|
 Waterloo, Ontario-based BlackBerry said Sims will join the company
in January from software giant SAP AG, where he served as president
of SAP's mobile services business.
BlackBerry's Chief Executive John Chen said Sims' extensive
experience in transforming businesses will be a tremendous asset to
BlackBerry as the company seeks to revive its faded fortunes.
Waterloo, Ontario-based BlackBerry pioneered the concept of
on-the-go email, and for years its pagers and phones were must-have
devices for political and business leaders. But it has bled market
share to Apple Inc's iPhone and a slew of phones powered by Google's
Android software in recent years.
The company's new line of smartphones that run on its all-new
BlackBerry 10 operating system have failed to regain market share,
prompting the company to consider a possible sale earlier this year.
Last month, it shelved the sales process and opted to refinance by
issuing $1 billion in debt to a group of long-term investors
including its largest shareholder, Fairfax Financial Holdings.
At the time, the company announced that John Chen, credited with
turning around Sybase in the late 1990s, was taking over as its
chief executive, replacing Thorsten Heins.
NEW VISION
Chen, who took the reins in November, is keen to rebuild the company
as a niche player focused on the so-called enterprise market that
consists of large government and corporate clients. These
security-focused customers were the ones that helped make BlackBerry
devices ubiquitous back in the day.
[to top of second column] |
The company hopes that its new BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10
platform — that allows such clients to now manage BlackBerry,
Android and iOS-based devices on their internal networks — will help
make its services indispensable to clients once again.
It hopes that the offering will allow it to sell high-margin
services to its large clients even if many, or all, of their
employees are using devices made by BlackBerry's competitors.
Chen, who was instrumental in the sale of Sybase to SAP in 2010,
worked together with Sims at the German software company. Chen, who
returned Sybase to profitability in the early 2000s, had stayed on
until 2012 following Sybase's acquisition by SAP.
Chen is expected to provide greater detail on his turnaround plans
for BlackBerry on Friday, when the company announces its quarterly
results.
(Reporting by Euan Rocha and Alastair
Sharp)
[© 2013 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2013 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
