- 9 hours ago
When BlackBerry phones disappeared, many thought the company had faded too. Instead, it reinvented itself.
Now back in profit, BlackBerry software powers 275 million vehicles and secures governments and critical infrastructure worldwide.
Cynthia Ng speaks to CEO John Giamatteo about the company’s comeback and why Malaysia has become a key hub in its regional strategy.
Now back in profit, BlackBerry software powers 275 million vehicles and secures governments and critical infrastructure worldwide.
Cynthia Ng speaks to CEO John Giamatteo about the company’s comeback and why Malaysia has become a key hub in its regional strategy.
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NewsTranscript
00:01Mention the name BlackBerry and the mind goes straight to that iconic keyboard.
00:06But while the world remembered the phone, BlackBerry reinvented itself.
00:11Today, BlackBerry isn't in your pocket.
00:13It is the software behind 275 million cars and the systems helping secure governments
00:20and critical infrastructure around the world.
00:23And here in Cyberjaya, at the MCMC, BlackBerry Cybersecurity Center of Excellence
00:28is a key hub for its work on secure comms and cyber resilience across Asia-Pacific.
00:34I'm Cynthia Ng. Joining me on the show today is John Giamatteo, CEO of BlackBerry.
00:51Joining me on the show today is the CEO of BlackBerry, John Giamatteo.
00:55Great to have you on the show, John.
00:57Thanks for having me on the show, Cynthia.
00:59I want to start with this. Tell us what does BlackBerry look like today?
01:04Because for many of us here in Malaysia, mentioned the word BlackBerry and you're remembered mostly
01:09for your device. And when the phones disappeared, many thought that the story had ended there.
01:15But you've staged a massive turnaround for the company. So tell us more about that.
01:19You're absolutely right. There's so many people out there that don't know what the new BlackBerry
01:26is all about. And about a decade ago, when we pivoted the company away from devices and
01:32into software and services, we really took that opportunity to narrow our focus on two specific
01:39areas of business where we have core competency, some technological advantages.
01:44And the first was secure communications. That's a lot of what we're doing here in
01:50Malaysia right now, providing our technology to the Malaysian government to keep people safe
01:56and secure. So our secure communications portfolio. And then our second division is our QNX,
02:02which is our embedded software. It's a real-time operating system that powers from cars to robots to
02:10and everything in between. So those two divisions is what really represents the new BlackBerry.
02:17And we're excited to bring a lot of that technology here to the market in Malaysia.
02:21So would you say now you're a complete software player in this industry?
02:25We are basically a complete software and services type of company. The only other aspect is being
02:31a 40 plus year old company and all the different technology that we've amassed, we have a pretty
02:37large portfolio of intellectual property. So that's actually a significant asset for the company
02:43in terms of not only monetization, but also protecting ourselves from different IP challenges
02:50that might happen from time to time. So software, services, IP is what the new BlackBerry is all about.
02:56All right. Now we'll get to that later. So 2026 was a big year for BlackBerry. You returned to
03:02the profitability. Revenue is growing again. It is in the low single digit numbers. Is the turnaround
03:09actually done or is BlackBerry still in a recovery mode?
03:13I would say the transformation is complete. You know, you're right. We went from an environment
03:20where our revenue was flat to slow growth. And we were focusing on getting our cost structure right,
03:27simplifying the businesses, selling off and disposing of businesses that weren't strategic to us. So all
03:36that heavy lifting over the course of the last 18 months is behind us now. And now we're focused on
03:42accelerating our growth across the secure communications portfolio and our Q and X portfolio. And as a result,
03:50we're projected, we've said this publicly, we're expecting a double digit growth for the company from
03:56a revenue perspective in our new fiscal year.
03:59Okay. Now let's talk about Q and X because that is where the big part of the growth came from.
04:04Q and X is
04:06in 275 million cars. Just for context, that's roughly 10 times the number of number of cars on Malaysian roads.
04:15So can you paint a picture to us for an everyday driver here? Where does BlackBerry actually sit in a
04:23vehicle?
04:23That's a great question. Great question because we don't show up on the screen with our big brand or anything
04:29like that.
04:30Where think of us as the operating system of the car. If you think about your PC and you have,
04:37you know,
04:37the Windows operating system powers your PC. Q and X is the operating system that powers today's next generation software
04:47divine vehicle.
04:48And that's really where we operate at the very, very ground level and providing all sorts of technologies
04:56and all sorts of features and functionalities, mostly around safety. Safety requirements is one of the most dynamic things
05:07that are required now in a new car. And the Q and X platform is the leader in really providing
05:15that safe and secure experience
05:18to the automotive makers. What does BlackBerry have in terms of competitive edge?
05:23Because why use of software from BlackBerry and not software from an automaker instead?
