BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) today announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Secusmart GmbH, a high-security and data encryption and anti-eavesdropping solutions for governments and enterprise and telecom providers in Germany and world wide.
BlackBerry said the deal is subject to certain conditions and regulatory approval. Secusmart said that it remains a German limited liability company.
A Good Deal for BlackBerry
The acquisition of Secusmart GmbH is an indication that BlackBerry is reinforcing its lead in the mobile security market, but this is actually more than just data security which BlackBerry always had as industry leader. This acquisition gives BlackBerry the technology for voice call security which it does not have and no vendor actually has. The capability of secure voice communication has not been addresses by any vendor to date including BlackBerry.
“The acquisition of Secusmart underscores our focus on addressing growing security costs and threats ranging from individual privacy to national security. This acquisition bolsters our security solutions with leading voice and data encryption and anti-eavesdropping technologies, and furthers BlackBerry’s security leadership in end-to-end mobile solutions.” said John Chen, Executive Chairman and CEO, BlackBerry.
BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) and Secusmart GmbH have worked together in the past. The SecuSUITE for BlackBerry 10 was chosen by the German Federal Office to secure the communication of Germany’s highest ranking officials. This allowed the two companies to offer a Secusmart-equipped BlackBerry smartphones to many German government agencies and ministries.
“Secusmart and BlackBerry’s solution already meets the highest security requirements of the German federal authorities and NATO for restricted communications. We see significant opportunities to introduce Secusmart’s solutions to more of BlackBerry’s government and enterprise customers around the world.” said Dr. Hans-Christoph Quelle, Managing Director of Secusmart.
BlackBerry said this acquisition shows its commitment to being the leader in enterprise mobile security and that’s why BlackBerry customers are G7 governments, 16 of the G20 governments, 10 out of 10 of the largest global enterprises in each of the pharmaceutical, legal and automotive industries.
