Good Technology

Last updated
Good Technology
Company type Subsidiary
Industry Software
Founded1996
Headquarters Sunnyvale, California
Parent BlackBerry Limited
Website www.good.com

Good Technology, owned by BlackBerry Limited, is a mobile security provider headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company serves more than 5,000 organizations worldwide in industries such as financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, energy and utilities, legal, government, and technology. [1] [2] Good makes products for managing and securing mobile devices in a business environment. [3] The company focuses on securing apps and data on mobile devices. [4]

Contents

History

Good Technology in its current form is a continuation of two previous companies. One was Visto, founded in 1996 (and initially known as Roampage). Visto acquired the original Good Technology in 2009, and assumed its name. The original Good Technology had been founded in 2000; it was initially known as SpringThings, and sold an MP3 player for the Handspring Visor before shifting to email products for mobile professionals. [5] [6]

Prior to the acquisition, both companies marketed email access from portable devices. [6] [7] [8] In November 2006, Motorola announced plans to acquire Good Technology as part of its plan to compete with Research in Motion's Blackberry product line in the enterprise sector, and expressed its intention to continue licensing its technology to other phone manufacturers. [8] [9] At the time of the acquisition, Good's flagship products were Good Mobile Messaging, Good Mobile Intranet and Good Mobile Defense; the company had 470 employees. [10]

On February 23, 2009, Motorola announced that it had agreed to sell Good Technology to rival push email provider, Visto. In 2009 Visto announced that it had renamed itself Good Technology effectively taking the name of the former independent company. [11]

From 2009 to 2012, Good Technology grew through acquisitions, among them Intercasting Corporation (May 2009) and CloudSync (January 2010), [12] Copiun (2012), [13] and AppCentral (2012). [14] [15]

In December 2009 Good Technology began supporting iPhone and Android devices. [16] The company launched Good Dynamics, a set of mobile application development tools for enterprise and consumers, in October 2011. [17]

With the Good Secure Mobility Solution, released in June 2013, Good Technology aimed to address real-world usage in which professionals use several apps to accomplish a task. Building on its app containerization approach and the Good Dynamics platform, the company presented a system that was both secure and responsive to customers’ usage habits. [18]

In September 2013 the company's "Good for Enterprise (GFE)" solution became the first cross-platform mobile collaboration solution to achieve Common Criteria Evaluation Assurance Level 4 Augmented (EAL4+) and the only containerized solution to meet this level of security certification on either iOS or Android. [19]

In February 2014, Good Technology acquired BoxTone for its Mobile Device Management, Enterprise Mobility Management, Mobile Service Management and Mobile App Performance Monitoring Solutions. [20]

On September 4, 2015 BlackBerry announced that it would acquire Good Technology for $425 Million dollars. [21] The news of the acquisition was confirmed by Good Technology CEO Christy Wyatt in a blog post on the Good Blog. [22] The acquisition was completed on November 2, 2015. [23] The fire sale was controversial because Good Technology was valued at $1 billion and had filed for an IPO in May 2014, and in early 2015 the company's board had turned down an all-cash offer of $800 million. The valuation of Good Technology has been suggested to be inflated, and though the company reported 2014 revenue of $211.9 million compared to 2013 revenue of $160.4 million, with an 2014 operating loss of $83.9 million loss compared to the 2013 and 2012 operating losses of $115.9 million and $89.4 million, the 2014 filing showed the company had $42.1 million which was less than 12 months worth, and that cash had dwindled to under $25 million by the start of 2015. [24] The employees' common stock at the time of the acquisition by BlackBerry was worth only 44 cents per share (around 10 percent of what it had been the previous year) while preferred stock for executives and venture capitalists was $3 per share; furthermore employees had been taxed on the common share value when it reached its peak (as they were leaving the company). [25] [26]

In late 2016 Sunnyvale headquarters office was closed, all remaining employees were moved to the BlackBerry office located in Mountain View.[ citation needed ]

In 2017 all Good Technology products were rebranded under the BlackBerry Software brand.[ citation needed ]