05:30Well, you know, we find that automakers don't tend to be, you know, their core competency is making cars,
05:41bend and metal, big marketing, big budgets. Software is not inherently their core competency.
05:49So they rely on partners like us where that's all we do. We have 1800 people strong across the company
05:56that's 100% focused on providing the safety and secure and certified operating systems to cars all over the world.
06:05So they rely on us deeply. And I would tell you, it's also not just the automakers.
06:12It's deep partnership with the chip makers as well. So the Nvidia's of the world, the Qualcomm's of the world,
06:20Texas Instrument, NXP, Intel, all of the silicon that's going into the car.
06:26They've all standardized on Q and X as the operating architecture that they bring to their automotive customers.
06:33So for those reasons, our subject matter expertise in real time operating systems is one of the reasons why we've
06:44kind of really risen to the top of the stack from that perspective.
06:48And our deep partnerships with the chip makers as well as the automotive makers that differentiate us from a lot
06:56of different competitors in the market.
06:58Well, I hear you on the expertise and the partnerships, but we are also seeing big tech players moving into
07:03dashboards in the car.
07:05So what makes Q and X irreplaceable? Why? What mode do you have in that regard?
07:11Yeah, we you know, I think our mode is two things. One, the depth of our real time operating system
07:18and the certification levels in a car.
07:21There's a specific certification called ISO 26262, very deep type of certification that requires a certain level of real time
07:33response every time.
07:35So you can't. If you think about your PC, occasionally it'll blue screen in a car that's driving down the
07:43road at fast.
07:44You need to break. If you need to use that adaptive cruise control, if you need to use that blind
07:50spot assist functionality, it has to work every single time.
07:55And that's one of the benefits of our Q and X platform is the resiliency of it, the reliability of
08:02it and how it works throughout the entire ecosystem.
08:05All right. I just want to get a bigger sense of where Q and X sits in the automotive industry.
08:11So just to clarify the footprint today is Q and X mainly in EV cars or does it still play
08:18a role in traditional ICE vehicles?
08:20All 100% combustion, EV. We actually have a partnership and work with just about every single OEM manufacturer except
08:31one.
08:32You know, Tesla tends to do their own thing because they built theirs from the ground up.
08:37But every other major OEM partner and tier one partner, silicon partner has adopted our Q and X platform.
08:48And this is not just your Western partners. You have strong roots in European, Chinese, Japanese, Korean.
08:59China's been one of our fastest growing segments of the market. So from a global perspective, you know, obviously North
09:06America with GM, Ford, Stellantis.
09:09So, yeah, globally, we have a really good position.
09:13All right. I just want to pivot a bit from the cast. So we are in a period of rising
09:16technology nationalism.
09:18The U.S. and China are effectively decoupling and their technology ecosystem.
09:24So as a Canadian company operating in both Western Asia and Europe markets, does that position of being a Switzerland
09:33of technology, for instance,
09:35is that an advantage to a company like BlackBerry or does it actually add pressure from both sides, say, if
09:41something happens?
09:42Yeah. No, we find that we find it as an advantage. I mean, our approach is these are complex problems
09:50that we all have to that we're trying to solve.
09:52And I think working together as an ecosystem with the car manufacturers, with the chip makers, you know, with the
10:00system integrators,
10:02the tier ones that take all this technology and integrate it and bring it to that.
10:06So it's a it's a bit of an ecosystem and it's a bit of a village that needs to come
10:12together to provide and solve some of these challenges.
10:15And that's been our approach is how do we work closely with all these different ecosystem players to bring the
10:22best possible technology
10:24technology and most importantly, the safest possible technology, because what we do with cars and robots and other use cases
10:32around the world saves lives,
10:36literally saves lives when you think about the amount of software that's going into these high moving vehicles.
10:43So we think embracing the industry and working closely with them is a is a much better approach than just
10:51trying to go to go at it alone.
10:52Okay. I don't want to get your take on AI, Gen AI, for instance. So there's a big rush.
10:59Most technology companies are going into that area, but BlackBerry is focused on safety AI.
11:05Do you feel that there is a risk of missing out on the goal rush of Gen AI, Genetic AI,
11:11or is that something that BlackBerry is looking into as well?
11:14Yeah. We, I would say we, in a very selective and pragmatic way, leverage AI in a lot of different
11:22things that we do as the company.
11:23We are careful though, because these are mission critical solutions.
11:28You can't, you know, taking an AI agent, putting wrapping around some software and putting it into a car, you
11:33know,
11:33might be a little bit short sighted in terms of the overall safety implications of it.
11:38So we're very, very cautious about how we use that kind of technology inside the code inside of our product.
11:46However, we will leverage that to how do we do our design work more efficiently?
11:51How do we do our testing of some of our technology more efficiently?
