BlackBerry to turn BBM secure-messaging system into subscription service(theglobeandmail.com)
theglobeandmail.com
BlackBerry to turn BBM secure-messaging system into subscription service
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/blackberry-to-turn-bbm-system-into-subscription-service/article33945300/
55 comments
So many established players blew it on messaging. Microsoft could've had WhatsApp if they used their decade head-start to make Skype not suck so much. Google could've had it if they stopped rebooting their messaging strategy completely once a year and just stuck with something for a change (my vote would've been for Wave, but just pick something). Apple could've had it with iMessage if they didn't stick to the iPhone strategy tax. None of them saw how important it would be and are now scrambling to catch up.
Another example, nobody hated aim as much as AOL did back in the early days: http://kellenprojects.com/2014/04/rise-fall-aol-instant-mess...
Skype, anyone remember MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, ICQ...the list goes on! Companies have been winning and shortly after failing at this game for decades.
Perhaps because users don't care what app they use to send messages with? Text messages is like this universal thing we do. Nobody cares which phone their friend uses when calling each other, as long as the other person has a phone too it's all good. Messages should be like decentralized signals, and "apps" should be the radios of those signals. Nobody is going to "win" messages. People are sending messages with whatsapp, sms, facebook, snapchat........
I'm surprised that Wave had a messaging system in it. As far as I could tell, it was just a weird collaborative outliner. How did you get to the messaging system?
well, it was looking like an email client (sender[s]/recipient[s] + message thread), but was "realtime", so it's not difficult to see it as an instant messenger (the parent message wasn't referring to a chat box inside Wave). But then again, it's not difficult to see any social network as a glorified forum if you look hard enough
Well Apple already "has it", because iMessage is selling iDevices, which brings in more $ then a subscription.
Also, Slack- if Lync wasn't as brutal to use, Microsoft would have stopped Slack dead.
That's like comparing manure to apples.
Lynch was an abomination to support, it was billed as a kind of a sip client and messenger combo but of course they Microsofted it. They didn't want an extension or phone number tied to it so people could only call you if you were in the same network and had the software installed.
Lynch was an abomination to support, it was billed as a kind of a sip client and messenger combo but of course they Microsofted it. They didn't want an extension or phone number tied to it so people could only call you if you were in the same network and had the software installed.
Cue Lync eating all my ram :P
100% this but the thing that's missing, is BBM's Pin feature.
WhatsApp still don't have that.
You used to be able to give out your pin and not your phone number and used to be able to sign up for mailing list / nightclub entry without your number passing anyone's hands.
WhatsApp still don't have that.
You used to be able to give out your pin and not your phone number and used to be able to sign up for mailing list / nightclub entry without your number passing anyone's hands.
Just curious, why would you "bet heavily" Twilio overtakes Blackberry's market cap "soon"?
It's an interesting view to have, considering you know Twilio's value has been free falling (they are down like -60% in the last few months) and as of this week they just gained a new competitor with more money than them.
I have no clue what is going to happen, but wondering if I missed something as you seem pretty confident.
Thanks
It's an interesting view to have, considering you know Twilio's value has been free falling (they are down like -60% in the last few months) and as of this week they just gained a new competitor with more money than them.
I have no clue what is going to happen, but wondering if I missed something as you seem pretty confident.
Thanks
1. Focus. Twilio does communication. What does Blackberry do these days? Hell if I know, a bit of everything and nothing. They've lost a lot of credibility in a lot of enterprises after those companies moved over to iPhones and Androids.
2. Ease of integration. Also, related to that, is the encryption component really required? Most companies that have Twilio integrated aren't going to swap it out for this, I assume. Some might, most won't. It's more of a niche offering. There's a lot this Blackberry product can't do, because you need to integrate the key exchange in an app. Twilio handles functionality outside of apps (i.e. plain SMS and voice) as well.
3. Ramp up. Just because you announce a new product doesn't mean it'll be generating hundreds of millions in the next few quarters. It'll take years to ramp up + have it generating decent revenue. They haven't planted their seeds yet, so to say.
4. Momentum: Twilio might be down 60% after a massive run up after its IPO, but it looks like it the stock has found support now. Blackberry however is down over 96% from the height of 2007.
5. Acquisition potential. They're close to Amazon. I wouldn't be surprised if they acquire the company within the next 6-12 months.