Platform and products

The Good Dynamics Secure Mobility Platform serves as a foundation for the Good Collaboration Suite, and also for the Good Mobile Alliance ISV Ecosystem, in which independent developers create and distribute apps of their own. In October 2013 Good announced the Good Dynamics Shared Service Framework as part of Good Dynamics, including services such as printing, file sharing, and email. [27] The framework is also designed to make it easier for developers to reuse code and connect apps. [28] [29] Good also announced Direct Connect in fall 2013; this technology enables companies to control the way data flows through their networks, for instance with respect to corporate or national boundaries. [30]

The Good Collaboration Suite includes email, calendar, contacts, tasks, instant messaging, browsing and document sharing features that go beyond the consumer-oriented features of iOS, Windows Phone or Android, and are more tightly integrated with one another. [31] It also includes business-oriented features such as single sign-on, secure access to corporate networks, and administrative functions. [31] Good for Enterprise, the core component of the Collaboration Suite, provides a strict separation between personal and corporate content, allowing both to coexist on an employee's device without compromising security. [32] Other components of the Collaboration Suite include Good Share (for SharePoint-based file sharing) and Good Connect (for Lync and Sametime instant messaging). [33] Good's product offerings also include: Good Vault, offering enhanced data protection for Good for Enterprise, and using two-factor authentication; [34] Good for OEMs/Carriers, which enables telecommunications companies to create integrated social messaging experiences for their customers; Good Secure Mobility Solution, which supports developing, securing, deploying, and managing workflows for mobile workers. [33]

Industry status

Good Technology's reports and executives have been cited as experts in the adoption and use of mobile technology in the enterprise sector. [35] [36] [37] In particular, its quarterly Mobility Index Report tracks data based on Good's customers device activations and, more recently, app activations. [38]

Good's client base includes those with high security needs, such as government agencies and financial institutions. [39] Good's security products offer customers a way to migrate from the BlackBerry platform to iOS, Windows Phone and Android. [40] In fall 2013, Good opened offices in Benelux and Stockholm. [41] It also has offices in New Jersey, New York, Washington, Texas, Australia, China, Germany, Italy, South Korea, Spain, and the United Kingdom. [33]

The platform has earned accreditations and certifications that enable companies to comply with government regulations around the world. [42] Good software was required in the U.S. Department of Defense's first approval of Android devices in 2012. [43] In 2013, the platform became the first cross-platform mobile collaboration solution to achieve Common Criteria Evaluation Assurance Level 4 Augmented (EAL4+) and the only containerized solution to meet this level of security certification on either iOS or Android. [19] It was also listed on Australia's Defence Signals Directorate's Evaluated Products List. [44]

A fall 2013 Info Security magazine feature article on women in the information security industry which quoted Good CEO Christy Wyatt, and noted that Good's workforce was 27% female, and its executive team 40% female, both ahead of an estimated 10% female workforce in the industry. [45]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Motorola</span> American telecommunications company (1928–2011)

Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois. It was founded in 1928 as Galvin Manufacturing Corporation by brothers Paul and Joseph Galvin. The company changed its name to Motorola in 1947. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, Motorola was split into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions, on January 4, 2011. The reorganization was structured with Motorola Solutions legally succeeding Motorola, Inc., and Motorola Mobility being spun off.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BlackBerry</span> Line of wireless handheld devices and services

BlackBerry was a brand of smartphones and other related mobile services and devices. The line was originally developed and maintained by the Canadian company BlackBerry Limited from 1999 to 2016, after which it was licensed to various companies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BlackBerry Limited</span> Canadian technology company

BlackBerry Limited is a Canadian software company specializing in cybersecurity. Founded in 1984, it originally developed the BlackBerry brand of interactive pagers, smartphones and tablets. In 2016, it transitioned to a cybersecurity enterprise software and services company under CEO John S. Chen. Its products are used by various businesses, car manufacturers, and government agencies to prevent hacking and ransomware attacks. They include the BlackBerry Cylance, the QNX real-time operating system; BlackBerry Enterprise Server, and a Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) platform.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Motorola Solutions</span> American data communications and telecommunications equipment provider

