On January 14th, Reuters broke an exclusive story purporting to have information that Samsung Electronics was in advanced talks to purchase Blackberry for ~$.75B. If true, such a deal would surely represent a game-changer for mobile security conscious government and private sector enterprises.
Samsung has a strong impetus for purchasing Blackberry. Not only does Blackberry hold many thousand patents around secure messaging (which helps Samsung in its battle with rival Apple and other competitors), Blackberry has built a proven messaging infrastructure to help win both government and regulated industry business.
From a Federal Mobile Ecosystem perspective, the landscape would be altered from an OEM standpoint as well as an ISV standpoint in that it directly affects both manufacturers of handsets and the many middleware providers of so-called mobile and enterprise device management software. (There would be associated tertiary effects on the developer and System Integrator players as well.)
The deal (if true and passed by regulatory bodies), would certainly give Samsung-Blackberry a leg up on Federal Government mobile deployments and sets the stage for a show down with Apple-IBM for the vastly more lucrative regulated market space which feature cash-rich verticals such as Healthcare, Financial Services, Legal, and more.
See full Reuters story here:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/15/us-blackberry-m-a-samsung-exclusive-idUSKBN0KN2FW20150115
Randy Siegel is the Founder of Center Circle Consultants, which focuses on US government mobility. He spent more than a decade with Microsoft Corp. where he oversaw Microsoft’s mobility strategy and helped senior US government leaders’ decision makers improve their operations via mobile development and deployment. Randy also served as Motorola Solutions Inc.’s Lead for Commercial Solutions for Classified Products. He currently serves as Co-Chairman of the AFCEA DC Mobile Steering Committee.