BlackBerry strengthens enterprise partner Program FOR RAPID GROWTH

Partner program enables solutions providers to strengthen their security and mobility services

Singapore, SG – May 18, 2016 –BlackBerry Limited (NASDAQ: BBRY; TSX: BB), a global leader in secure mobile communications, today announced the evolution of its Enterprise Partner Program for solutions providers. Through the program, BlackBerry will provide partners with best practices that enhance their skills to offer and support BlackBerry’s cross platform security and productivity solutions. The enhancements to the program are aimed to increase the value of BlackBerry partners, stimulate growth and drive profit, especially for partners that invest in their relationship with the company.

According to analyst firm Canalys, channel partners currently see themselves in a state of transformation, with security, mobility and managed services as some of the drivers for increased profitability. By enhancing the partner program on several levels, BlackBerry will help partners build new capabilities around the multi-OS EMM platform from BlackBerry.

The renewed program will include an integrated and simplified pricing structure along with enhanced partner discounts through deal registration. Solutions providers that want to mobilize their own business by showcasing Good Secure EMM Suites to customers are supported with discounted licenses from BlackBerry. 

“The renewed BlackBerry Enterprise Partner Program for solutions providers will enable our partners to capture the rich consulting, professional services, and support and software lifecycle management opportunities created in their move to mobile business,” said Richard McLeod, Vice President Global Channels at BlackBerry. “BlackBerry aims to help partners growing their business by empowering them to increase their value and improve competitive differentiation through building and developing intellectual property and personalized value-added services around our comprehensive multi-OS EMM platform.”

BlackBerry can also work closely with its partners to collect feedback and input on various topics such as in-market products, BlackBerry’s emerging technology roadmap and go-to-market approach to create more sales opportunities for its partners.

Wilson Ho, Managing Director of Westcon Solutions Asia, Westcon-Comstor says: “BlackBerry is a key enterprise software partner of ours, and we welcome this new initiative to better support our partners and grow our businesses.  The company has been through a significant transformation since its acquisition of Good Technology and launch of BES12, and we are excited to be working with BlackBerry to help our customers be secured and enabled in a connected world.”

The new Good Secure EMM Suites from BlackBerry provides partners with a recurring, subscription revenue model and a progressive packaging that delivers a customer life cycle growth opportunity as businesses continue to embrace secure mobility and productivity. With Good Secure EMM Suites customers can leverage simple and flexible options to deploy industry-leading security across devices, apps, content and data. These tailored mobility suites meet the current and future needs of businesses of any size through a single integrated offering of BES®12, Good Dynamics and WatchDox® by BlackBerry. 

The BlackBerry Enterprise Partner Program for solution providers is split into three distinct tiers (Authorized, Gold and Platinum) that reflect the evolution happening within today’s mobile environment. Each tier provides different benefits based on a partner’s level of commitment. The more committed partners are, the more access to specialization, competencies and tools are being made available from BlackBerry. This gives partners the right competitive advantage in the market.  

More information on the BlackBerry Enterprise Partner Program can be found at https://partner.blackberry.com/.

Find out more on Good Secure EMM Suites at www.blackberry.com/enterprise.

Press Release : WATCHDOX BY BLACKBERRY NAMED A LEADER IN ENTERPRISE FILE SYNC AND SHARE FOR HYBRID SOLUTIONS

Singapore, SG – April 27, 2016 – BlackBerry Limited (NASDAQ: BBRY; TSX: BB), a global leader in secure mobile communications, today announced that it has been named a “Leader” in The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise File Sync And Share Platforms, Hybrid Solutions, Q2 2016. Forrester Research, Inc. evaluated WatchDox by BlackBerry along with offerings from nine other of the most significant EFSS vendors. The WatchDox solution scored among the highest in 17 of the 37 criteria evaluated by Forrester, including Architecture, Security Capabilities, Scalability, File Access, External Sharing, Rights Management, MDM/EMM support, Mobile Protection and Technology Strategy.

