BlackBerry Reveals Plan To Acquire WatchDox

BlackBerry has revealed that it will be acquiring WatchDox, a California company offering enterprise users a secure file-sync and sharing solution, also known as EFSS. With this, users are able to work on and share documents across all of their devices securely. BlackBerry's acquisition of the company is a bid to draw back in the government and similar customers that it enjoyed for so long, and, according to the Wall Street Journal at least, will also give it another way to expand its R&D efforts into Israel, where WatchDox has its own operations.

BlackBerry announced the acquisition plans earlier today, but did not reveal how much it would be paying for the company. According to a previous report from the WSJ, however, it heard that the Canadian company will be shelling out $70 million. This isn't the only recent acquisition from BlackBerry, which previously acquired software developer Movirtu back in September.

With WatchDox software, companies are able to control the use of files among their workers, a necessity for certain industries. This includes being able to delete files from devices remotely, and to also take away access to some files for some users. There's support for Android, iPhone, and, of course, BlackBerry's own mobile platform.

This will bolster BlackBerry's security offerings for government and enterprise clients, and further points to its new focus on security/productivity software after faltering hardware sales. The company's most recent financial report showed a drastic decrease in revenue.

SOURCE: Wall Street Journal