BlackBerry Opens Operating System to Competitors

BlackBerry Ltd. has reversed course on a device-management policy that effectively closed a channel for potential smartphone sales, saying Tuesday it will open up its operating system to competitors.

One of the key pieces of BlackBerry's turnaround strategy is its device-management business, in which it handles security and software for smartphones that a company issues or oversees for its employees. Unlike competing smartphone companies though, BlackBerry has long kept its operating system closed off. That meant that if a company wanted to use a different device-management provider, it couldn't have any BlackBerrys on its network. The policy effectively closed a channel for potential BlackBerry-device sales.

BlackBerry said it will now open up its operating system to competitors such as International Business Machines Corp., CitrixSystems Inc. and VMware Inc.-owned Airwatch.

The reversal is one of many changes Chief Executive John Chen has implemented since taking over the Waterloo, Ontario, company late last year. He has said one of his main areas of focus would be winning back enterprise business for BlackBerry, long the company's bread and butter.

In recent years BlackBerry had been losing business in both smartphones and in the mobile-device management, or MDM, industry. Established companies such as IBM and Citrix offer similar services, and startups such as Airwatch and MobileIron Inc. have recently been acquired or raised significant capital. A study last year by technology research firm Gartner ranked Airwatch, MobileIron and Citrix as the leaders in mobile-device management. BlackBerry was listed among the "niche players."

BlackBerry is preparing to update its own MDM service, BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10, later this year.

"Offering the end-to-end secure solutions valued by our customers in government and other regulated industries remains central to our strategy; however BlackBerry understands the opportunity and importance of opening our BlackBerry 10 software," said Ron Louks, BlackBerry's president of devices and emerging solutions. "This is a natural next step in our enterprise strategy as we seek to provide our customers with maximum choice in how they will meet the full array of employee mobility needs."

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