BlackBerry is re-emphasising its focus on the enterprise market:

For the past six months BlackBerry has been planning a resurgence in the enterprise space.

Until the release of the BlackBerry Z10 and BB10 mobile OS, the company’s main focus had been providing enterprise software in the form of BlackBerry Enterprise Server.

Markus Mueller, regional managing director for BlackBerry in Europe, explained at an event, discussing BlackBerry’s future earlier in the month, that John Chen’s strategy was to get the firm back on track by focusing on what it does best.

“We still have a very strong enterprise base, specifically when you look at the large enterprises very few of them, almost none actually left BlackBerry entirely,” he said.

“The discussion is now shifting away from ‘will you guys be around in a year from now’ toward ‘what’s next?'”

Mueller said the firm will focus on the core capabilities of security, productivity and collaboration. He said the company has already seen a change in public perception and loyalty in the last six months as businesses change their views towards the brand.

Once BlackBerry does make its way back to its enterprise roots, the question is whether the decision criteria for mobile devices in the enterprise are still what they were a decade ago during RIM’s heady days. Based on the research I have seen recently, plus my own observations of the mobile market, the rules have changed, and individual preference plus integration with an individual’s own set of devices has surged in importance as drivers for what enterprises do. BlackBerry may be able to say “we’re back,” but my feeling is the welcome will be a lot less warm and fuzzy than what they expect.