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BlackBerry May Abandon Physical Handset for Cyber Security

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Mike Lazaridis,  co-founder of BlackBerry
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With losses at £2.7bn, John Chen, interim chief executive must find a new way forward as Bloomberg Businessweek magazine’s cover showed a range of archaeological objects – a flint arrowhead, a skull – and a BlackBerry handset, which labels the company as still in the woods.

Meanwhile, Chen has already outlined a new strategy for the Canadian company in which he acknowledged that making smartphones was a thing of the past. As an alternative, the company will focus on intangible services such as offering cyber-security for businesses and not making physical handsets.

Making smartphones has not been a good business for anyone who isn’t Apple and Samsung recently, as they have squeezed the profits out of the rest of the industry, according to a report by Guardian of UK. BlackBerry, however, last Friday announced a loss of $4.4bn (£2.7bn) on revenues of just $1.2bn; only a tax rebate of $624m saved its net figures from being worse.

Those three months to the end of November marked a turning point: for the first time, BlackBerry now gets more money – 53% of revenues – from selling “services” such as sending data including email and web pages, than it does from selling handsets, which generated 40%. Software made up the other 7%.

But that has come as the company’s revenues have shrunk to levels smaller than at any time since May 2007, and the number of phones shipped, 1.9m, is the smallest since December 2006. BlackBerry, whose founders laughed at the iPhone’s lack of a keyboard, is out of the smartphone race.

In future Foxconn, which makes the iPhone, will co-design and manufacture BlackBerrys too, and hold the stock. BlackBerry will effectively become a reseller of its own phones.

“The smartphone business is brutal,” said Kevin Restivo, global smartphone analyst at the research company IDC. “It’s one where the big players – Samsung, Apple, and a few Chinese companies – are going to have success, and the others are scratching for crumbs.”

Andy Perkins, an analyst at Société Générale, told Bloomberg: “At some point it becomes uneconomic to make handsets in such small quantities.”

Chen is a turnaround artist. He was brought in to the software company Sybase, where he executed a successful reorganisation.

Since taking over barley two months ago, he has overseen a number of departures of existing senior executives, and hired some former colleagues. The obvious conclusion is that he is reshaping BlackBerry as a services and software company.

Unlike other struggling smartphone makers, BlackBerry can fall back on tens of millions of customers in large businesses, who rely on the security of its products. Chan said that 80% of Blackberry users were business customers.

That could be anywhere up to 50 million users worldwide, offering a substantial base for rebuilding any corporation, even the struggling BlackBerry.

But the data also confirmed that BB10, the operating system launched in January by Heins, has been a flop. Since March, BlackBerry’s customers have bought a total of around 17m phones, but only 5.6m have been BB10 devices.

The new products have fared poorly with consumers and the large businesses that rely on BlackBerry. Consumers have been turned off because the BB10 functions differently from the old BB7 model, while businesses have backed away because BB10 devices can’t be hooked up to the older BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) systems so many big customers use.

So while consumers have dumped them in favour of other makes, BlackBerry-using businesses have taken one of two paths: either sourcing old BB7 handsets to keep their existing users happy, or abandoning BlackBerry altogether.

Even Goldman Sachs, once a BlackBerry fortress, has begun letting some executives use iPhones for email, a move that would have been unthinkable a few years ago.

Chen has an answer to both. For consumers, BlackBerry will try to somehow make money from the millions of people who have downloaded the BBM messaging software and installed it on to iPhones and Android phones.

“Revenues might come from a per-user per-month model, or rolling out advertising,” he said on Friday. “We’re a long way from knowing how to do it.”

For businesses he will offer “mobile device management” software that will be able to control not just BlackBerrys, but also iPhones and Android phones.

But there are plenty of rivals there, and it’s not a big business – worth only about $560m (£343m) this year globally for all vendors, and growing at 12% annually, according to ABI Research. Even if a reshaped BlackBerry captures more than half of that, it would still look tiny compared to what it was.

That means, said IDC’s Restivo, that, “BlackBerry’s not out of the woods yet.” He explains: “First and foremost, Chen needs to figure out how to make money from products that have a significant customer base and are growing. The handset business isn’t growing. And how they’re going to generate significant revenue from BES and BBM, and create a company driven by those two parallel paths – right now, the path isn’t clear.”


