BlackBerry CEO: The Famous Name Still Opens Doors

BlackBerry will book more than $600 million in revenue this year from a business it runs under a name that stopped making phones years ago — down from nearly $20 billion at its peak. CEO John Giamatteo says he keeps the BlackBerry brand anyway, because it still buys him access that a generic software label never could.

"I get more meetings because of the brand," Giamatteo told Fortune's Diane Brady in a recent interview. "If I'm just 'John from QNX,' it's like, 'QNX what?' I love the fact that it gets you in the door almost across the board."

Why keep a name tied to one of tech's biggest falls?

Interbrand released its 2026 Best Global Brands list on October 28, with Apple at No. 1 — a spot it first claimed in 2013. That same year, BlackBerry, the smartphone pioneer, dropped off the list. The company's collapse has since produced books, business school case studies and a comedy about co-founders Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis now streaming on Netflix.

The company that survives doesn't make handsets. It went by Research In Motion back when it did. Today it earns its money from two units:

• BlackBerry Secure Communications, the division generating the bulk of more than $600 million in annual revenue, a figure that's growing.
• QNX software, which powers more than 275 million smart vehicles and is expanding into robotaxis, medical devices and robots.

What does the famous name actually cost?

Recognition cuts both ways. Giamatteo says every first conversation starts with a history lesson.

"I have to spend the first 10 minutes of every conversation, whether it's an investor, whether it's a media, whether it's a customer, recalibrating people on who we are and what we're doing," he said. "But more times than not, people are like, 'Oh, great, I like them. Glad to hear you guys are doing so well.'"

The trade-off extends to being public. "Being a public company, you have to have a proctology exam every quarterly result," Giamatteo said. "But I net out that it's probably better to be public."

Giamatteo joined the company as president in 2021 and became CEO in 2023, giving him a front-row seat to the pivot from handset maker to security-and-software vendor.

Was buying QNX the smartest move BlackBerry ever made?

Giamatteo argues the BlackBerry story is less a cautionary tale about missing market shifts than a testament to resilience and reinvention. He credits Balsillie and Lazaridis with foresight for buying QNX in 2010 — for $200 million. That software now sits in more than 275 million vehicles and anchors the company's expansion into robotaxis, medical devices and robotics.

His verdict on the company's future is short: "BlackBerry will endure."

Brady, who covered BlackBerry's rise and fall for Bloomberg over the years, notes the name remains sticky either way. With revenue growing off a base roughly 3% of its peak, Giamatteo is betting recognition beats a clean slate — and that the meetings the brand opens will keep converting into business for QNX and Secure Communications.