Unsure as to how this will play out, but I'm more bullish on Twilio than I am on Blackberry. Actually, I just bought some shares last month at $28.
2. Ease of integration. Also, related to that, is the encryption component really required? Most companies that have Twilio integrated aren't going to swap it out for this, I assume. Some might, most won't. It's more of a niche offering. There's a lot this Blackberry product can't do, because you need to integrate the key exchange in an app. Twilio handles functionality outside of apps (i.e. plain SMS and voice) as well.
3. Ramp up. Just because you announce a new product doesn't mean it'll be generating hundreds of millions in the next few quarters. It'll take years to ramp up + have it generating decent revenue. They haven't planted their seeds yet, so to say.
4. Momentum: Twilio might be down 60% after a massive run up after its IPO, but it looks like it the stock has found support now. Blackberry however is down over 96% from the height of 2007.
5. Acquisition potential. They're close to Amazon. I wouldn't be surprised if they acquire the company within the next 6-12 months.
Unsure as to how this will play out, but I'm more bullish on Twilio than I am on Blackberry. Actually, I just bought some shares last month at $28.
Blackberry however is down over 2300% from the height of 2007.
It cannot be more than 100% down. It's roughly 96% down from it's height in 2007.
That said, it seems quite disingenuous to use the absolute peak of Blackberry when it was almost a decade ago. You could easily look at BBRY over the time frame since Twilio IPO'd and see that BBRY was flat or slightly growing.
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Apart from that, I agree with everything else you said except for (5), can you explain how Blackberry is 'close to Amazon'?
It cannot be more than 100% down. It's roughly 96% down from it's height in 2007.
That said, it seems quite disingenuous to use the absolute peak of Blackberry when it was almost a decade ago. You could easily look at BBRY over the time frame since Twilio IPO'd and see that BBRY was flat or slightly growing.
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Apart from that, I agree with everything else you said except for (5), can you explain how Blackberry is 'close to Amazon'?
You're right on the 96% thing. Long day.
Amazon deal: http://uk.businessinsider.com/twilio-amazon-web-services-par...
If Amazon decides to partner instead of build, I think that's an excellent sign. Amazon has also participated in their last investment round I believe, before they went public. And I vaguely remember reading something about Jeff Lawson and Jeff Bezos knowing each other well, but I'm not entirely sure whether that's correct and/or if I remember that right.
Amazon deal: http://uk.businessinsider.com/twilio-amazon-web-services-par...
If Amazon decides to partner instead of build, I think that's an excellent sign. Amazon has also participated in their last investment round I believe, before they went public. And I vaguely remember reading something about Jeff Lawson and Jeff Bezos knowing each other well, but I'm not entirely sure whether that's correct and/or if I remember that right.
Twilio and Amazon do appear to have connections. Lawson worked at Amazon briefly. Rick Dalzell is the former CIO of Amazon and sits on Twilio's board (I would imagine he knows Bezos better than Lawson).
But executives from two companies having a close relationship is not a reason why a company acquires the other. There needs to be a catalyst. Friend's don't buy friend's companies without good reason. Are the gains way way way better than staying 2 separate companies who are partners? Did the little company fuck up and needs help getting out?...
Twilio might be an acquisition target. But I would be surprised if it's Amazon. Many reasons but mainly if Jeff Bezos starts buying public tech companies at a premium and in a price range that's 3x larger than anything Amazon has ever acquired, well I will eat my frickin shoe.
Never know of course, you may be right, maybe there is valuable IP there that AWS needs or maybe Jeff and Jeff are way better friends than anyone thought...
With that said, maybe Salesforce is a buyer? They were also a Twilio Series E investor and Benioff will buy fucking anything it seems without rhyme or reason and at any price. I wonder if there is extra office space in that big building he built and needs filling up, dude loves shopping.
Btw that link...Businessinsider is not a reliable nor accurate nor ethical source for business news. They are basically a tabloid churning out sensationalist BS and clickbait and opinions dressed as fact. Be wary.
Best of luck on your trade. Looks like you got a good price too. cheers.
But executives from two companies having a close relationship is not a reason why a company acquires the other. There needs to be a catalyst. Friend's don't buy friend's companies without good reason. Are the gains way way way better than staying 2 separate companies who are partners? Did the little company fuck up and needs help getting out?...
