The company has created a Professional CyberSecurity Services practice which will offer organisations consulting services, tools and best practice.
BlackBerry was tight-lipped on the detail of the Encription deal, which closed late last week (19 February).
Talking about the move into consulting, David Kleidermacher, BlackBerry’s chief security officer, said: “We had capabilities internally but now we have launched that practice externally.”
Another announcement involved a partnership with Microsoft that enables BlackBerry to offer secure enterprise solutions via the former’s Azure cloud platform.
The deal means enterprises can opt to install and manage their BES12 deployment through Microsoft’s cloud platform, giving full access to their BES12 licences while benefiting from the Azure architecture – and without having to invest in their own IT infrastructure.
Robert Cattanach is a partner at the international law firm Dorsey & Whitney and says this is a positive move for Blackberry that could lead to amazing things in cybersecurity development.
"This is a natural fit for Blackberry. It can leverage it's expertise in its undisputed"best practices" phone software technology into the exploding market for consulting services on cyber security. This offers Blackberry a chance to break out of its niche device market - currently limited to the uber secure users like governments and the financial industry - and present itself to a much broader market segment that is increasingly focused on the importance of enterprise cyber security. If properly executed, there could be some terrific synergies here."