Motorola Solutions, Inc. is an American video equipment, telecommunications equipment, software, systems and services provider that succeeded Motorola, Inc., following the spinoff of the mobile phone division into Motorola Mobility in 2011. The company is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Motorola Mobility</span> American consumer electronics company

Motorola Mobility LLC, marketed as Motorola, is an American consumer electronics manufacturer primarily producing smartphones and other mobile devices running Android. Headquartered at Merchandise Mart in Chicago, Illinois, it is a subsidiary of the Chinese multinational technology company Lenovo.

Mobile app development is the act or process by which a mobile app is developed for one or more mobile devices, which can include personal digital assistants (PDA), enterprise digital assistants (EDA), or mobile phones. Such software applications are specifically designed to run on mobile devices, taking numerous hardware constraints into consideration. Common constraints include CPU architecture and speeds, available memory (RAM), limited data storage capacities, and considerable variation in displays and input methods. These applications can be pre-installed on phones during manufacturing or delivered as web applications, using server-side or client-side processing to provide an "application-like" experience within a web browser.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BBM (software)</span> Instant messaging software

BBM, also known by its full name BlackBerry Messenger, was a consumer-oriented proprietary mobile instant messenger and videotelephony application service originally developed by BlackBerry Limited and later briefly by Indonesian company Emtek under licence. Initially it was included and offered on BlackBerry devices before it was expanded cross-platform. BBM was shut down on 31 May 2019; the company since continues to offer the paid enterprise edition, BBM Enterprise.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">RhoMobile Suite</span>

RhoMobile Suite, based on the Rhodes open source framework, is a set of development tools for creating data-centric, cross-platform, native mobile consumer and enterprise applications. It allows developers to build native mobile apps using web technologies, such as CSS3, HTML5, JavaScript and Ruby. Developers can deploy RhoMobile Suite to write an app once and run it on the most-used operating systems, including iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Windows Mobile, Windows CE, Windows 10 Mobile and Windows Desktop. Developers control how apps behave on different devices. RhoMobile Suite consists of a set of tools for building, testing, debugging, integrating, deploying and managing consumer and enterprise apps. It consists of the products Rhodes, RhoElements, RhoStudio, RhoConnect, and RhoGallery, and includes a built-in Model View Controller pattern, an Object Relational Mapper for data intensive apps, integrated data synchronization, and a broad API set. These mobile development services are offered in the cloud and include hosted build, synchronization and application management.

Mobile Business Intelligence is defined as “Mobile BI is a system comprising both technical and organizational elements that present historical and/or real-time information to its users for analysis on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, to enable effective decision-making and management support, for the overall purpose of increasing firm performance.”. Business intelligence (BI) refers to computer-based techniques used in spotting, digging-out, and analyzing business data, such as sales revenue by products and/or departments or associated costs and incomes.

Telenav, Inc. is a wireless location-based services corporation that provides services including Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite navigation, local search, automotive navigation solutions, mobile advertising, enterprise mobility and workflow automation. The company’s headquarters are located in Santa Clara, California in the United States with additional offices in the U.S., Germany, Japan, Romania, China, and Brazil.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Apperian</span> Defunct software company in Boston, USA

Apperian, Inc. was a Boston-based software company. The organization provided a mobile application management platform that did not require app code modifications or software development kits (SDKs).

A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on desktop computers, and web applications which run in mobile web browsers rather than directly on the mobile device.

Zenprise provided Mobile Device Management (MDM) solutions to enterprises. The company's solutions were available in both on-premise and cloud-based (SaaS) versions. Zenprise MobileManager and Zencloud allowed companies and government agencies to manage and secure mobile devices, including iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and Symbian.