Twilio might be an acquisition target. But I would be surprised if it's Amazon. Many reasons but mainly if Jeff Bezos starts buying public tech companies at a premium and in a price range that's 3x larger than anything Amazon has ever acquired, well I will eat my frickin shoe.
Never know of course, you may be right, maybe there is valuable IP there that AWS needs or maybe Jeff and Jeff are way better friends than anyone thought...
With that said, maybe Salesforce is a buyer? They were also a Twilio Series E investor and Benioff will buy fucking anything it seems without rhyme or reason and at any price. I wonder if there is extra office space in that big building he built and needs filling up, dude loves shopping.
Btw that link...Businessinsider is not a reliable nor accurate nor ethical source for business news. They are basically a tabloid churning out sensationalist BS and clickbait and opinions dressed as fact. Be wary.
Best of luck on your trade. Looks like you got a good price too. cheers.
I missed something, can you please help me out? Who's the new competitor? Thanks.
+1 here. Who are they talking about?
This would be believable if it weren't for the fact that—ESPECIALLY in 2007 as a high school kid(!?)—it was absurd to buy a smartphone unless you were tied to email. It was just too expensive compared to, say, texting + the $50 flip phone.
Plus, blackberry was ALWAYS lame.
Plus, blackberry was ALWAYS lame.
> Plus, blackberry was ALWAYS lame.
In high schools perhaps but certainly not in the corporate world.
In a "promo", I got Blackberry Enterprise Server (some "Express" version, IIRC) and 15 device licenses when I got my first Blackberry (I was the first Blackberry user at $company). Within maybe 60 days or so -- after a few execs found out they could get their e-mail on a phone -- we were running the full BES product and constantly purchasing additional licenses to support more devices.
A few years later, Apple announced this new product called an "iPhone" and it was all downhill from there.
In high schools perhaps but certainly not in the corporate world.
In a "promo", I got Blackberry Enterprise Server (some "Express" version, IIRC) and 15 device licenses when I got my first Blackberry (I was the first Blackberry user at $company). Within maybe 60 days or so -- after a few execs found out they could get their e-mail on a phone -- we were running the full BES product and constantly purchasing additional licenses to support more devices.
A few years later, Apple announced this new product called an "iPhone" and it was all downhill from there.
Yep. I doubt many people will care about this in 2017. The network effect they had 10 or even 5 years ago would have been a great sell, but you can get the same thing for free now, and all of your friends are probably already on one or more of the alternative services. Entering the market when WhatsApp / Line / WeChat / Telegram / Viber / Kik / Kakao / Weibo / Facebook Messenger / iMessage exist seems like a bad idea.
But that's not who this product is competing with. From TFA: "Mr. Beard positioned the IP-based system as superior to similar services offered by competitors such as Twilio". It's an SDK for building secure voice and text communications into your applications, not a consumer IM service meant to compete with WhatsApp et al. (that would be the consumer BBM app, available in the App/Play Store). Knowing BlackBerry, they will probably be mainly targeting developers in the medical and financial industries with this product.
Doubt they still have enough expertise to pull this off and even if they do I think it'll have to operate on low Marin's and lose money for a while to get to scale. That's not something blackberry can stomach at the moment.
2007: "So, like, are you on BBM?"
2017: "Um, what's BBM?"
Motherfucking Blackberry. How they managed to fly that ship into the sun we may never know, because that shit was hard to fuck up.
2017: "Um, what's BBM?"
Motherfucking Blackberry. How they managed to fly that ship into the sun we may never know, because that shit was hard to fuck up.
> Everyone was utterly shocked. RIM was even in denial the day after the iPhone was announced with all-hands meets claiming all manner of weird things about iPhone: It couldn't do what they were demonstrating without an insanely power hungry processor; it must have terrible battery life, etc. Imagine their surprise when they disassembled an iPhone for the first time and found that the phone was battery with a tiny logic board strapped to it. It was ridiculous, it was brilliant.
http://www.edibleapple.com/2010/12/28/rim-was-in-disbelief-f...
http://www.edibleapple.com/2010/12/28/rim-was-in-disbelief-f...
The story of their reaction to the iPhone is a bit more nuanced. It's fleshed out in more detail in the book "Losing the Signal" which is a look at RIMM from it's inception in the 1980s up to around 2013 when their market share had collapsed.
