BlackBerry to turn BBM secure-messaging system into subscription service
theglobeandmail.com
theglobeandmail.com
Of course, hindsight is 20/20, and it's entirely possible that opening BBM up would have radically cannibalized Blackberry sales.
The article's comparison to Twilio is interesting. Twilio's market cap is 2.64B [1], while Blackberry's is 3.84B [2]. I'd bet heavily that Twilio overtakes Blackberry soon.
2017: "Um, what's BBM?"
Motherfucking Blackberry. How they managed to fly that ship into the sun we may never know, because that shit was hard to fuck up.
http://www.edibleapple.com/2010/12/28/rim-was-in-disbelief-f...
Basically, both Lazaridis and Balsillie agreed that they should downplay the innovation in the iPhone when in public. Internally however, they were scrambling to build a competitor because Verizon told them to. RIMM's business was very heavily tied into US and international carriers and serving enterprise clientele, and none of them had asked for anything like the iPhone, so they just never bothered.
Lynch was an abomination to support, it was billed as a kind of a sip client and messenger combo but of course they Microsofted it. They didn't want an extension or phone number tied to it so people could only call you if you were in the same network and had the software installed.
Plus, blackberry was ALWAYS lame.
In high schools perhaps but certainly not in the corporate world.
In a "promo", I got Blackberry Enterprise Server (some "Express" version, IIRC) and 15 device licenses when I got my first Blackberry (I was the first Blackberry user at $company). Within maybe 60 days or so -- after a few execs found out they could get their e-mail on a phone -- we were running the full BES product and constantly purchasing additional licenses to support more devices.
A few years later, Apple announced this new product called an "iPhone" and it was all downhill from there.
It's an interesting view to have, considering you know Twilio's value has been free falling (they are down like -60% in the last few months) and as of this week they just gained a new competitor with more money than them.
I have no clue what is going to happen, but wondering if I missed something as you seem pretty confident.
Thanks
2. Ease of integration. Also, related to that, is the encryption component really required? Most companies that have Twilio integrated aren't going to swap it out for this, I assume. Some might, most won't. It's more of a niche offering. There's a lot this Blackberry product can't do, because you need to integrate the key exchange in an app. Twilio handles functionality outside of apps (i.e. plain SMS and voice) as well.
3. Ramp up. Just because you announce a new product doesn't mean it'll be generating hundreds of millions in the next few quarters. It'll take years to ramp up + have it generating decent revenue. They haven't planted their seeds yet, so to say.
4. Momentum: Twilio might be down 60% after a massive run up after its IPO, but it looks like it the stock has found support now. Blackberry however is down over 96% from the height of 2007.
5. Acquisition potential. They're close to Amazon. I wouldn't be surprised if they acquire the company within the next 6-12 months.
Unsure as to how this will play out, but I'm more bullish on Twilio than I am on Blackberry. Actually, I just bought some shares last month at $28.
It cannot be more than 100% down. It's roughly 96% down from it's height in 2007.
That said, it seems quite disingenuous to use the absolute peak of Blackberry when it was almost a decade ago. You could easily look at BBRY over the time frame since Twilio IPO'd and see that BBRY was flat or slightly growing.
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Apart from that, I agree with everything else you said except for (5), can you explain how Blackberry is 'close to Amazon'?
Amazon deal: http://uk.businessinsider.com/twilio-amazon-web-services-par...
If Amazon decides to partner instead of build, I think that's an excellent sign. Amazon has also participated in their last investment round I believe, before they went public. And I vaguely remember reading something about Jeff Lawson and Jeff Bezos knowing each other well, but I'm not entirely sure whether that's correct and/or if I remember that right.
But executives from two companies having a close relationship is not a reason why a company acquires the other. There needs to be a catalyst. Friend's don't buy friend's companies without good reason. Are the gains way way way better than staying 2 separate companies who are partners? Did the little company fuck up and needs help getting out?...
Twilio might be an acquisition target. But I would be surprised if it's Amazon. Many reasons but mainly if Jeff Bezos starts buying public tech companies at a premium and in a price range that's 3x larger than anything Amazon has ever acquired, well I will eat my frickin shoe.
Never know of course, you may be right, maybe there is valuable IP there that AWS needs or maybe Jeff and Jeff are way better friends than anyone thought...
With that said, maybe Salesforce is a buyer? They were also a Twilio Series E investor and Benioff will buy fucking anything it seems without rhyme or reason and at any price. I wonder if there is extra office space in that big building he built and needs filling up, dude loves shopping.
Btw that link...Businessinsider is not a reliable nor accurate nor ethical source for business news. They are basically a tabloid churning out sensationalist BS and clickbait and opinions dressed as fact. Be wary.
Best of luck on your trade. Looks like you got a good price too. cheers.
WhatsApp still don't have that.
You used to be able to give out your pin and not your phone number and used to be able to sign up for mailing list / nightclub entry without your number passing anyone's hands.
> BlackBerry Ltd. is preparing to turn its once-proprietary BBM secure-messaging system into a subscription service that app developers can build into their software to allow for seamless, encrypted communications.
> Developers who deploy the BBM SDK will be asked to generate their own encryption keys, meaning BlackBerry will not have the ability to turn over to law enforcement any messages sent through this system, even if compelled by a court order.
Essentially it appears that they are turning it into a Secure Messaging As A Service so that people can quickly add messaging into their apps without requiring the infrastructure.
It's not secure in a traditional sense. BB have agreements with some governments to provide them with data as they need it.
(That is, I think your criticism is valid and correct for the existing BBM service, but that's not what's being described here)
There's a ton of trust involved that go beyond generating your own keys if Blackberry is making the app itself, closed source, and controls the servers.
Blackberry/RIM openly bragged about giving law enforcement real time access, for the first time, to any messages for targeted individuals during G20 in Toronto. That was in 2010. At this point I wouldn't trust Blackberry with any data you wouldn't already be willing to hand over to government agencies.
Doesn't the entire security of BBM rely only on a very short code, one which Blackberry can easily swap with a different key which they posses in practice? Very similar to Apple iMessage.
Also last time I checked their enterprise offering was essentially static Triple DES key only - is their public offering any better?
EDIT: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/04/blackberrys_g...
Looks like as of last year they used a single static key for all the BBM encryption. And it's in the hands of Canadian authorities already.
Do we have any reason to believe they have or will change this? Seems completely silly to me to use something this broken.
I'm tempted to pop their Android app up in IDA and see if it's really as bad as it sounds.
Until they gave in to some government's demands and showed that they could not trusted.
This seems, to me, to be one last "hail Mary" attempt to save the company. Blackberry (RIM) was at the top of the "smartphone" industry 10-15 years ago. It's too bad they couldn't adapt and stay relevant. I'd still happily be using my 8830 if I could.
Lazaridis primarily didn't want to separate hardware and software, so he focused on building BB10 to compete with iOS/Android. Ballsilie resigned from the company in 2012 after the new CEO Thorsten Heins dumped the x-platform BBM and put all their energies into the launch of the already-doomed BB10 phones in 2013.
More here: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/the-inside...
A good book about the history of BB is "Losing the Signal". Covers the company up to around 2013.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-23265091
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/rcmp-blackberry-p...
No matter how awesome this service might be I am worried if BB would actually last long enough to provide it.