11:56How do we do our triage when a customer has a question? How can we respond to them?
12:01So I think we use AI in some pragmatic ways that don't necessarily get in the way of our promise
12:08for delivering safe solutions.
12:10But at the same time, take the benefit of it and leverage it because there's a lot of benefits that
12:16we can get out of it in our business.
12:18Okay, so that carries one thing, QNX. You are also in the business of secure communications.
12:25You have the trust of some of the biggest governments in the world, US, Canada, of course, the G7, NATO,
12:32and even partnerships with Malaysian government. Can you tell us a bit more about what does BlackBerry do in those
12:39spaces?
12:40Yeah, yeah. Thanks for the opportunity to talk about it because we're really proud of that.
12:44I mean, all seven of the G7 countries around the world use BlackBerry in some part of their secure communications
12:53infrastructure.
12:54Eight out of the ten largest banks in the world continue to use BlackBerry in part of their infrastructure to
13:01support that.
13:02So the type of solutions that we provide range from mobile device management.
13:11So what's going on on a device inside of an enterprise and making sure that whatever software applications are being
13:18accessed,
13:19they're being accessed in a really safe way. That's one of our solutions that we provide.
13:23The second is our secure communications, our SecuSuite. This is encrypted voice data and video.
13:32When you think about it, real time encryption of voice data and video.
13:36This is one of the use cases that the Malaysian government is leveraging to ensure that every one of their
13:42interactions is absolutely safe.
13:45And we're seeing that as one of our fastest growing parts of the secure communications portfolio.
13:51And then the third leg of the stool is our ad hoc emergency notification system.
13:57And in a place like Malaysia where, you know, climate and some of the challenges that we have with floods
14:04and hurricanes and winds and different things like that are creating, you know, challenges for our people.
14:11This emergency notification system gets deployed nationwide to various towns so we can communicate to people where they go for
14:20safety when they have these kinds of natural disasters.
14:23So between our mobile device management, our encrypted voice data and video technology and our emergency notification, that's what makes
14:33up our secure communications portfolio.
14:36And that's, I would tell you, the cornerstone of the partnership that we have with the Malaysian government and MCMC
14:43here in Kuala Lumpur.
14:45And you've had a busy week. You also traveled to Sarawak to meet the Premier.
14:50Could you talk to us a bit more about that meeting? Was that just a courtesy call? Was there a
14:55project in the pipeline?
14:56Yeah, a tremendous opportunity to meet the Premier and talk about some of the challenges.
15:04He has a very visionary type of approach thinking of, you know, energy, alternative sources of energy, silicon and chips
15:12and how you attract more manufacturing into that.
15:16And we talked about secure communications and how do we make sure that we keep people.
15:20So we discussed the number of the challenges that are facing Sarawak and our partnership with UKM and building out
15:31the skill sets of the citizens here in Malaysia to really meet the growing digital economy.
15:39Those are some of the challenges that we talked about. And we talked a little bit about how we're doing
15:45that in different markets around the world, how we're doing that here in the federal level with MCMC.
15:53So we're hopeful that we can bring some of our know how to the government of Sarawak to see how
15:59we can support their initiatives.
16:01OK, I'm curious about what that responsibility actually looks like, because you're managing, you know, just selling software, you're helping
16:08manage national secrets, you know, sovereign data, for instance.
16:11How do you convince a government that a Canadian company is the right partner to protect sovereign data?
16:20Does that mean that you provide them the tool or do you take the data? Is it stored in a
16:25different server somewhere in Ireland, for instance? How does that actually look like?
16:31I love your question, Cynthia. These are great. It's a couple of things I would say on that. One, one
16:39thing about BlackBerry is when we go call on customers and whether they're governments or banks or automotive or whatever,
16:45is BlackBerry has always stood for trust, safety and innovation. Three kind of fundamental virtues of what we stand for
16:58as a company.
16:59And any time, you know, you pull out your BlackBerry card, you get a meeting with somebody, there's a certain
17:04level of, I think, trust that they have in what we are as being a 40 year old company that's
17:10provided a lot of these solutions, you know, across different markets around the world.
17:15So that's that's, you know, the, you know, kind of it starts, you know, with with that type of technology.
17:21You know, the second is the fact that, you know, the investments that we make in on premise technology, in
17:29digital sovereignty, I think one of our biggest prop value propositions, most governments around the world are very, very concerned
17:36about leveraging the cloud and hyperscalers and saving their constituents and their citizens information into the cloud.
17:44So all of our solutions across secure communications are sovereign premise based local.
17:51The government of Malaysia manages their data and all of their information. We don't even have access as a company
17:59to it. So I think that's another differentiation. So I think the trust and the value proposition that we bring
18:06as a company, as well as a very sovereign centric type of approach to solving some of their challenges, is
18:15one of the reasons why we've had some success in really addressing some of their needs.