VerivoSoftware Inc. is an enterprise mobility software company, with headquarters in Waltham, Massachusetts. Verivo’s enterprise mobility platforms allow users to develop, secure and govern mobile applications across multiple devices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Link Motion Inc</span>

Link Motion Inc, formerly NetQin and NQ Mobile, is a multinational technology company that develops, licenses, supports and sells software and services that focus on the smart ride business. Link Motion sells carputers for car businesses, consumer ride sharing services, as well as legacy mobile security, productivity and other related applications. Link Motion maintains dual headquarters in Dallas, Texas, United States and Beijing, China. A Court Receiver, lawyer Robert Seiden, was appointed over Link Motion in February 2019 in the United States in the federal district court in the Southern District of New York by Judge Victor Marrero. The Receiver removed Wenyong “Vincent” Shi as chairman and chief executive officer, and replaced him by appointing Mr. Lilin “Francis” Guo.

Zimperium, Inc. is a privately owned mobile security company based in the United States and headquartered in Dallas, Texas. Zimperium provides a mobile security platform purpose-built for enterprise environments.

Enterproid is an enterprise mobility management software company that helps business customers manage employee-owned smartphones and tablets, a trend known as Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). Enterproid is best known for its dual-persona platform called Divide, which separates iOS and Android devices into two personas for work and play.

John D. Marshall is an American entrepreneur and inventor. He is the co-founder and former president and CEO of AirWatch, which VMware acquired for $1.54 billion in 2014. He is currently co-chairman at a software start-up called OneTrust.

MobileIron Inc. was an American software company that provided unified endpoint and enterprise mobility management (EMM) for mobile devices, such as multi-factor authentication (MFA). The company announced in September 2020 it was being acquired by Ivanti.