According to Forrester Research, “BlackBerry embraces secure file sharing with its software-centric renewal strategy. BlackBerry’s acquisition of WatchDox in 2015 launches it into the collaboration market as it evolves into a platform for secure business communication. BlackBerry shows particular strength in the security criteria for EFSS, with integrated rights management, watermarking for confidential items, and mobile protection.” 

“The Forrester EFSS Wave 2016 validates that enterprises can rely on BlackBerry when securely handling all their sensitive documents internally and externally,” said Billy Ho, Executive Vice President, Enterprise Product and Value Added Solutions, BlackBerry. “We are pleased to be listed as a leader in the EFSS solutions market, showing that our strategy of ensuring the highest levels of security and personal privacy is helping enterprises to be more productive while protecting their corporate assets.”

WatchDox by BlackBerry stands out from other vendors in the EFSS space for its rich security and collaboration features. WatchDox is known for its document encryption controls based on digital rights management (DRM), extensive data protection and security capabilities including policy enforcements, role-based access control, and extensive secure content editing capabilities that allow for productive collaboration. WatchDox by BlackBerry offers the most secure EFSS solution, with content security capabilities that are Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2 certified by the U.S. government and utilise best-in-class AES 256-bit encryption for data-at-rest and data-in-transit.

Built to meet the needs of enterprises with the highest security requirements, WatchDox by BlackBerry also offers flexibility in deployment models including on-premise and hosted solutions. WatchDox Connectors extend existing file repositories, making them available through the WatchDox interface, outside the company firewall and protected by DRM. This enables employees to easily collaborate with external contacts on their existing asset libraries and avoids having to duplicate files in the cloud.

WatchDox allows users to access documents from PC and Mac desktops, tablets, and smartphones, giving employees the flexibility to work across locations and be productive no matter where they are. Users and administrators can also track and audit who is accessing files and they have the ability to revoke access or delete files remotely. This gives organisations full visibility and control over how files are viewed, edited, copied, printed or forwarded.

With WatchDox being also part of the Good Secure EMM Suites, BlackBerry provides the industry’s most comprehensive mobile security platform, and is the only vendor to offer cross-platform device management, secure and encrypted voice, text, messaging and enterprise file-sync-and-share solutions in one EMM portfolio. 

[1] Forrester Research, Inc. " The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise File Sync And Share Platforms, Hybrid Solutions, Q2 2016, " by Cheryl McKinnon, April 26, 2016.

Press Release : ShareCare AND BlackBerry Launch New BBM Channel

Partnership to provide actionable health information to millions of BBM users 

Barcelona, Spain/Waterloo, Ontario — Feb. 24, 2016 — BlackBerry Limited (NASDAQ: BBRY; TSX: BB), a global leader in secure mobile communications, today announced an expansion of its partnership with Sharecare, a leading digital health and wellness engagement platform, to provide consumers with better and more secure insights into their health.

Together, the companies have launched the Sharecare BBM channel, which hosts information from experts, including health organizations and medical professionals. Experts ranging from the American Cancer Society to licensed physicians and nurses, and luminaries from Deepak Chopra to Dr. Oz can be connected to users to help them find the health answers, advice and resources that are right for them. The Sharecare BBM channel lives on a user’s smartphone right in BBM for access anywhere at any time; and with notifications built into BBM, users can receive important health updates on the Sharecare channel or when someone interacts with a post on the channel.

“Beyond BlackBerry’s best-in-class privacy standards, their expansive reach gets us closer to realizing our vision of becoming the de-facto digital health destination for anyone, anytime, anywhere and on any device,” said Jeff Arnold, founder and CEO of Sharecare. “In particular, the Sharecare BBM channel provides us with a unique and secure avenue to provide hundreds of millions more consumers with the tips and tools they need to help them live their healthiest lives.”

“Leveraging Sharecare’s rich background and pedigree in the healthcare industry, we’re able to provide an opportunity for consumers to access important health-related information in a safe and secure manner via BBM Protected,” said Marty Beard, COO, BlackBerry. “We are addressing the privacy concerns consumers may have regarding personal health data and ensuring we’re providing the solutions necessary to thwart anything that could compromise sensitive information.”

BBM works on iOS®, Android™, and BlackBerry smartphones and is free to download. The Sharecare healthcare channel is available now via BBM Channels. Find out more about BBM at www.bbm.com.