18:21All right, fantastic. Okay, so moving on to future plans and growth plans. So you are betting on this region
18:27to change up those numbers. We are sitting right here at the Cybersecurity Center of Excellence, which BlackBerry has partnered
18:36with Malaysia's MCMC for secure comms and cybersecurity.
18:41Why is Asia Pacific such a big part of your next stage of growth and why Malaysia? Why is this
18:49your regional hub?
18:50Great question. One of the first things is the ASEAN region is one of the fastest dynamic growing. When you
19:00think of all the people and the education and leveraging new technologies, this is like ground zero when you think
19:08about how dynamic the region is.
19:10So it's really purpose, you know, perfectly fit for what we do as a company. So for one reason, the
19:18overall geopolitical and economic landscape of this region fits really well for what we do as a company.
19:26You know, the other reason that we've selected Malaysia as our hub, you know, we've announced this as our headquarters
19:35for the Asia Pacific region is right here in Kuala Lumpur.
19:38And, you know, I think part of that is, you know, the skill sets. But more than anything else, maybe
19:46the vision of Malaysia, you know, the fact that our partnership with the Malaysian government is now, you know, educated
19:54over 10,000 people for our cybersecurity center of excellence.
19:59We've deployed over 100,000 licenses of various degrees of our secure comms portfolio to protect various people. So when
20:09you have a visionary government that says, I want to protect my people, I want to educate them and get
20:15them ready for this new digital economy, that's a great set of virtues for us to partner with.
20:25And as a result, we've established, planted our flag firmly here in Kuala Lumpur. And we couldn't be prouder of
20:33the facilities that we built out here at the cybersecurity center of excellence.
20:37The numbers that you mentioned, the trading numbers are impressive, 9,500. This is a great initiative. But I want
20:45to understand for Malaysia, is the goal here to provide certified staff that eventually work in global firms, are you
20:54actually building something concrete, permanent in Malaysia?
20:56Well, this is more for local. And, you know, this is more for the kind of local consumption and local
21:02career and skills development here in Malaysia. And, you know, I would tell you the next step that we took
21:09in the process of being more local is the partnership that we did with UKM.
21:14You know, our entire curriculum here at the CCOE is now being adopted as part of Professor Sofian and Vice
21:25Chancellor of UKM is actually partnering with us so we can expand that beyond 9,500 students.
21:33How do we take it to 20,000, 30,000 and really build those skill sets for the long term?
21:39So we're excited about that partnership as well.
21:41Those are great. But I do also want to ask you about besides training, besides the certificate, is there plans
21:47to build, I don't know, a cooperation on a new product that has real Malaysian DNA in it eventually with
21:57BlackBerry?
21:58That one, I would say we don't really have a particular product plan right now. I think a lot of
22:05it is leveraging existing product. And you know what? Maybe I should correct myself.
22:10One thing I would say that we do want to cooperate with is our QNX Everywhere program.
22:16So QNX, in addition to cars, has now been retrofitted to work with robots, with industrial automation, with medical instrumentation.
22:26And the best way to build an ecosystem of engineers that leverages that technology is through an initiative we call
22:33QNX Everywhere.
22:34So we provide QNX for a no-cost, non-commercial, free license. Think of it almost as an open source
22:42license.
22:43And we give that now through our relationship with UKM.
22:46So they're going to have students that are creating new products and services, leveraging QNX as the overall.
22:53So in the context of what we're doing with the university, I think of it as more of a university
23:01program.
23:01But I do think in the long term, it will create, to your point, some new products that are out
23:07here, localized in the marketplace, that are leveraging BlackBerry technology.
23:11All right. Now, John, that has been fascinating insight. One final question from me.
23:17So BlackBerry has gone from pretty much in everyone's hands to quietly working in the background, powering essential systems, critical
23:25infrastructure.
23:27Are you OK with BlackBerry being the most important company that maybe nobody talks about anymore in terms of consumers?
23:35Because you are essential, but you're quite invisible. Is that something that you're happy to bring the company forward to
23:41that direction?
23:42We're happy with the software and services and the solutions that we provide to our customers, our partners, all around
23:50the world, from secure comms to QNX.
23:54You know, the fact that, you know, our brand and the product can't be held in the palm of your
23:59hand anymore, the way we used to back in the device days.
24:03The value proposition of security, trust and innovation is something that we continue to stand for.
24:10It powers over 275 million cars, governments all around the world.
24:15And we take great pride in that, whether it's in the palm of your hand or kind of just quietly
24:21operating in the background, making the world a safer and better place.
24:27Something we're extraordinarily proud of.
24:28All right. Thank you so much, John, for your time. I appreciate it.
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