00:00We have reinvented ourselves quite a bit from the days of our mobile devices.
00:08Security, trust, and innovation is always what BlackBerry has been about.
00:12So while the products and services we sell today can't be held in the palm of your hand,
00:17those same underpinning values of security, trust, and innovation
00:21continue to guide everything that we deliver to the market.
00:25So now we're basically focused on two particularly segments of the market.
00:30One is our QNX division, which think about that as the real-time operating system of your car.
00:37Chances are your car is probably being powered by a BlackBerry operating system.
00:42We're in 275 million cars around the world,
00:46and we work with every major OEM all over, from Europe to Japan to Korea,
00:56and obviously China is being one of our fastest-growing markets in the U.S.
01:02So that's one division, fast-growing segment, real-time operating system, powering cars around the world.
01:08The second division is our secure communications.
01:11That's one of the reasons why we love being part of the WGS event here
01:15because it's so broad within the government representation here.
01:2175% of our business on the secure comms side of the business is with governments around the world.
01:27We power 18 out of the G20 countries in the world,
01:31use some form of our secure communications technology.
01:34Eight out of the ten largest banks in the world continue to use our technology in a lot of different
01:40ways.
01:41And then critical infrastructure providers are relying more on secure communications
01:46and some of the capabilities.
01:48So that's a little bit about what we're doing between QNX and secure communications.
01:52There's so much going on there, especially when it comes to smartphones and security.
01:57What sort of challenges are there in terms of today exactly what's going on in terms of devices and security?
02:05What are the biggest challenges?
02:06That's a great question.
02:07It's a great question.
02:08And, you know, I think one of the biggest challenges is, you know, consumer messaging applications.
02:15I'm not sure, you know, you might use WhatsApp or a lot of us do.
02:21And, you know, the vulnerabilities associated with that, it's not as encrypted as you think.
02:28In fact, there's a whole dark web ecosystem that creates services mining your data, mining your information.
02:34So one of our products is we try to make, especially governments and large banks
02:40and people that have a lot to protect, make them really aware of, you know, the dangers in that.
02:46And one of the solutions that we provide is a top secret classified level encryption, end-to-end encryption for
02:56voice, data, and video.
02:58So it's probably one of our fastest growing sections with the whole geopolitical environment
03:04and everybody, you know, trying to listen in on some of the things that are going on.
03:09And this solution has, in particular, we're talking to a lot of heads of state,
03:14talking to a lot of technology companies on how we can make that available more broadly.
03:20So that's one of the bigger trends is really encrypted end-to-end technology
03:26that can really provide governments and people that have a lot to protect the kind of peace of mind that
03:32they need.
03:33Well, within all of this, of course, you've got the rise of AI, and you've got, when it comes to
03:37security and cyber security,
03:39you've got AI fighting AI, and it's getting so much more advanced.
03:43What are you doing in that respect?
03:44Yeah, it's a great, great, great question.
03:47You know, with AI, you know, having a good framework.
03:50I think, you know, our approach has been use it pragmatically.
03:54You know, it's the type of thing that if you let it go too far, you know, it can really
04:02kind of be disruptive.
04:03And the types of solutions that we provide, mission-critical communications
04:08or the operating system that there's 500 million lines of code that's in a car.
04:14So leveraging AI in those types of applications is something that we're very, very careful about.
04:21So we use it in ways to help improve our productivity and accelerate our development cycles and improve our quality.
04:29But at the same time, we don't really get too cute with it because the level of security that people
04:37are relying on us for
04:38is something that really, I think, makes it a little bit more palatable.
04:43Well, you mentioned that you're very much working with lots of different global car manufacturers
04:48and autonomous vehicles, of course, as well as a main focus.
04:52So is it actually that easy to hack a car then?
04:56It's not that easy to hack a car.
04:59I think that's kind of the next frontier.
05:01It's much easier to hack your phone or your computer or other types of things.
05:05Hacking the car is a next-generation level type of thing.
05:09Now, that being said, we have to make sure that we put in, you know, guardrails and safety standards
05:16and very important, you know, a lot of premise-based technology that we use.
05:22How much do you really use the cloud is one of the things that we think about
05:28in terms of how you implement the technology in the vehicle.
05:31So it's an area that we're very focused on, you know, probably our fastest-growing part of the QNX
05:38is that next-generation car, those autonomous vehicles, self-driving cars, robo-taxis.
