BlackBerry, Emtek enter strategic alliance

BlackBerry entered into a strategic alliance with PT Elang Mahkota Teknologi (Emtek), a media, content and technology business in Indonesia, that will provide cross-platform BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) end-users with access to enriched content and services. This partnership accelerates BlackBerry's vision to advance BBM for the consumer market through a licensing agreement with Emtek that enables the company to develop new BBM applications and services for Android, iOS and Windows Phones. To strengthen the alliance, Emtek's digital content arm KMK Online will establish an office in the Toronto area to work closely with BlackBerry. KMK Online has a wide breadth of media assets that will be combined with more than 20 of Emtek's businesses and investments to bring significant value and services to BBM. These investments span across broadcast television, web properties, content production and artists. This means, in the coming months, users will have access to a plethora of content such as national free-to-air (FTA) television stations, an online video platform, three exclusive production houses and a library of more than 100,000 hours of TV and premium content, just to name a few.

BlackBerry will also extend its open mobility ecosystem by making the BBM application programme interface (API) available to Emtek in order to accelerate the growth of partners and service providers. Integrating BBM's social, chat, commerce and content capabilities with Emtek's portfolio of assets and ecosystem will help maximise the potential of BBM to give customers access to new content, commerce, online to offline commerce and finance, BlackBerry said.

BlackBerry also believes that partnering with Emtek enables the growth of both consumer and enterprise BBM. As Emtek advances the platform for the consumer market, BlackBerry said it will continue to advance the platform for enterprise with BBM Protected, a cross-platform messaging service.