BlackBerry had a tough Fall. At the end of September the company announced yet another dismal quarter, this time with a nearly $1 billion loss. Those numbers led to an expected buyout by a group of investors led by Fairfax Financial Holdings. Funding for the deal fell through, and BlackBerry received only a $1 billion investment to keep it afloat while CEO Thorsten Heins was let go.
With everything that has happened over the past few months, investors couldn’t be faulted for thinking that BlackBerry is on a crash course to a low sale price or even a breakup. The company’s new interim CEO, however, still believe the company can stand on its own.
BlackBerry interim CEO John Chen this week released an open letter to the company’s business clients. In it, Chen attempts to “set the story straight” about BlackBerry’s place in the enterprise space. He states that Blackberry is “here to stay” and emphasizes that current BlackBerry Enterprise solutions are still in place and “secure.”
“In Short, reports of our death are greatly exaggerated,” wrote Chen.
Throughout the letter, Chen makes the case that BlackBerry will re-focus it efforts on what it has historically done best – selling enterprise solutions. BlackBerry will provide mobile solutions, both through its BlackBerry 10 platform and through bring-your-own-device initiatives. The company will manage all types of devices and provide multi-platform EMM. From the letter:
We’re going back to our heritage and roots – delivering enterprise-grade, end-to-end mobile solutions. As we refocus back to our roots, BlackBerry will target four areas: handsets, EMM solutions, cross-platform messaging, and embedded systems. And, just as important, we will continue to invest in enterprise and security related R&D during our restructuring period.
Though BlackBerry won’t be abandoning its device segment, Chen does state in the letter’s closing paragraphs that the company knows “that BlackBerry devices are not for everyone.” Under Chen’s management, BlackBerry is now “ok” with that and will continue to provide enterprise services just the same.