For Blackberry, the shift is happening: Sandeep Chennakesu

Q&A with President, Technology Solution division, Blackberry

Blackberry Ltd , which had initiated measures to turnaround its dwindling device sales sometime back said its plans have started to become visible. As the company has been earning about a quarter of its revenue from software and other value added services, Sandeep Chennakesu, president of its Technology Solution division, during an interaction with Sadananda Mohapatra said the shift is happening for the phone maker. Edited excerpts below.

What is the change Blackberry witnessing?

Our focus is to build a portfolio which has large number of services. We sell software to enterprise clients, monetise our patents and technology solution for specific needs which is my business. The shift is happening, and with time, other business will have increasing contribution.  

What is the contribution of these additional business compared with your core business?

We do not disclose segmental revenue. Our software segment (comprising additional business) is growing significantly. These additional businesses are adding, and kind of offsetting little bit of the decline in other business.

Can you tell us the things Technology Solution division doing within Blackberry?

We build software for audio video unit in cars, we have solution for call optimisation for smart phones, we have security software for corporates, and plan to to launch software for connected cars and an asset tracking device soon as part of our Internet of Things (IoT) offering. We are a growing division and hope the new initiatives will start making money from next year onwards.

There are many players already talking about  IoT and other enterprise business. Why do you think Blackberry is different?

A lot of people are talking about it, but the deployment is very less. The market is also very fragmented. For example, for a truck intending to transmit data into a server and then to end user via a device, you need collaboration of device maker, software designer and network transmission. I think we provide end-to-end solution for such offering, and besides, customers know data transmission security ability of Blackberry.

Going forward, which areas you see will have have better business?

We offer a variety of solution to enterprise clients such as secured messaging, secured data transmission, secure document sharing. We have recently made acquisitions which will strengthen our offerings in these areas. We see a lot of potential through our acquisitions and our organic growth.

Where do you see Blackberry in future?

No body can see future (laughs). In our quarterly report, John Chen (CEO) has said that he is transforming Blackberry. It will not be seen just as a device maker.  I think we are moving in right direction.