BlackBerry's Growing Global Partner and Channel Ecosystem to Help Drive Adoption of BlackBerry Spark - the Company's New EoT Platform

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Sep 12, 2018, 08:00 ET

LONDON, Sept. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- BlackBerry Limited (NYSE: BB; TSX: BB) today announced that its global partner and channel ecosystem continues to show strong momentum. The expanding network offers significant growth opportunities for BlackBerry's channel partners as they help businesses embrace BlackBerry Spark, its new Enterprise of Things (EoT) platform designed and built for ultra-secure hyperconnectivity from the kernel to the edge.

At the company's Security Summit in London, BlackBerry announced a healthy – and growing partner ecosystem, including:

Enterprise ISV partners grew by 25 percent in the last year;
140 new channel partners joined the BlackBerry Enterprise Partner Program in the last quarter;
A global network of value-added integrators for the automotive and embedded software markets;
Connected AWS IoT services to the BlackBerry Spark platform.

Through these partnerships, BlackBerry customers now have access to more applications, secured software solutions, and cloud services than ever before.

"As companies race to lead in the EoT, the winners will be those that can interoperate with the widest array of partners and provide end to end secure solutions," said Mark Wilson, Chief Marketing Officer, BlackBerry. "As more partners choose to work with BlackBerry, our global ecosystem grows to offer our customers cutting-edge solutions to complex business problems."

Putting 'Things' First
The new BlackBerry Spark EoT platform announced separately today comes complete with "snap-in" hooks to add any of the leading public and private cloud and other computing services. AWS is the newest cloud partner for BlackBerry Spark.

"Enterprises already look to AWS to help them unlock value from data gathered by IoT devices. With BlackBerry Spark running on AWS IoT, they now have the ability to connect all aspects of their business to new and existing workflows," said Dirk Didascalou, VP of IoT, Amazon Web Services (AWS). "It enables our mutual customers to quickly integrate any 'thing', from a consumer device, to a simple sensor, to complex industrial equipment, while applying the appropriate enterprise policies protecting their data, brand, and people."

Automotive and Embedded Software Integration
The company has also signed four new channel partners to its BlackBerry QNX Distributor & Value-Added Integrator (VAI) programs, adding to its growing worldwide network of 40 channel partners trained on BlackBerry QNX technologies. The VAI program allows partners to deliver integration services and build upon BlackBerry QNX's embedded software platforms to design and develop secure, mission-critical solutions – ultimately accelerating product time-to-market. Among the new partners joining the BlackBerry QNX Distributor & VAI programs are:

Hitachi ULSI – Experts in hardware and software design and development, Hitachi ULSI will leverage the wider Hitachi group's embedded solutions business with a view to supporting Japanese and other customers with BlackBerry QNX-based platform products across the industrial control, automotive, medical and related application spaces where safety, security and reliability are of paramount importance.
Ocube, Inc – With deep domain knowledge in embedded design and development, Ocube, Inc. will provide value-added engineering services around the BlackBerry QNX platform to key automotive and industrial customers in Korea.
Sasken Technologies – A leading product engineering and digital transformation solutions provider, Sasken will provide global support for the BlackBerry QNX product platform across the industrial, transportation, medical and IoT markets by providing skilled integration, testing, qualification and certification services.
Tritech – Specialist suppliers of embedded and IoT products and solutions, Tritech will distribute the safety-certified and secure BlackBerry QNX product platform for transportation and general embedded applications across Sweden and Finland.

BlackBerry Secure Application Marketplace
The BlackBerry Marketplace helps power many of the world's leading organizations across a range of industries. Categories of solutions on the Marketplace include Business Intelligence, Advanced Analytics, Mobile Threat Protection, Authentication, Secure Messaging, Video Conferencing, Business Process Management and more.

Among the ISV partners with new solutions available on the Marketplace are: 1E, AGAT Software, Apply Mobile, Aspen Grove Solutions, Awingu, Blue Cedar, Branchfire, Check Point Software Technologies, Code Red, Devacon, iManage, iRise, Kryptowire, Micro Focus, OpsGenie, Pradeo Security, Qlik, Signafire, Swyft, Symantec, Tableau Software, VoxSmart, WiActs and Xenium Solutions.

