BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) lost another top executive responsible in overseeing one of its major growth areas identified by CEO John Chen as he tries to maneuver the struggling Canadian smartphone manufacturer towards profitability.
BBM has more than 80 million monthly active users (MAUs) as of November last year—outperforming its rivals in the instant messaging space.
Andrew Bocking, the executive vice president of BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), the instant messaging service of the company resigned from his position. According to BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY), John Sims, president of global enterprise solutions will take over Bocking’s responsibilities and supervise the BBM team.
The company said Sims has experience in mobile messaging. He worked with Chen during their tenure as SAP AG (ADR) (NYSE:SAP) and Sybase Inc. Prior to joining BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) last December, Sims led SAP’s mobile services where he supervise the processing 1.8 billion messages per day.
In a statement, the Canadian smartphone manufacturer said, “Andrew Bocking, EVP, BBM has made the decision to leave BlackBerry. We thank him for his years of leadership and contribution.”
BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) added, “The BBM organization remains as a group within BlackBerry and will continue to focus on BlackBerry and BBM strength in messaging and new areas of strength such as mobile marketing, community-building and enterprise messaging. ”
Last December, BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) announced that more than 85% of organizations using BlackBerry smartphones are using BBM.
Back then Bocking said, “Organizations in regulated industries that need to meet compliance requirements can use BBM on BlackBerry smartphones with BES, which provides them with the ability to track and log BBM communications.”
Given the decision of the company to merge the BBM team under Sim’s leadership, it only shows that BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) is concentrating its BBM efforts towards corporate clients. In one of his previous letters, Chen promised to return the Canadian smartphone manufacturers to its roots to deliver enterprise-grade end-to-end mobile solutions.