References

  1. ↑ King, Rachel (June 5, 2013). "Good Technology: Enterprise mobility trends don't mirror consumer use". ZDNet.
  2. ↑ Villavicencio, Patrick (September 18, 2013). "Good Technology enters Philippine market, keen on emerging mobile enterprises". InterAksyon Infotek.
  3. ↑ Lomas, Natasha (October 2, 2012). "Good Technology Acquires AppCentral To Bolster iOS, Android And WP App Security, Manageability And Distribution In BYOD Era". Tech Crunch.
  4. ↑ Gallant, John (August 12, 2013). "Good Technology CEO: "We focus on the data, not the device"". CITE World.
  5. ↑ Shim, Richard (September 28, 2001). "Good challenges RIM's BlackBerry". CNET News.
  6. 1 2 Maney, Kevin (May 7, 2002). "So far, so good for tech start-up". USA TODAY.
  7. ↑ "Visto e-mail solution for KPN's i-mode". telecompaper. November 14, 2003.
  8. 1 2 "Motorola takes on the BlackBerry - Technology & Media - International Herald Tribune". New York Times. October 10, 2006.
  9. ↑ Lemon, Sumner (February 23, 2009). "Motorola Sells Good Technology to Visto". IDG News Service.
  10. ↑ Frulinger, Josh (June 11, 2012). "Motorola buys mobile app company". IT World.
  11. ↑ Loizos, Connie (August 18, 2010). "Dawn of a new era hundreds of millions of dollars later". PE Hub.
  12. ↑ Rao, Leena (January 27, 2010). "Good Technology Buys Up CloudSync". TechCrunch.
  13. ↑ Endler, Michael (September 5, 2012). "Good Technology Buys Copiun". InformationWeek.
  14. ↑ Lomas, Natasha (October 2, 2012). "Good Technology Acquires AppCentral To Bolster iOS, Android And WP App Security, Manageability And Distribution In BYOD Era". TechCrunch.
  15. ↑ Madden, Jack (September 6, 2012). "Good Technology acquires file syncing company Copiun". BrianMadden.com.
  16. ↑ Finley, Klint (August 4, 2010). "iPhone and Android Both See Meteoric Enterprise Growth According to Good Technology". ReadWrite.
  17. ↑ Dignan, Larry (October 10, 2011). "Good Technology eyes developers, launches Good Dynamics". ZD Net.
  18. ↑ Faas, Ryan (June 25, 2013). "Good Technology Recognizes that No App is an Island". CITE News.
  19. 1 2 Budmar, Patrick (September 11, 2013). "Good Technology gets EAL4+ certification". Computer World.
  20. ↑ "Good Technology to Acquire BoxTone". Good Technology press release. February 23, 2014.
  21. ↑ Edmonds, Rich (September 4, 2015). "BlackBerry to acquire Good Technology for $425 million". Crackberry.
  22. ↑ Wyatt, Christy (September 4, 2015). "A Letter to Our Customers, Employees and Partners". Good Blog.
  23. ↑ "BlackBerry Completes Good Technology Acquisition". BlackBerry, Ltd. press release. November 2, 2015.
  24. ↑ "'Unicorn' startup Good Technology sells for less than half its top valuation".
  25. ↑ "After Good Technology's $425M fire sale to BlackBerry, a shareholder offers his windfall to colleagues who lost out". 11 January 2016.
  26. ↑ Benner, Katie (23 December 2015). "When a Unicorn Start-Up Stumbles, Its Employees Get Hurt". The New York Times.
  27. ↑ Clark, Melody (November 17, 2013). "54 new APIs: Adobe, BitTorrent Synch, and ShopYourWay". ProgrammableWeb.
  28. ↑ Boyd, Mark (October 16, 2013). "Good Technology Releases Semi-Open API". ProgrammableWeb.
  29. ↑ "Mobile Industry on the Move October 12". Mobile Enterprise. October 12, 2013.
  30. ↑ Parkerson, Stuart (November 20, 2013). "Good Technology Makes Enhancements to its Good Dynamics Security Mobility Platform, Part of its Enterprise Mobile Solution Services".
  31. 1 2 Arlotta, CJ (November 19, 2013). "Good Technology Updates Mobile Collaboration Suite". MSPmentor.
  32. ↑ Barwick, Hamish (27 November 2013). "Slater & Gordon Lawyers makes the case for mobile security". Computerworld.
  33. 1 2 3 "Good Technology Releases Next Generation Secure Mobile Collaboration Suite". Bloomberg Businessweek. November 12, 2013. Archived from the original on August 17, 2009.
  34. ↑ Hamblen, Matt (December 4, 2012). "Good Vault launches two-factor authentication for iPhones: iPhones would use sleeves to read smart cards and microSD cards". ComputerWorld.
  35. ↑ Holmes, Lindsay (November 23, 2013). "19 Signs You Need To Unplug From Your Smartphone". The Huffington Post.
  36. ↑ DiPietro, Ben (January 22, 2014). "The Morning Risk Report: How Asian Management Culture Affects Risk".
  37. ↑ Grayson, Ian (November 19, 2013). "Personal device usage can create a security nightmare". Australian Financial Review.
  38. ↑ Madden, Jack (October 18, 2013). "Check out all these enterprise mobility management announcements from MobileCON". Brian Madden Blog.
  39. ↑ Finneran, Michael (December 4, 2013). "How Mobile Security Lags BYOD". Information Week.
  40. ↑ Tausche, Kayla (November 26, 2013). "Meet 'Good,' the new BlackBerry killer on Wall Street".
  41. ↑ Baburajan, Rajani (November 19, 2013). "Good Technology Expands Mobile Device Management Services in Nordics". TMCnet.
  42. ↑ Parkerson, Stuart (November 20, 2013). "Good Technology Makes Enhancements to its Good Dynamics Security Mobility Platform, Part of its Enterprise Mobile Solution Services Article Author". App Developer Magazine.
  43. ↑ Serbu, Jared (January 5, 2012). "DoD approves first-ever Android devices". Federal News Radio.
  44. ↑ Anderson, Steve (September 16, 2013). "Good for Technology Proves Good for Mobile Security with EAL4+ Cert". SAP Mobile Secure.
  45. ↑ Dallaway, Eleanor (17 October 2013). "Let's Hear it for the Ladies: Women in Information Security". Info Security.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.