BlackBerry Buys Movirtu to Bolster BYOD Management

BlackBerry on Thursday announced that it has acquired London-based mobile identity solutions provider Movirtu for an undisclosed sum.

BlackBerry said the acquisition addresses the growing bring-your-own-device (BYOD) phenomenon. Founded in 2008, Movirtu makes a Virtual SIM platform that allows multiple numbers - such as a business number and a personal number - to be active on a single device, with separate billing for voice, data, and messaging use on each number.

This allows employees to switch between business and personal profiles without carrying multiple devices or SIM cards. Employees can switch between profiles for calls, data, and messages while on their home network or while roaming. Charges are then appropriately billed to either the company, or the employee.

'BlackBerry is the best partner to help us carry forward our vision of redefining the mobile experience by introducing virtual identities,' Movirtu CEO Carsten Brinkschulte said in a statement. 'We address the challenges of BYOD and COPE [corporate owned personally enabled] by providing our unique and innovative technology solution through BlackBerry's existing relationships with mobile operators and customers around the world.'

BlackBerry said it will offer these new Virtual SIM capabilities through mobile operators, alongside its other identity-based services. The company will support Movirtu technology deployments on all major smartphone operating systems.

The acquisition comes after BlackBerry in July picked up voice and data encryption service Secusmart. The company also recently updated its BBM messaging service to add Protected, an additional layer of encryption for highly security-conscious organizations like banks, governments, law firms, and healthcare providers.