“What we said in July when rumors of Pakistan’s decision started to swirl remains true today: ‘BlackBerry provides the world’s most secure communications platform to government, military and enterprise customers”.
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The Pakistani Telecommunications Authority notified the country’s mobile phone operators that BlackBerry BES servers would no longer be allowed to operate in the country, citing “security reasons”, according to BlackBerry COO Marty Beard.
It’s also unclear if the Pakistan government’s deadline extension indicates there are ongoing talks, or if it’s prepared to change its stance on user privacy if it means BlackBerry will continue to operate there.
“They’re actually willing to draw a line in the sand somewhere to not undermine the technologies that we need to keep our information safe”, she said. It seemed clear that BlackBerry was not for the kind of security that firm’s like Apple espouse.
While the PTA was interested in gaining accessing BES communications, BlackBerry is shuttering its consumer services (BlackBerry Internet Services) as well.
Pakistan gave the Canadian smartphone maker until December 31 to comply but BlackBerry said it would immediately discontinue operations in the country.
BlackBerry would be “more than happy” to assist law enforcement agencies in investigations of criminal activity, without simply handing over its entire customer database.
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Mr. Mustache stated since “remaining in Pakistan would have designed forfeiting our determination to protect our that industry will be exited by the company”. That leaves those businesses that rely on BlackBerry in Pakistan shaken, and unlikely to have uninterrupted service in just a few weeks time. When Chen took the helm in 2013, one of his first projects was to launch new low-priced hardware targeted at developing countries, where BlackBerry was seeing good growth and accounted for almost two-third of its revenue at the time. He did not confirm whether the government would soften its stance regarding access to BES servers, which can stop the company from exiting the exiting the market.
