Is BlackBerry The Next Major Player in M2M Market?

Despite setbacks, declining market presence in the past year and speculations that BlackBerry is leaving the Handset market, recent reports say that BlackBerry CEO John Chen's plans for a turnaround includes playing a large part in the M2M market.

"Turnaround isn't just about being cash flow positive or creating a near-term strategy. It's thinking long-term and identifying what will help us leapfrog current trends and to be a leader and not a follower. We also see long-term value in BlackBerry and in five years, we expect to have a major play in the M2M space.", he confirmed in an interview with Vinod Mahanta of the Economic Times.

Mr. Chen remains positive further stating, "BlackBerry is well positioned to lead this charge as it looks to unite people and machines across the Internet of Things - from smartphones to in-vehicle telematics systems, smart appliances and much more. Everything will be connected and we would like to become a major hub of this next important technology wave."

With the rapidly evolving mobile device market, it is not a surprise that BlackBerry is moving into the Machine-to-Machine technology and venture in this market. This is part of BlackBerry's vision and strategy to put the BlackBerry operating system in as many devices are possible. The new CEO's goal is to realign the company to the current market trends and take advantage of these opportunities.

"We have engineered a new strategy to stabilize the company, focusing on several key areas to capitalize on our traditional strengths in security and enterprise, while also leveraging our QNX Embedded business to focus on future growth opportunities in machine-to-machine (M2M) communications.", he affirms.

According to a recent survey that aims to determine Consumer's Favorite Brands in the Market, conducted by Upstream and Ovum from a 4,504 mobile consumer all over Brazil, China, India, Vietnam and Nigeria, only 4.3 percent would most possibly purchase their next mobile device from BlackBerry, landing on the fifth spot with Apple and Samsung on the first and second spot respectively. However, with the new tax rule enforced in Brazil and the increasing demands in M2M technology in the country, Brazil may be a promising market for BlackBerry.