BlackBerry Ltd said on Tuesday it had signed a five-year, multimillion-dollar deal to run emergency notifications for the US Senate, among a handful of small deals the company unveiled as it shifts its focus to software from smartphones. The Canadian company also said that AtHoc, a crisis communications firm it bought last year, had expanded a deal with the US Coast Guard to cover staff in Washington, D.C. BlackBerry did not provide financial details of the deals.
The Waterloo, Ontario-based company said the US Department of Defense, one of its largest customers, had given additional technical approvals to both its mobile management system and phone software, giving it an advantage as a preferred vendor.