05:44That's kind of the new frontier, and we're proud to say that, you know, the entire ecosystem,
05:51whether it's Qualcomm, NVIDIA, NXP, all the silicon players,
05:56are actually building their architecture on top of our QNX platform.
06:01So we are truly going to be powering the next-generation vehicle.
06:04Your work with mobile phones isn't necessarily completely over
06:07because enterprise device management, tools for employees working on their own phones and things,
06:13tell us a little bit more about that aspect of things as well.
06:15I appreciate you asking that because that really goes back to the heritage of, you know,
06:20when people use BlackBerry, when you use the BlackBerry, that feeling of, you know, security and trust
06:26and basically what we did when we got out of the handset, out of the hardware business,
06:32we took all of that software, that special experience that you remember when you were typing on your keys,
06:37we took that software out and we basically adapted it to work with Androids, to work with iOS.
06:45So now you get that BlackBerry experience, that secure experience, that trust,
06:51that feeling that you don't have to worry about where your email is.
06:54So our mobile device management technology now works on any device from Android to iOS to PC to Mac
07:03to, you know, all the different, you know, things in between.
07:07So that is, continues to be a big part of our business.
07:11Granted, these tends to be customers that go for that or big banks, big government,
07:16people that have a lot to protect.
07:18They rely on a BlackBerry mobile device management system.
07:22Really, really impressive to see what you're doing.
07:25Additionally, Europe is a key market for you, especially the UK and Germany.
07:29What sort of expansion plans have you got going on and how are things going in those markets?
07:34Yeah, we're excited about the opportunities in Europe.
07:38You know, Germany is our largest market that we support today.
07:41We have a very strategic relationship with the German government where we provide a variety of solutions.
07:47So that's kind of the foundational element of it.
07:50But, you know, even in the UK, some of the biggest banks continue to use our technology.
07:56Ministry of Defense uses our technology in different locations.
08:00So the hubs really tend to be UK and Germany.
08:03But we absolutely are planning to, you know, grow out in places like Spain and in Italy, the Nordics.
08:10We've seen tremendous opportunity.
08:12So we have, you know, operations throughout the region.
08:17And we're really looking forward to taking that business to the next level.
08:22Rising tariffs, increased prices, disruptions in global trade.
08:27How is that impacting you at this moment?
08:29Yeah, you know, knock on wood, we've actually navigated that pretty well.
08:34Fortunately, a lot of what we do is software and services.
08:38And software and services don't tend to get hit as much on some of this whole tariff activity that's going
08:45on.
08:46So thus far, we've kind of navigated that in a pretty good way where it hasn't really had a profound
08:52impact on our business.
08:53And also, you know, one of the things that helps us is we're quite diverse in terms of our business.
08:59When you look at the diversity of our geography of our business, we've got a critical mass of business in
09:06Europe,
09:07critical mass in North America, critical mass in Asia.
09:10So as, you know, one market could be up, one market could be down, at the end of the day,
09:15we tend to really kind of navigate that pretty seamlessly.
09:20Final question.
09:21We're here at the World Government Summit here in Dubai.
09:24What are you seeing?
09:25What are you witnessing?
09:27Anything that's been of interest to you?
09:28Well, you know, AI's been the buzz.
09:31I'm sure you're hearing it as well and how people are using it.
09:35I think people are picking each other's brains on how far do you take it and where do you go,
09:40what's the impact going to be to your workforce, et cetera.
09:42So certainly that's, you know, one big theme.
09:46And the other is, you know, data sovereignty.
09:49You know, a couple years ago when we came here, everybody was talking about the cloud, hyperscalers,
09:54putting everything in the cloud and going global.
09:57And some of the things that have happened over the last couple of years with the geopolitical environment,
10:02with the deep fakes and a lot of the AI and the adversaries and how sophisticated they're getting,
10:08we're seeing a lot of companies and, most importantly, governments pull back and say,
10:14you know what, maybe we need to keep this within our borders, premise-based solutions,
10:17or local clouds, local infrastructure, and maybe not quite be as, you know, global as they were in the past
10:27in terms of their cloud ambitions.
10:29So those are some of the themes that I've been seeing over the course of the last couple of days.
10:33Well, we hope you have a great time, continue your conversations,
10:36and wonderful to have you here in our studio.
10:38Thanks so much for having me on the program.
10:42All right.
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