BlackBerry's recent change in strategy to move away from in-house hardware development will result in both strategic and financial benefits, allowing the company to focus its core strengths to provide secure mobile solutions globally and in India, a top official said.“India is an important market for BlackBerry and delivering the best possible customer experience is extremely critical for us. It made absolute sense to us to team up with a key partner in India -one of the fastest growing mobile nations and among the most important markets for us," Alex Thurber, general manager, Mobility Solutions, BlackBerry , told ET.
The Canadian enterprise software and solution maker in late 2016 announced a licensing model to enable third parties to make, market and sell handsets with the BlackBerry brand.
In February it inked a deal with India's Optiemus for the local design, manufacture and distribution of smartphones. Under the deal, BlackBerry has licensed its software and services for the production of BlackBerry Android handsets in markets like India, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh.
“There are both strategic and financial benefits to our new approach," Thurber said.
The company recently launched its KEYone, made by China's TCL, while its Indonesian partner BB Merah Putih announced the BlackBerry Aurora smartphone.The executive said BlackBerry is working with its partners to define a competitive hardware portfolio, leverage their distribution scale and access new channels.
“Our strategy also allows us to expand the mobility choices available to our customers by bringing BlackBerry security and productivity applications to a wider audience across multiple platforms and devices... more will be revealed by our partners when they go to market," he said.
Thurber said Optiemus' design and go-to-market plans combi ned with BlackBerry's secure and productive software will be a great fit for customers in India.
“This fits in our overarching principle, in the new business model, which can be summed up as “global consistency with local flavour.“ We believe we will achieve greater localization and scale in India with our partnership," he added.
The executive said the three existing handset-based licensees are only the first phase of BlackBerry's licensing strategy , and the company is implementing phase 2 of its strategy , though he declined to share details.
As part of its revival strategy under which it is rebuilding its business with main focus on enterprise sales, BlackBerry roped in HCL Infosystems as national distributor of its enterprise products and solutions, aimed at increasing total addressable market for its software and solutions.
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