The BlackBerry Ltd. (TSX: BB)(NASDAQ:BBRY) of today is a completely different business than the one which surged before the Great Recession only to crash and never recover.
The company has found success as a software developer in the cybersecurity space, and many pundits, including bearish short seller Andrew Left of Citron Research, think that BlackBerry is a promising turnaround candidate with a great deal of upside potential.
The cybersecurity market is growing ridiculously fast
We live in an age where it seems normal that high-profile companies get hacked and client information is leaked into the wrong hands. The cybersecurity market is expected to hit US$231.94 billion by 2022 from US$137.85 billion in 2017, according to a report released by Research and Markets.
Premium cybersecurity is becoming an absolute must-have these days, especially with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), the internet of things (IoT), and autonomous cars; if hackers compromise such systems, there would be severe consequences that could endanger not just a person’s privacy, but their safety.
The dangers of self-driving cars and the importance of a security
Think about all the potential disasters that could happen if a hacker were able to gain full access to a self-driving car. That connected car essentially turns into a weapon, which is extremely frightening, especially considering how many lives could be on the line.
The unfortunate news is, no system will ever really be 100% unhackable; however, many firms with cybersecurity expertise, such as BlackBerry, could make systems difficult to compromise.
Think of your system as a house and its security as a lock on the door. As BlackBerry CEO John Chen pointed out in an interview with BNN, BlackBerry has more “sophisticated locks” that would better safeguard a system relative to competitors, whose lock would be easier for hackers to break into.
While it’s still theoretically possible for hackers to break BlackBerry’s locks, they’d have an extremely hard time doing so relative to another system.
Could BlackBerry’s QNX be the go-to operating system for self-driving cars?
The QNX OS has been deemed as “game-changer” tech by Andrew Left, who believes BlackBerry could double in fewer than two years. That’s got to be encouraging, especially considering short sellers don’t usually have nice things to say about the businesses they analyze.
There are many moving parts to the end-to-end automotive security solution, but the important part is they all work together to create one extremely secure system that would discourage many potential threats. BlackBerry’s multi-level security technology is considered by many to be the most advanced platform currently available.
In addition, the end-to-end security solution has many sophisticated features, allowing for secure, scalable software updates to ensure connected vehicles have the latest and greatest security measures, which will make a secured system exponentially harder to compromise with time.
Bottom line
Self-driving cars are coming. The techs already out there, but safeguarding connected cars is a whole different story.
In the end, the best automotive security solution will prevail. There’s no room for shortcuts or “cheaper” alternatives, since lives could be at stake.
BlackBerry is making a strong case that it could be the go-to safeguard that connected cars of the future will use, and if that’s the case, not only do I think the stock could double within a year, but I think the stock could rebound past the highs it witnessed during the peak of its smartphone days.
I know; such a BlackBerry rebound may sound far-fetched, especially since such a move would imply the stock would be more than a ten-bagger, but if BlackBerry plays such a major role in securing the connected cars of tomorrow, there’s a great deal of upside to be had.
Stay smart. Stay hungry. Stay Foolish.
