BlackBerry Ltd (BBRY)’s Next Hail Mary

But if MDM represents the future of BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY), it will be a much smaller company. According to Gartner mobile device management, or MDM, is only a $500 million industry. BlackBerry would need to corner the MDM market and grow it by a factor of eight just to replace its current annual service revenues. This issue doesn’t even consider profitability.

QNX

There’s huge licensing potential for QNX. The operating system is not only used to power BB10 devices but also air traffic control systems, surgical equipment, nuclear reactors and anywhere else where the cost of failure is high.

One big market for QNX could be the automotive industry. In June BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) unveiled the QNX enabled Bentley Continental GT. Imagine a future where you can customize your vehicle’s dashboard, enable third party apps, or your car sending you a diagnostic before a scheduled repair. That’s all possible today on QNX.

QNX is already available in 30 million vehicles worldwide. With 82 million vehicles sales annually, the automotive industry is a massive market. QNX could power the next phase of its development.

But there’s an even bigger opportunity here. CEO Thorsten Heins sees QNX as the top platform for the next phase of the mobile computing revolution. In his view, the industry is moving beyond smartphones and tablets. So while next year competitors are gunning to sell more handsets, BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) is ready for the next big opportunity.

However, given the recent performance of the company’s share price, investors find that vision a little too ambiguous.

Foolish bottom line

Of course new ventures aside, it’s still too early to count BB10 out yet. The more popular keyboard enabled Q10 handset has just been released in the United States. Investors need a few more quarters to declare the launch officially dead.

Robert Baillieul has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Facebook. The Motley Fool owns shares of Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB).

The article BlackBerry’s Next Hail Mary originally appeared on Fool.com.

Robert is a member of The Motley Fool Blog Network — entries represent the personal opinion of the blogger and are not formally edited.

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