Mr. Kaivan Karimi reports

BLACKBERRY EXPANDS EMBEDDED SOFTWARE DESIGN AND DELIVERY WITH NEW PARTNERS IN JAPAN

BlackBerry Ltd. is expanding its network of embedded technology experts with two new partners in Japan: Fujisoft Inc. and Hitachi Industry & Control Solutions Ltd. The companies have joined a new, specialized value-added integrator (VAI) program announced by BlackBerry in March, 2017, which aims to build a worldwide network of experts trained on BlackBerry QNX and Certicom technologies. The VAI program allows partners to deliver integration services and build upon BlackBerry's embedded technologies to design and develop secure, mission-critical solutions -- ultimately accelerating product time to market.

Kaivan Karimi, senior vice-president and head of sales for BlackBerry Technology Solutions, said: "Japan is at the cutting edge of the Internet of things and embedded software systems, which presents a significant opportunity for companies delivering security and software solutions in industries such as automotive, manufacturing and health care. By using trusted BlackBerry software and cryptography-based solutions, companies around the world can develop safety-certified embedded systems and devices that are not just secure, but BlackBerry secure. We are very pleased to grow BlackBerry's VAI partner program with Fujisoft and Hitachi Industry & Control, and look forward to helping their customers to further accelerate the design, development, integration and testing of mission-critical, next-generation systems in Japan and around the world."

VAI partners in the program provide support for technologies and services, including BlackBerry's QNX Neutrino Realtime OS, QNX Momentics Tool Suite, QNX Hypervisor, QNX SDK for apps and media, QNX Wireless Framework, QNX OS for safety, QNX OS for medical, QNX CAR platform for infotainment, QNX platform for acoustics, and QNX platform for ADAS, Certicom tool kits, Certicom managed public key infrastructure, and Certicom asset management system. Applications include automotive systems, medical surgical robots, smart grids, train control systems and industrial automation.

"Fujisoft provides one-stop solutions from hardware to middleware and to application development, taking advantage of over 45 years of development experience in the automotive, medical equipment, industrial equipment and consumer markets. With the participation in the VAI program at this time, we further strengthen our technical co-operation with BlackBerry QNX. Fujisoft with more than 6,000 engineers offers complete technologies and services with reliable expertise for customer system development that requires safety and high reliability," said Masaki Shibuya, director and executive operating officer of Fujisoft.

"Hitachi Industry & Control is pleased to be able to participate in BlackBerry's global VAI program. Hitachi Industry & Control is a mainstay company supporting the Hitachi group's industrial solution business, providing solutions to a wide range of industrial, security and embedded fields. Collaborating our advanced embedded technologies such as camera application, image processing, robotics, network, functional safety and design platform utilization with the highly secure and safe BlackBerry QNX embedded platform, Hitachi Industry & Control will contribute to customers' development and business expansion," said Shin Nakano, general manager, embedded systems engineering group, of Hitachi Industry & Control.

Other partners participating in the VAI program include: Archermind Technology, Mcloudware, Micon Global, Mission Embedded, ThunderSoft, Witekio Corp. and Tata Elxsi, all of which are working with BlackBerry to accelerate innovation in sophisticated and secure mission-critical embedded systems.

About BlackBerry Ltd.

BlackBerry is a cybersecurity software and service company dedicated to securing the enterprise of things. Based in Waterloo, Ont., the company was founded in 1984 and operates in North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, Middle East, Latin America and Africa.