Basically, both Lazaridis and Balsillie agreed that they should downplay the innovation in the iPhone when in public. Internally however, they were scrambling to build a competitor because Verizon told them to. RIMM's business was very heavily tied into US and international carriers and serving enterprise clientele, and none of them had asked for anything like the iPhone, so they just never bothered.
Basically, both Lazaridis and Balsillie agreed that they should downplay the innovation in the iPhone when in public. Internally however, they were scrambling to build a competitor because Verizon told them to. RIMM's business was very heavily tied into US and international carriers and serving enterprise clientele, and none of them had asked for anything like the iPhone, so they just never bothered.
Of those only WhatsApp and FB Messenger are globally relevant. (by that I mean have 1 billion+ users, globally distributed)
Basically Facebook owns Whatsapp, so it's only a matter of time of integration to get it under one app / bigger consumer base.
Highlights from the article:
> BlackBerry Ltd. is preparing to turn its once-proprietary BBM secure-messaging system into a subscription service that app developers can build into their software to allow for seamless, encrypted communications.
> Developers who deploy the BBM SDK will be asked to generate their own encryption keys, meaning BlackBerry will not have the ability to turn over to law enforcement any messages sent through this system, even if compelled by a court order.
Essentially it appears that they are turning it into a Secure Messaging As A Service so that people can quickly add messaging into their apps without requiring the infrastructure.
> BlackBerry Ltd. is preparing to turn its once-proprietary BBM secure-messaging system into a subscription service that app developers can build into their software to allow for seamless, encrypted communications.
> Developers who deploy the BBM SDK will be asked to generate their own encryption keys, meaning BlackBerry will not have the ability to turn over to law enforcement any messages sent through this system, even if compelled by a court order.
Essentially it appears that they are turning it into a Secure Messaging As A Service so that people can quickly add messaging into their apps without requiring the infrastructure.
> Developers who deploy the BBM SDK will be asked to generate their own encryption keys, meaning BlackBerry will not have the ability to turn over to law enforcement any messages sent through this system, even if compelled by a court order.
Doesn't the entire security of BBM rely only on a very short code, one which Blackberry can easily swap with a different key which they posses in practice? Very similar to Apple iMessage.
Also last time I checked their enterprise offering was essentially static Triple DES key only - is their public offering any better?
EDIT: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/04/blackberrys_g...
Looks like as of last year they used a single static key for all the BBM encryption. And it's in the hands of Canadian authorities already.
Do we have any reason to believe they have or will change this? Seems completely silly to me to use something this broken.
Doesn't the entire security of BBM rely only on a very short code, one which Blackberry can easily swap with a different key which they posses in practice? Very similar to Apple iMessage.
Also last time I checked their enterprise offering was essentially static Triple DES key only - is their public offering any better?
EDIT: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/04/blackberrys_g...
Looks like as of last year they used a single static key for all the BBM encryption. And it's in the hands of Canadian authorities already.
Do we have any reason to believe they have or will change this? Seems completely silly to me to use something this broken.
Even a company with as many blunders as BlackBerry must know that publicly saying it can't be decrypted, when in fact it could easily be decrypted, would be a terrible blow to the product.
Yeah, seems fairly ridiculous given how much they push being a security company. Apparently hard-coded 3DES key that anyone can reverse engineer = security.
I'm tempted to pop their Android app up in IDA and see if it's really as bad as it sounds.
I'm tempted to pop their Android app up in IDA and see if it's really as bad as it sounds.
> Secure Messaging As A Service
It's not secure in a traditional sense. BB have agreements with some governments to provide them with data as they need it.
It's not secure in a traditional sense. BB have agreements with some governments to provide them with data as they need it.
How is that possible if app developers are going to be generating their own keys that aren't in BlackBerry's possession?
(That is, I think your criticism is valid and correct for the existing BBM service, but that's not what's being described here)
(That is, I think your criticism is valid and correct for the existing BBM service, but that's not what's being described here)
Assuming their crypto is legit and not horribly broken, Blackberry could push out backdoored apps via updates for certain user ids or update a whitelist remotely via data push. Then package the mirrored plain text data in an encrypted format that looks the same on the wire as normal messages or contact syncing going to the Blackberry controlled transit server.
