In the past few years, John Chen has taken BlackBerry (BB, Financial) into two high growth markets:
- BlackBerry has entered into an exclusive partnership with Amazon on a connected vehicle data platform providing artificial intelligence/machine learning-based analytics on all in-vehicle sensors networks. BlackBerry's QNX subsidiary deals with all the major automobile manufacturers in the world and has 175 million connected cars using the QNX system.
- BlackBerry has completed the integration of Cylance and its BlackBerry end point management platform (UEM), and is now ready to tackle the cybersecurity and threat detection/prevention world, a market which is entirely compatible with BlackBerry's heritage and capabilities.
We continue to back John, as we extended the maturity of $323 million of our convertible debentures acquired in 2013 to 2023 with a reduced conversion price of $6 per share.
From Prem Watsa (Trades, Portfolio)'s 2020 annual shareholder letter.