Awingu – "BlackBerry Access combined with Awingu unlocks a highly competitive, disruptive, secure Unified Workspace solution for mobile working, B/CYOD and Server Based Computing." – Walter Van Uytven, CEO, Awingu
Blue Cedar – "The Blue Cedar Integration Accelerator for BlackBerry Dynamics makes sense for Blue Cedar on a number of levels. Blue Cedar is committed to keeping the world safe as computing evolves from the cloud to the edge. And we believe that working directly with a leading mobile security provider like BlackBerry is an ideal way to strengthen the protection that we offer to our current and prospective customers. We're excited that this collaboration is already working so well, because we share a passion for solving problems for the customers that we jointly serve." – John Aisien, Founder and CEO, Blue Cedar.
Entrust Datacard – "Customers can now securely access enterprise and cloud-based applications on their devices without the need for physical tokens or smartcards. Offering an innovative, combined solution with BlackBerry and showcasing it on their Marketplace has allowed us to extend our reach and provide improved products and services to our customers." – Ryan Zlockie, Global Vice President of Authentication Solutions, Entrust Datacard
Kryptowire – "The BlackBerry Marketplace makes best-in-class security solutions available to all enterprise mobile devices at the click of a button. BlackBerry has a long history of success in mobile security which can now include continuous security monitoring of mobile applications. Kryptowire is proud to make the same mobile app security vetting technology used for classified and national security systems available to BlackBerry customers." – Angelos Stavrou, CEO, Kryptowire
Pradeo Security – "Cyberattacks have shifted to a people-centric focus where cyber criminals target companies through their employees and end-users. Through the integration of Pradeo Mobile Threat Defense and BlackBerry UEM, our shared global customers now have a proactive and robust solution to ward-off constantly changing mobile threats." – Steph Saad, Chief Strategy Officer, Pradeo Security
Tableau Software – "Security has increasingly become the foundation of an organization's success with any mobile deployment. By integrating Tableau Mobile with the BlackBerry Dynamics platform, we provide organizations with the perfect way to visualize, analyze, and leverage data while keeping the enterprise's devices and data secure at all times. Using Tableau Mobile for BlackBerry helps our customers to see and understand their data to make smarter decisions, improve product and service delivery, and ultimately grow their business while keeping enterprise data safe. It's a win-win!" – Rahul Motwani, Senior Product Manager, Tableau Software

Channel Strength
The reach of BlackBerry's global ecosystem of enterprise software partners also continues to go from strength to strength with the company having signed more than 140 new partners in the last quarter, many specializing in areas such as cloud computing, data security and applications as opposed to traditional mobile devices.

Numerous enhancements have also been made to the BlackBerry Enterprise Partner Program including the new SHIELD Advisor, Crisis Communications, Managed Hosted Services and Workspaces specializations, all of which aim to increase the value of BlackBerry partners by elevating their capabilities and bringing more value to our shared customers. The response to the newly released BlackBerry Applications Integration Professional competency has been equally impressive, with 28 partners having gained the accreditation. This enables deep knowledge and capabilities with the BlackBerry Development Platform, BlackBerry Dynamics, BlackBerry Dynamics SDK, applications consultation and integration. With this accreditation, partners are empowered to bring rich, secure workflow solutions to our joint customers, in addition to our ISV partner solutions available on the BlackBerry Marketplace.

The following quotes are from partners who have recently joined the BlackBerry Enterprise Partner Program including Akira Technologies, EBF GmbH, Entisys360, IntelliPeak Solutions, Inc., Novalink, samtec GmbH, StarLink and Taurus Clearer Communication Ltd.