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MTN Mulls AI Tech to Protect Infrastructure as Cable Cuts Hit 13,000 in 18 Months

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MTN Nigeria has said that there are plans to deploy an artificial intelligence (AI) technology to monitor and protect its fibre optic cables across the country.

MTN Mulls AI Tech to Protect Infrastructure as Cable Cuts Hit 13,000 in 18 Months

Yahaya Ibrahim, chief technical officer (CTO), MTN, said the technology will detect vibrations, identify the cause, and alert relevant personnels.

According to Ibrahim who spoke during a session for the ongoing MTN Media Innovation Progamme, the proposed innovation comes amid concerns over the growing spate of telecoms infrastructure vandalism, which have led to multiple cable cuts, and the destruction of towers.

This, he said, would enable the company to promptly deploy agents to the site.

The system is being developed in collaboration with Huawei Technologies.

Providing data on fibre cut incidents in an email correspondence, the CTO said MTN recorded over 9,000 cable cuts in 2024.

He said 4,700 cables were destroyed as at the end of June 2025 alone, bringing the total to about 13,700 incidents in 18 months.

A breakdown of the incidents by zone showed that about 2,500 cuts occurred in northern Nigeria, 2,800 in south-west, while 3,500 were recorded in the south-east and south-south regions combined.

“If we look at the cuts per region, the Southeastern and South South states have more cuts and this is where we have the most hotspots for Fibre and site vandalism,” Ibrahim said.

“Akwa Ibom, Abia and Rivers stand out in states. While in specific locations Omoku and Egbema stand out for fibre vandalization.”

The MTN official said vandalism and road construction account for 69 percent of total cable cuts across the country.

Ibrahim said the incidents often disrupt services, with an average downtime of 15 hours recorded per month.

“Some regions are higher than others,” he said.

“All services will be down, that means no one will be able to use any services.

“We spent N17.6b in 2024 and budget for 2025 based on PO issued for maintenance and relocation is N26.3b.”

In addition to the expenditure, MTN is said to also conduct route patrol, route monitoring, and construction bypass — which involves the creation an alternative route that allows for the temporary or permanent relocation of essential resources around a construction site.

Ibrahim said the telco also invests in having a diverse route for resilience, relocation of fibre, holding stakeholder engagement, and working with communities for policing.

The technical officer confirmed that there are collaborations in place with state and federal authorities to secure fibre routes.

 

 

 


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NASENI and BPP Forge Nigeria First Alliance to Champion Local Goods and Services

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National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) and the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) on Monday, 28th July 2025, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the implementation of “Nigeria First” Policy on Procurement, projects and other related matters.

The Nigeria First Policy is an initiative of the Federal Government, aimed at promoting Nigerian-made goods, services and utilization of Local content, infrastructures and other value chain.

As part of the Renewed Hope Agenda initiative of the Government, the policy seeks to encourage local production and consumption of Nigerian goods or services, also to support Nigerian business and entrepreneurs, foster economic growth and development, reduce dependency on imported goods and to promote Nigerian culture and identity. Also, by prioritizing local content, the policy aimed to create jobs, stimulate economic activity, and increase Nigeria’s global competitiveness.

Speaking at the  MoU signing ceremony which took place at the Headquarters of Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) office in Abuja, the Executive Vice Chairman/Chief Executive of NASENI, Mr. Khalil Suleiman Halilu, said, with the signing of MoU and implementation of the Nigeria First Policy, 80% of challenges faced while trying to convince investors and foreign partners would have been solved, as Nigeria will cease to be dumping ground for foreign goods, while focusing on promotion of Nigerian products, goods and services.

Halilu said that with support now coming from BPP, the over 50 market ready NASENI products will be off the shelves and gain patronage of Nigerians, adding that NASENI has gained for the country over 2 billion dollars from its recent partnership activities with China alone.

“One thing that is clear when I took over the leadership of NASENI was the determination to move the Agency from just producing prototypes to commercialization of its technologies and products, this was complemented by the turn around which we did in rebranding the Agency.

