By Ben Dummett
TORONTO-- BlackBerry Ltd. said it plans to launch, early in the
new year, a mobile diagnostic tool for its Passport device to allow
doctors to securely access cancer patients' medical data from any
location.
The new browser is the latest move in the Canadian smartphone
maker's effort to win back core enterprise customers and is the
first technology offering developed with NantHealth, the IT
provider in which it acquired a minority stake this past April.
The new offering from Waterloo, Ontario-based BlackBerry comes
as it tries to revive slumping sales by developing mobile security
software and services aimed at business customers, following a
failed attempt last year to expand into the consumer market.
This browser "really highlights (BlackBerry's) advantage in
mobile security" for the health-care sector and other regulated
industries, John Chen, BlackBerry's chief executive, said in an
interview. Industries such as health care face strict regulations
on protecting confidential data.
The new browser will equip doctors with a mobile computer to
help them quickly and accurately decide on the appropriate
treatment for a patient, Patrick Soon-Shiong, NantHealth's chief
executive said.
Currently, it takes weeks for a doctor to get back tests from a
biopsy, so they may be forced to decide on treatment before seeing
the test results, Mr. Soon-Shiong said. NantHealth's genome browser
allows physicians to view and analyze test results as soon as they
become available, he said.
California-based NantHeath's cloud-based technology is used in
over 250 hospitals.
BlackBerry and NantHealth haven't specified an exact release
date for the browser, which will come pre-loaded on BlackBerry's
Passport smartphone.
BlackBerry is counting on sales of Passport to help it reach its
goal of selling 10 million smartphones annually, the threshold the
company says it needs to hit before it starts making money from the
device business. It launched the device in the September and after
two days had orders for more than 200,000.
Analysts, though, see the Passport as a niche product. They say
the launch of the new Classic device, modeled after BlackBerry's
once-popular Bold smartphone, will play a more deciding factor in
the Canadian company's fate. That launch is on December 17.
BlackBerry hasn't disclosed its investment in NantHealth, whose
biggest financial backer is the Kuwait Investment Authority, a
sovereign-wealth fund that invested $250 million in the company in
October. Other investors include a unit of Verizon Communications
Inc., Celgene Corp. and Blackstone Group L.P.
Write to Ben Dummett at ben.dummett@wsj.com
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