BBM
with the group ’ s joint venture with Ant Financial called ‘ DANA ’, which will enable end-to-end payment across the BBM ecosystem of content and services , online and offline payments , as well as person-toperson payments within Indonesia . “ We ’ ve really tried to partner with the best of breed partners and integrate them into BBM ,” Talbot says . “ That comes back to the opportunity around the scale that we have , which has enabled us to work with partners that are very much aligned with our success .”
Creative Media Works , operating as BBM , was established in 2016 and the following 12 months has seen significant growth for BBM , but there has been one persistent challenge that Talbot has had to contend with , something that he calls the company ’ s “ Achilles heel ”.
“ I can give a speech at a conference , lay out a full presentation on what BBM is and what it stands for and our ambition , and I can guarantee that people will walk away from it and still refer to us as BlackBerry Messenger ,” he says . “ It ’ s two-fold really though , because in markets like Indonesia , BlackBerry is such a well-known brand , you have to strike a balance against what has
104 December 2017