Akira Technologies – "BlackBerry has been extremely helpful to us implementing an effective resell strategy with the Federal Government, and has given us the confidence to know that their Channel team and Sales team can quickly and efficiently help our organization meet the missions of the Federal Government. Akira Technologies would not be successful in this market without BlackBerry's partnership." – Shannon Lee Munley, Director, Inside Sales & Strategic Partnerships, Akira Technologies
EBF GmbH – "Security is a fundamental aspect – for us and our clients – in the Enterprise Mobility space. In addition to scalability for numerous enrolled and managed devices, another key requirement relates to Unified Endpoint Management which includes the support of all traditional computers. BlackBerry fulfills all these needs and allows us to serve both common customer scenarios such as BYOD and COPE. As a Channel-committed partner, BlackBerry has a superb partner program which honors our efforts and investments." – Marco Foellmer, CEO, EBF GmbH
Entisys360 – "With mobile endpoints becoming easy targets, organizations need to be proactive about adopting secure and comprehensive solutions to safeguard their digital assets. BlackBerry's secure and trusted enterprise software solutions and services are an invaluable addition to our portfolio. It will strengthen our security-focused go-to-market strategy and enable us to deliver end-to-end secure communications and collaboration solutions that will meet the enterprise security requirements with the experience the users demand." – Michael Strohl, CEO, Entisys360
IntelliPeak Solutions, Inc. – "Partnering with BlackBerry has enabled IntelliPeak to bring more value to our customers by providing a secure and collaborative environment that was previously unavailable to them in their pursuit of enabling remote or telework employees. Additionally, the BlackBerry solution set allows IntelliPeak to support several of our customers' efforts to attract and retain the next-generation type of Government employee who is entering the workforce with very strong BYOD/BYOC expectations. Partnering with BlackBerry has been a game-changer for our customer conversations and additional revenue potential." – Phil Flores, CEO, IntelliPeak Solutions, Inc.
ISEC7 Group – "The BlackBerry SHIELD Program is the right tool for ISEC7 to approach customers with an initial conversation and security analysis to start discussions about risk awareness. Today ISEC7 can offer BlackBerry SHIELD Advisory Services in NA, EMEA and APAC to help customers to identify security risks in their IT environments. ISEC7's experts help to design a security framework for mobile IT to respond to the challenges of the new Cyber World. BlackBerry helped us to launch our new Cyber Security Service for mobile IT, which ISEC7 started earlier this year extending ISEC7's portfolio and offers an entire new revenue stream." – Marco Gocht, CEO ISEC7 Group
Novalink – "The BlackBerry Application Integration Accreditation was a great opportunity for us to get a hands-on understanding of the BlackBerry Secure Application platform and ecosystem. Now we are already assisting our customers with their LOB application use cases and having wider and deeper customer discovery discussions beyond just MDM and EMM." – Zekeria Oezdemir, CTO, Novalink
samtec GmbH – "When we came across BlackBerry Workspaces we saw a very powerful tool with great potential. Having a product which is intuitively operable, easy to integrate and highly secure matches our philosophy to combine security and productivity to make our clients more effective in their daily work. The certainty that sensitive data is always protected is very important in the legal field and one of the main points our clients base their decisions on. The auditing and reporting functionality gives them an overview and empowerment to be compliant and aware of the activities in the digital workspace." – Samuel Jud, CEO, samtec GmbH
StarLink – "With mobile endpoints becoming easy targets, organizations need to step up and adopt secure and comprehensive solutions to safeguard their digital assets. BlackBerry's secure and trusted enterprise software solutions and services are an invaluable addition to our distribution portfolio. It will strengthen our go-to-market strategy and enable us to deliver end-to-end secure communications and collaboration solutions that will help our channel partners grow their businesses." – Nidal Othman, Managing Director, StarLink
Taurus Clearer Communication Ltd. – "As the world becomes increasingly hyperconnected, it was important to us that we were able to offer our clients the flexibility they require without compromising on security. This is why we chose to partner with BlackBerry. As a BlackBerry partner, we can now deliver a truly containerized experience on a range of endpoints to meet the demands of our clients and address their entire enterprise from endpoint to endpoint." – Jonathan Sawyer, Managing Director at Taurus Clearer Communication Ltd.

To learn about the range of applications and solutions available on the BlackBerry Marketplace, please visit https://marketplace.blackberry.com.

To find out more about becoming a BlackBerry partner, please visit www.blackberry.com/partners.

About BlackBerry
BlackBerry is an enterprise software and services company focused on securing and managing IoT endpoints. The company does this with BlackBerry Secure, an end-to-end Enterprise of Things platform, comprised of its enterprise communication and collaboration software and safety-certified embedded solutions. Based in Waterloo, Ontario, the company was founded in 1984 and operates in North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, Middle East, Latin America and Africa. The Company trades under the ticker symbol "BB" on the Toronto Stock Exchange and New York Stock Exchange. For more information, visit www.BlackBerry.com.

BlackBerry and related trademarks, names and logos are the property of BlackBerry Limited and are registered and/or used in the U.S. and countries around the world. All other marks are the property of their respective owners. BlackBerry is not responsible for any third-party products or services.

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SOURCE BlackBerry Limited