BlackBerry shares rise on Movirtu acquisition

London-based Movirtu enables multiple phone numbers to be active from one device.Shares of BlackBerry (TSX:BB) are up today after the company announced it had acquired Movirtu, an English company that enables multiple phone numbers to be active from one device.

The company, which was founded in 2008, says its solution solves the problem of ownership in a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) world by assigning a business and personal number to the same SIM card.

The enterprise market has become a point of focus since CEO John Chen took the reigns of the company last November. He says the pickup will strengthen the company’s offerings in BYOD and with corporate-owned personally-enabled (COPE) devices.

“In a BYOD and COPE world, there remain a number of efficiency and convenience challenges facing enterprises, employees and mobile operators alike,” he said. “The acquisition of Movirtu complements our core strategy of providing additional value added services, and it will leverage our key assets, including our BES platform, along with our existing global infrastructure which is connected to a large number of mobile operators around the world.”

In an interview posted today on BlackBerry’s blog, Movirtu CEO Carsten Brinkschulte said BlackBerry is the perfect fit.

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“I knew, as many in the industry, how deep BlackBerry’s enterprise experience and knowledge goes,” he said. “I also knew that we were tackling something unique that would soon become high in demand as BYOD and COPE proliferates. BlackBerry’s global infrastructure, also known as “the NOC,” is unprecedented and is already connected directly to hundreds of mobile operators worldwide. Leveraging these existing connections would be the best way to offer quick and reliable deployment of the Movirtu Virtual SIM solution with minimal effort for the operator. Additionally, BlackBerry will help bring the solution to market through their wide network of mobile operators.”

At press time, shares of BlackBerry on the TSX were up 4.8% to $11.77.