"That's a big loss" said Nick McQuire, vice president of enterprise research at CCS Insight, a technology consultancy. "He was very influential in BlackBerry. Representatives with BlackBerry did not respond to requests for comment.McQuire said he hoped BlackBerry quickly names a successor to supervise those key functions at a time when it is looking at multiple markets in its bid to return to growth.He said that BlackBerry should consider hiring a senior marketing executive whose role would be separate from operations. "He had a lot on his plate, maybe they'll have to rethink the areas that Marty owned and perhaps have multiple people doing those jobs," he said.Beard joined BlackBerry in 2014 from startup LiveOps. He previously worked for Chen at Sybase Inc, a publicly held software maker - Reuters

Source: The Star November 17, 2017 21:33 UTC