BlackBerry has announced that it's acquiring Good Technology - a company that it has long been in competition with in the enterprise mobile device management space. Good has always had a bit more of a multi-platform focus than BlackBerry, so the move should help the company shore up its ability to help big companies manage the devices their employees use. It also probably doesn't hurt to mention that Good has a pretty strong suite of Android device management software - and everybody's expecting BlackBerry to begin releasing Android devices itself in the very near future.
The acquisition will cost BlackBerry $425 million in cash. BlackBerry thinks that it'll close the deal by the end of November and start making money from Good's business right away, to the tune of $160 million in revenue in the first year. Although Good and BlackBerry have platforms that slightly overlap, CEO John Chen isn't too worried about that, and said on a conference call that "It is our plan to go to one, unified platform," although he declined to pin down any specifics on when that might happen.
Source: The Verge
