BlackBerry Ltd has completed its acquisition of the German mobile security company Secusmart.
BlackBerry first agreed to acquire the company in July as part of its plan to ramp its security offerings offers. Many of BlackBerry’s biggest clients require the highest-security possible, such as government agencies.
Secusmart focuses on voice and data encryption and it is currently used to protect the devices of government officials in Germany and Canada. The BlackBerry smartphone used by German Chancellor Angela Merkel uses Secusmart’s technology.
In November the deal was approved by the German government and it occurred at a controversial time. The acquisition was announced soon after American intelligence agencies were found to have been listening in on phone conversations that Merkel made from a non-encrypted phone.
Since that incident, the majority of German government officials, including Merkel, use BlackBerry smartphones that feature Secusmart encryption.
John Chen, Executive Chairman and CEO, BlackBerry, said:
“The acquisition of Secusmart underscores BlackBerry’s long-standing commitment to being the best in enterprise mobile security. BlackBerry is the only vendor to offer secure and encrypted voice, text and messaging, setting us further apart from others in the industry,”
Adding:
“With the benefit of Secusmart’s talented team at BlackBerry, we look forward to building on our leadership position in mobile security at a time when cybersecurity breaches and data theft pose ever-growing costs and threats to governments, companies and consumers.”
Dr. Hans-Christoph Quelle, Managing Director of Secusmart, commented:
“We’re thrilled with the acquisition as we see significant opportunities to accelerate innovation for high-end secure communications solutions. Having successfully partnered since 2009 to provide Secusmart’s voice and data encryption capabilities to BlackBerry’s gold standard security portfolio, we look forward to introducing Secusmart’s solutions to more of BlackBerry’s government and enterprise customers around the world.”
About Secusmart
The company was founded in 2007 by Hans-Christoph Quelle and Christoph Erdmann. Within two years of its creation it received approval for their government tender application.
Now there are “many highly renowned customers are protecting their communications with Secusmart solutions, because their information is too valuable to allow even one tiny leak.”
The company claims to be “the leading specialist in the development and implementation of highly secure voice and data communication solutions for businesses and governments, worldwide.”