Big firms hang up on Blackberry

It’s foreboding to say the least, with a new move by the big wealth management firms set to negatively impact Blackberry.

A new move by the big wealth management firms to lower costs and raise security doesn’t bode well for the company.
 
“There is no incentive here for giving up your BlackBerry,” a JPMorgan source told Business Insider recently, “but within the next 6-12 months all will have to.”
 
Banks in both the U.S. and Canada are looking to cut costs wherever they can and cell phones are certainly a big place to start. As a result many of the big wealth management firms are asking employees to bring their own devices instead of providing work-issued smartphones. 
 
While cost is a big part of the move to employees providing their own devices, security also is a big reason for the change. It seems the Good Mobile email app does more to protect confidential emails than BlackBerry’s so-called impenetrable software.
 
“Good basically owns corporate email right now,” said one banking source who wishes to remain anonymous. 
 
With JPMorgan, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse all pushing their people to Good Mobile at the moment and Goldman Sachs having developed its own secure email app called Orbit, BlackBerry’s days in corporate email appear to be dwindling. 
 
How bad is it for the Canadian tech giant?
 
Credit Suisse has reduced the number of BlackBerries it has from 16,000 at one point down to 4,000 today. More importantly, 82 per cent of its employees use their own devices.  
 
“Citi is enabling colleagues to enjoy the convenience of a single device for both business and personal purposes through a broad range of options,” a Citi representative told Business Insider. 
 
If BlackBerry is worried about the move by wealth management companies in both Canada and the U.S. to a BYOD policy, they’re not showing it.
 
“BlackBerry’s device and software strategy is focused around offering the most secure end-to-end mobile infrastructure,” BlackBerry commented in response to Business Insider’s questions posed to it about BYOD. “That’s why some of the largest banks, global leaders and all G7 governments choose BlackBerry.”
 

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