There's a ton of trust involved that go beyond generating your own keys if Blackberry is making the app itself, closed source, and controls the servers.
Blackberry/RIM openly bragged about giving law enforcement real time access, for the first time, to any messages for targeted individuals during G20 in Toronto. That was in 2010. At this point I wouldn't trust Blackberry with any data you wouldn't already be willing to hand over to government agencies.
There's a ton of trust involved that go beyond generating your own keys if Blackberry is making the app itself, closed source, and controls the servers.
Blackberry/RIM openly bragged about giving law enforcement real time access, for the first time, to any messages for targeted individuals during G20 in Toronto. That was in 2010. At this point I wouldn't trust Blackberry with any data you wouldn't already be willing to hand over to government agencies.
Isn't this an SDK that developers would put in their own apps? I don't thin BlackBerry would have the ability to push updates to those apps without the app developers being involved.
Ah I didn't know they were planning on allowing 3rd party apps as part of the commercialization process. This would depend more on how the SDK interacts with their service then. I'm curious to hear more then.
> At its peak ... encrypted e-mail and messaging system was the gold standard for security for enterprise and government customers, providing secure access for as many as 90 million users.
Until they gave in to some government's demands and showed that they could not trusted.
This seems, to me, to be one last "hail Mary" attempt to save the company. Blackberry (RIM) was at the top of the "smartphone" industry 10-15 years ago. It's too bad they couldn't adapt and stay relevant. I'd still happily be using my 8830 if I could.
Until they gave in to some government's demands and showed that they could not trusted.
This seems, to me, to be one last "hail Mary" attempt to save the company. Blackberry (RIM) was at the top of the "smartphone" industry 10-15 years ago. It's too bad they couldn't adapt and stay relevant. I'd still happily be using my 8830 if I could.
For everyone on this thread saying "They should have done this years ago", they tried to. As early as 2010 some in the company knew that BBM could be huge as an independent. Then CEO Jim Balsilie spent 2011 trying to bring Mike Lazaridis (co-CEO; good decision!) and his team around the to idea of a cross-platform BBM, but they were dealing with the fallout from the BB Playbook failure around that time as well as significant PR issues due to BES server outages and public disclosure about providing the Indian and UAE governments access to BBM logs (or something like that).
Lazaridis primarily didn't want to separate hardware and software, so he focused on building BB10 to compete with iOS/Android. Ballsilie resigned from the company in 2012 after the new CEO Thorsten Heins dumped the x-platform BBM and put all their energies into the launch of the already-doomed BB10 phones in 2013.
More here: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/the-inside...
A good book about the history of BB is "Losing the Signal". Covers the company up to around 2013.
Lazaridis primarily didn't want to separate hardware and software, so he focused on building BB10 to compete with iOS/Android. Ballsilie resigned from the company in 2012 after the new CEO Thorsten Heins dumped the x-platform BBM and put all their energies into the launch of the already-doomed BB10 phones in 2013.
More here: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/the-inside...
A good book about the history of BB is "Losing the Signal". Covers the company up to around 2013.
BaaS - backdoor as a service:
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-23265091
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/rcmp-blackberry-p...
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-23265091
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/rcmp-blackberry-p...
Hmm. Are they going to roll over and provide decryption keys for their secure service as they did previously?
This is a big deal! ...although yes very late in the game. Like it or not corporate buyers like brand names. Back in the day the saying was "no gets fired for buying IBM." Blackberry has a brand in secure enterprise communication and this will sell.
Headline is a bit misleading - it's subscription for developers using their API only, not for users.
It is hard to trust Blackberry anymore. I had their phone and loved it until they started selling crappy phones for iphone's cost.
No matter how awesome this service might be I am worried if BB would actually last long enough to provide it.
No matter how awesome this service might be I am worried if BB would actually last long enough to provide it.
Of course, hindsight is 20/20, and it's entirely possible that opening BBM up would have radically cannibalized Blackberry sales.
The article's comparison to Twilio is interesting. Twilio's market cap is 2.64B [1], while Blackberry's is 3.84B [2]. I'd bet heavily that Twilio overtakes Blackberry soon.
[1]: https://ycharts.com/companies/TWLO/market_cap
[2]: https://ycharts.com/companies/BBRY/market_cap