BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) shares tumbled over 4% after-hours following the collaboration between Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and IBM to offer business apps for the iPhone and iPad, which will directly hit the BlackBerry’s core enterprise client base. As a part of the deal, former rivals in the personal computer space will jointly develop more than 100 industry-specific enterprise solutions.
Deal no threat
Investors are not taking the development lightly and are cautious, which was reflected in the share price of the Canadian smartphone maker. Recently, the company focused its resources towards the enterprise customer base, keeping the smartphone segment in the background to revive the organization from red.
CEO John Chen said that enterprise and services will take forward BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB)’s growth and profitability in the coming years. BlackBerry released an e-mailed statement that Apple-IBM partnership, “only underscores the ongoing need for secure end-to-end enterprise mobility solutions like those BlackBerry has delivered for years.”
The email, also, said that the company has dominated the enterprise space, and that the big organizations should think twice before depending on any solution built on the foundation of consumer technology that has not proved itself in security arena, which has been a forte of BlackBerry.
Will Apple dethrone BlackBerry?
The company is ahead of its peers in the ‘Internet of Things’ through its QNX platform. For a decade now the company integrates the QNX technology in the automobiles and other devices giving internet connection, when hardly anyone heard about them. According to IDC Canada the number of internet connected devices in Canada will triple is size in the next four years. BlackBerry is well armored to dominate the market when it grows.
Even though BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) is a dominant force in the service sector, the recent deal between Apple and IBM may poach loyal customers like security-conscious corporations and government departments that give highest weigh to security and thus rely on BlackBerry. Frank Gillett, an analyst with Forrester Research said that BlackBerry will face increasing competition from Apple, who the former thought that does not take enterprise seriously.
