Chen. Taking a beating in the hardware segment of the smartphone market, BlackBerry earlier decided to focus instead on its main selling points?BBM and its enterprise software?to attract customers. This was hailed as a smart decision since those are the areas BlackBerry has traditionally been strong in. But the fact remains that the likes of Apple and Google have such a stronghold over the market that companies are increasingly preferring to use their enterprise solutions rather than BlackBerry?s. John Chen, who signed a contract with BlackBerry for five years, recently outlined a plan for that period that could once again bring the company out of the shadows of the current market leaders. The focus will still be on software, but Chen says he wants to expand into machine-to-machine communication and not just be restricted to smartphones. The idea is that, once BlackBerry?s short-term financial troubles stabilise (a big if), Chen will extend the company?s presence in areas where two-way communications can be coupled with big data analytics to adjust devices automatically depending on how they are used. This can extend to thermostats, car dashboards, indoor lighting?anything that can be controlled via an electronic chip.
A self-adjusting thermostat called Nest, now owned by Google, has been making waves recently. But that is the only presence the big tech companies have in this ?internet of things? space. As Chen himself said, BlackBerry has ?got 80,000 BlackBerry enterprise servers, in a ?Who?s Who? of government, legal, Wall Street, hospitals,? which means he already has the network in place. Designing specific software to smartly adjust temperature, lighting levels, etc, will not be hard for a software-strong company like BlackBerry. And the upside is that selling to enterprises yields much higher margins that selling to consumers?which means the company can afford lower sales volumes in the beginning, while it establishes its name in that space.
