BlackBerry's Turnaround Plan Revolves Around Security Software - The UpStream

BlackBerry's Turnaround Plan Revolves Around Security Software

posted Sunday Jul 26, 2015 by Nicholas DiMeo

BlackBerry's Turnaround Plan Revolves Around Security Software

After a series of layoffs and quarterly losses, BlackBerry hopes its darkest days are behind it. Key executives have left the company and Jabil Circuit stopped making BlackBerry devices. So what happens now? BlackBerry has started to get the wheels moving behind its turnaround plan in an effort to bring the company back from its dismal past two years.

So what's the plan? Security. BlackBerry laid out the roadmap of the next few years and the majority of it has to do with security software and other products that protect dozens of different devices. Blackberry's CEO John Chen said that the company can protect medical records, movie scripts and other sensitive data through its offerings.

I'm pretty satisfied with the progress on the turnaround so far. I laid out the $500 million software revenue target and I'm still comfortable with that commitment for this fiscal year, it looks good.

The fact that Chen has put out a goal of $500 million in software revenue is a bold move coming from a company who has been stuck in releasing unpopular handset devices over the past five years. This surely ties in with the turnaround plan, however that's now going to take longer than initially anticipated. At first, Chen said BlackBerry would be levelled out in 6 months, however last week he said that may look more like 12 to 18 months.

Still, Chen is confident in the ability of BlackBerry to make a full recovery, despite analysts' concerns.

We're patiently building the product pipeline and the sales channel. There is still a lot of work to do, I'd love for everything to move faster, but I caution people to be a bit patient because we can't rebound in a very short period of time, no company can. We are doing all the right things for the long term and the company is definitely out of financial trouble.

While the BlackBerry CEO has solved the rapid decline of the company's profits and revenue, the stock price is still gloating around where it was over a year ago, only solidifying investors' worry over the brand. The bright side is that the last year also showed BlackBerry acquiring a handful of software companies, which brought us full circle to the security software offerings we saw this week. Is it enough to save the company? Again, BlackBerry's biggest trouble will be adoption rate and competing against tough adversaries. The switch to software might work, but the challenges remain the same.

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