Marty Beard is chief operating officer of BlackBerry Ltd.
Re: Ottawa Opens Door to Samsung Smartphones, Marking an End to BlackBerry's Reign (Report on Business, July 31).
As this newspaper reported, Shared Services Canada is expanding the devices it supports for secure mobile communications. Anyone reading the article can be forgiven if they came away believing that decision marks the "end of an era for BlackBerry." That statement is false. Our relationship with SSC is growing, as it is with many organizations.
At BlackBerry, we are on a new journey and have been very open about our pivot from device-maker to provider of software to secure the connected enterprise and its growing end-points. We call this the Enterprise of Things.
SSC chose BlackBerry to secure multiple devices across many operating systems. Employees also use our secure messaging solution, BBM Enterprise, to share and discuss Protection B classified information.
We are a trusted partner for SSC, as we are for the rest of the Group of Seven because of our security and embedded expertise – developed over decades to meet the stringent requirements of organizations that deal in highly sensitive and classified data. This includes ensuring security and regulatory compliance, regardless of hardware.
Our work with the Canadian government is part of our mission to build a safer world by securely connecting people, devices, processes and systems. While that may not be breaking news, it is the truth.