Press Releases : BLACKBERRY Launches New Professional Cybersecurity Services Practice To Expand Porfolio

BlackBerry acquires Encription to provide customers industry-leading threat mitigation and cybersecurity services

Waterloo, Ontario — February 24 — BlackBerry Limited (NASDAQ: BBRY; TSX: BB), a global leader in secure mobile communications, today announced the launch of its new Professional Cybersecurity Services practice that will further expand BlackBerry’s security portfolio by offering organizations new consulting services, tools and best practices to assess and thwart ever-changing cybersecurity risks.

Cybersecurity is a persistent and increasing business risk for organizations that depend on mobile endpoints that connect through networked and cloud-enabled platforms. It is estimated that data breaches currently cost the global economy more than $400 billion every year.[1] Some industry sectors, such as automotive, are being forced to grapple with cybersecurity threats for the first time as cars become more connected, intelligent and self-sufficient. As cybersecurity threats become more pervasive with increasing Internet connectivity, there is a greater demand for more robust defensive tactics to combat these risks. BlackBerry’s Professional Cybersecurity Practice is intended to address that market demand.

Cybersecurity consulting is currently estimated to be a $16.5 billion annual global business that is forecast to grow to $23 billion per annum by 2019[2]. As such, cybersecurity consulting represents a natural market opportunity for BlackBerry since it already securely manages hundreds of millions of mobile endpoints and provides critical systems software for more than 60 million connected cars.

BlackBerry’s new cybersecurity consulting services and tools, combined with BlackBerry’s existing security solutions will help customers identify the latest cybersecurity threats, develop risk appropriate mitigation strategies, implement and maintain IT security standards and techniques and defend against the risk of future attacks. BlackBerry’s new global Professional Cybersecurity Services practice will address:

·   Strategic Security: best practices in IT operation ranging across enterprise mobility management and cloud services.

·  Technical Security: technical assistance for infrastructure and product development lifecycle.

·      Automotive and IoT Security: security consulting services as the rapid commercialization of IoT solutions makes security and privacy a top priority.  

·   Detection, Testing and Analysis: threat detection and mitigation penetration testing, vulnerability assessment and incident response analysis. This includes forensic services, business security status via IT health checks, training, regulatory compliance and security breach management through incident response.

As part of the new Professional Cybersecurity Services practice – and aligned with BlackBerry’s core emphasis on securing mobile communications across all platforms – BlackBerry acquired UK-based Encription Limited, which brings years of cybersecurity consulting experience to the organization. The acquisition of Encription was completed on February 19, 2016. Specific terms of the deal are not being disclosed. 

Encription’s specialties range from deep technical skills in software security to hardware capabilities. This includes industry-leading assessments in penetration testing, mimicking the techniques of malicious hackers to ensure organizations are aware of cyber risks posed by criminal hackers and how to address them. Additionally, Encription has been entrusted by one of the UK government’s highest security standards with the CESG CHECK IT and ISO/IEC 27001 certifications. This adds another significant security certification to BlackBerry’s portfolio in order to meet the stringent standards and requirements for countries the company serves.

“BlackBerry is the gold standard when it comes to security and we’re always evolving to maintain this high standard as the complexity of enterprise mobility and security increases,” said John Chen, Executive Chairman and CEO, BlackBerry. “We recognize that security vulnerabilities are a top risk concern for public and private sector organizations alike. The creation of our Professional Cybersecurity Services practice and acquisition of Encription reinforces our commitment to providing customers the industry’s most secure mobility solutions and helping them to assess and mitigate risks.” 

BlackBerry has provided the world’s most secure mobility solutions for more than two decades, and has earned more than 70 government certifications and approvals - greater than any other mobile vendor. BlackBerry is also the trusted mobility partner of all G7 governments, 16 of the G20 governments, 10 out of 10 of the largest global banks and law firms, and the top five largest managed healthcare, investment services, and oil and gas companies.

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[1]2015 Cost of Data Breach Study: United States, Ponemon Institute, May 2015

[2]“Forecast Analysis: Information Security Worldwide”, Gartner, 2015