BlackBerry acquires UK firm Encription, plans to form new cybersecurity consulting unit
BlackBerry Buys U.K. Cyber Security Consulting Business — Smartphone maker looks to bolster sales of mobile security offerings — BlackBerry Ltd. said Wednesday it acquired Encription …
Context & Ripple Effects
By early 2016, BlackBerry's pivot from handsets to security was already well underway through acquisition: the WatchDox file-security deal in April 2015 and the $425M Good Technology purchase that September gave it products for securing files and managing devices. The Encription deal adds a different layer — people rather than platforms — with BlackBerry standing up a cybersecurity consulting unit around the U.K. firm's team.
That matters because the company's subsequent trajectory ran straight through this strategy: the consulting arm sits between the product acquisitions and enterprise buyers, and two years later BlackBerry would make its biggest bet yet with the $1.4B Cylance acquisition, completing the transformation from smartphone maker to security vendor.
First-order effects
- BlackBerry immediately gains a U.K.-based bench of security consultants it can attach to sales of its existing mobile security stack — WatchDox file protection and Good Technology device management — turning product licenses into advisory-plus-deployment engagements.
Second-order effects
- Enterprise mobility competitors that sold pure software now face a rival bundling expert services with its security products, pressuring them to build or partner for similar consulting capability rather than compete on features alone.
Third-order effects
- The acquisition-led playbook this deal exemplifies scaled all the way to the $1.4B Cylance purchase — though the later sale of Cylance to Arctic Wolf for $160M shows the structural risk of buying growth: integration and valuation discipline, not deal count, determines whether the transformed company holds its value.
The trend: Handset makers are remaking themselves as enterprise security vendors through serial capability acquisitions, with consulting arms serving as the delivery layer for the products they buy.