“We have 50 market-ready Nigeria branded products. NASENI is building the biggest renewable energy park in Nasarawa and has entered into partnership with Abuja Technology Village to boost Technology Transfer and innovation, enhance local manufacturing capacity, transform NASENI’s research-focused installation into full production facilities, promote national brands and local production”, he further explained.

Buttressing the partnership between NASENI and BPP, he said that it is expected that the policy would have transformative impacts on Nigeria’s economy and human capital development, aligning with national goals for industrialization, youth employment, and economic diversification. “This also shows that our efforts are not in vain:”

Earlier in his speech, the Director-General of Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) Dr. Adebowale Adedokun said that the MoU between BPP and NASENI offers a structured bridge between production and procurement and how to take locally made solutions off the shelves and to place them at the center of public service delivery, which aimed at aligning Government policies with national priorities as well as giving practical force to the Nigeria First Policy.

According to him, “NASENI’s innovations, from tractors to tablets, from surveillance drones to solar backup systems, will now be actively prioritized in the procurement plans by Ministries, Departments, and Agencies. We are institutionalizing a framework that makes local options not just preferable, but the default option before all others.

Specifically, he said further that with the signing of the MoU, the “BPP will now integrate NASENI’s Product catalogue into the Nigeria Open Contracting Portal, NOCOPO, and therefore encouraging other MDAs to follow suit”

He noted that the “Nigeria First Policy is not an act of protectionism, but an act of patriotism grounded in performance, and it is targeted at fastracking Nigeria’s industrial revolution”. He remarked that “NASENI has invested in quality assurance. Its products are certified by national institutions such as SON and NAFDAC. This means NASENI’s offerings will now be visible, verifiable, and measurable across all MDAs. First, we are integrating NASENI’s catalogue into the Nigeria Open Contracting Portal, NOCOPO. Between January and June this year alone, NOCOPO’s enhanced price intelligence has helped Nigeria save over 173 billion naira, 155 million dollars, and 1.7 million euros.”

While calling on all MDAs to follow NASEN’s footprint in promoting Made in Nigeria products, he said that the BPP’s revised threshold is now five billion naira for goods and ten billion for works, meaning that MDAs can act faster, while they continue to strengthen post-review and audit mechanisms.

He emphasized that the role of BPP is to ensure that these standards are rewarded with access, and that MDAs no longer look outside when the best is being made inside. “For the avoidance of doubt, let me say here that we will be backing this commitment with reform actions”.


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Treepz Launches in Canada, Secures University of Toronto-Supported Program as First Corporate Travel Client

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Treepz, Africa’s fast-growing corporate mobility technology company, has expanded its operations into Canada, marking a significant milestone in its global strategy. The announcement was made at Brampton City Hall, Ontario, with full support from the Mayor of Brampton, Patrick Brown.

The event, which featured key stakeholders and dignitaries, included the official announcement of Treepz’s partnership with the African Impact Initiative, a University of Toronto-sponsored program. Under the agreement, Treepz will provide comprehensive travel logistics—including flights, accommodation, experiences, and ground transportation—for program participants visiting four African countries: South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, and Rwanda.

Speaking at the launch, Mayor Brown described the expansion as “a proud moment for Brampton,” lauding Treepz’s founders for creating a brand that has served over six million customers since its inception in Nigeria in 2019. He added that Treepz’s ability to manage mobility in Lagos, one of Africa’s busiest cities, is a testament to the strength of its operational capacity.

Onyeka Akumah, Treepz Founder and CEO, expressed gratitude to city officials and program partners, noting that the move solidifies Treepz’s role as a globally recognized African brand.

“This launch is a strong statement of intent, not just for Treepz, but for all African startups. We are proud to be serving clients in both Africa and North America,” he said.

Treepz’s entry into Canada was supported by several Canadian organisations, including the World Trade Center’s TAP program, the Black Entrepreneurship Alliance, and the BHive Program.

It follows Treepz’s participation in the Techstars Toronto Accelerator in 2021, which played a pivotal role in its expansion roadmap.

The launch signals a new era for Treepz’s operations and marks a historic moment for African-led innovation in the global travel technology space.


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