The other fruity company which once had the world in the palm of its hand, Blackberry, is now turning its back on handsets and created a new business unit that will combine some of its most brilliant ideas and patents.
Dubbed BlackBerry Technology Solutions the outfit will be headed by Sandeep Chennakeshu, the former president of Ericsson Mobile Platforms and former chief technology officer of Sony-Ericsson.
John Chen, BlackBerry’s executive chairman and chief executive officer said that by combining all these assets into a single business unit will work rather well and open new revenue streams.
Chen has already stripped out much of Blackberry’s consumer-oriented businesses, sold property and laid off employees.
Analysts say that the new unit reinforces the fact that Blackberry’s days as a handset vendor are behind it as it moves “very aggressively” toward a different business.
Blackberry has not had much luck flogging its gear in the consumer market. It could not get its products out on time and faced stiff competition from other smartphone.
Chennakeshu, who has 73 patents to his name, is well known in the wireless, electronics and semiconductor industries.
BlackBerry Technology Solutions includes QNX, the company that BlackBerry bought and used to develop the operating system that became the platform for its new smartphones, and Certicom, a former independent Toronto-area company with advanced security software.
BlackBerry Technology Solutions will also include BlackBerry’s Project Ion, which is an application platform focused on machine-to-machine Internet technology, Paratek antenna tuning technology and about 44,000 patents.
