BLACKBERRY Ltd 10-K

ITEM 1. BUSINESS The Company The Company provides intelligent security software and services to enterprises and governments around the world. The Company secures more than 500 million endpoints including more than 175 million cars on the road today. Based in Waterloo, Ontario, the Company leverages artificial intelligence (“AI”) and machine learning to deliver innovative solutions in the areas of cybersecurity, safety and data privacy, and is a leader in the areas of endpoint security, endpoint management, encryption, and embedded systems. The Company was incorporated under the Business Corporations Act (Ontario) (“OBCA”) on March 7, 1984 and commenced operations at that time. The Company has amalgamated with several of its wholly-owned subsidiaries, the last amalgamation occurring through the filing of articles of amalgamation under the OBCA on November 4, 2013. The Company’s common shares trade under the ticker symbol “BB” on the New York Stock Exchange (“NYSE”) and the Toronto Stock Exchange (“TSX”). Intercorporate Relationships The Company has three material subsidiaries, all of which are wholly-owned, directly or indirectly, by the Company in each case as at February 28, 2021. Name of Subsidiary Jurisdiction of Incorporation or Organization BlackBerry Corporation Delaware, U.S.A. BlackBerry UK Limited England and Wales Cylance Inc. Delaware, U.S.A. Internet of Things Security Software Industry As the digital transformation of enterprises continues to advance, workforces are becoming more distributed and mobile, and data and applications are increasingly migrating to the cloud. As part of this trend, the number of connected endpoints is growing rapidly, as is their complexity and the volume of sensitive data that they process and store. These endpoints, which include smartphones, laptops, desktops, servers, vehicles, industrial equipment and other connected devices in the Internet of Things (“IoT”), increasingly operate beyond the traditional network security perimeter and present an expanding attack surface to cyber adversaries. During fiscal 2020, the decentralization of the enterprise was accelerated by the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which prompted many organizations to pivot to substantially remote and mobile work models. At the same time, the threat environment for enterprises has become increasingly hostile as the number of adversaries grows and the scale and sophistication of their attacks, increasingly focused on the endpoint, continue to develop. Today’s malicious actors are often well-trained and well-funded criminal organizations, state-sponsored agents and international hacking collectives with the capability of employing advanced techniques to penetrate endpoints and encrypt, destroy or exfiltrate data. These groups have been responsible for highly publicized breaches that have exposed personal information and intellectual property, disrupted operations and caused significant financial and reputational damage to organizations across a broad range of industries. Against this backdrop, regulators are enacting new measures to ensure that enterprises are held accountable for their management of cybersecurity risk. In particular, changes to data privacy laws in the United States, Europe and other jurisdictions are compounding the challenges faced by organizations by increasing their responsibilities for securing their data as well as that of their customers. This landscape of growing vulnerability and accountability has created opportunities for secure communications platforms, endpoint cybersecurity and management solutions, embedded systems, enterprise applications, analytic tools and related services that help enterprises to secure their connected endpoints, enhance data privacy and demonstrate compliance with applicable regulations. 4 Strategy The Company is widely recognized for its intelligent security software and services and believes that it delivers the broadest set of security capabilities in the market to connect, protect and manage IoT endpoints. The Company leverages its extensive technology portfolio to offer best-in-class cybersecurity, safety and reliability to enterprise customers in government, regulated industries and other core verticals. The Company’s goal is to offer smarter security solutions that are more effective, require fewer resources to support and produce a better return on investment for customers than competing offerings. To achieve this vision, the Company continues to extend the functionality of its AI-focused BlackBerry Spark® software platform through organic investments and strategic acquisitions and partnerships. The Company’s go-to-market strategy focuses principally on generating revenue from enterprise software, services and licensing. The Company intends to drive revenue growth and to achieve margins that are consistent with those of other enterprise software companies. Products and Services The Company is organized and managed as one operating segment. The Company has multiple products and services from which it derives revenue, which are structured in two groups: Software and Services, and Licensing and Other. Software and Services consists of the Company’s BlackBerry Spark software platform business and BlackBerry IoT Solutions business. Licensing and Other consists primarily of the Company’s patent licensing business and service access fees (“SAF”). Software and Services BlackBerry Spark The Company’s core secure software and services offering is its BlackBerry Spark software platform, which integrates a unified endpoint security (“UES”) layer with BlackBerry unified endpoint management (“UEM”) to enable secure endpoint communications in a zero trust environment. BlackBerry UES is a set of complementary cybersecurity products offering endpoint protection platform (“EPP”), endpoint detection and response (“EDR”), mobile threat defense (“MTD”), and user and entity behavior analytics (“UEBA”) capabilities. The BlackBerry Spark platform is informed by the Company’s AI and machine learning capabilities, continuous innovations, professional cybersecurity services, industry partnerships and academic collaborations. The Company is currently executing on a robust schedule of product launches for BlackBerry Spark to deliver a comprehensive security approach operating on a single agent across all endpoints, administered from a single console, leveraging a single crowd-sourced threat data repository and managed in one cloud environment. BlackBerry Spark solutions are available through the BlackBerry Spark® Unified Endpoint Security Suite and the BlackBerry Spark® Unified Endpoint Management Suite, which are also marketed together as the BlackBerry Spark® Suites, offering the Company’s most comprehensive range of tailored cybersecurity and endpoint management options. The BlackBerry Spark UES Suite offers leading Cylance® AI and machine learning-based cybersecurity solutions, including: BlackBerry® Protect, an EPP and available MTD solution that uses machine learning to prevent suspicious behavior and the execution of malicious code on an endpoint; BlackBerry® Optics, an EDR solution that provides both visibility into and prevention of malicious activity on an endpoint; BlackBerry® Guard, a managed detection and response solution that provides 24/7 threat hunting and monitoring; and BlackBerry® Persona, a UEBA solution that provides continuous authentication by validating user identity in real time. The combined platform features industry-leading threat prevention modules to help organizations cope with the significant growth of cyberattacks. The Company also offers incident response, compromised assessment and containment services to assist clients with forensic analysis, state of existing systems and remediation of attacks. In addition, the Company offers the BlackBerry Cyber Suite, a UEM-agnostic version of its BlackBerry Spark® UES Suite which organizations will be able to integrate with UEM software from other leading vendors. The BlackBerry Spark UEM Suite includes the Company’s BlackBerry® UEM, BlackBerry® Dynamics™ and BlackBerry® Workspaces solutions. BlackBerry UEM is a central software component of the Company’s secure communications platform, offering a “single pane of glass”, or unified console view, for managing and securing devices, applications, identity, content and endpoints across all leading operating systems. BlackBerry Dynamics offers a best-in-class development platform and secure container for mobile applications, including the Company’s own enterprise applications such as BlackBerry® Work and BlackBerry® Connect for secure collaboration. The Company also offers the BlackBerry® Spark SDK to promote the evolution of a platform ecosystem by enabling enterprise and independent software vendor (“ISV”) developers to integrate the security features of BlackBerry Spark into their own mobile and web applications. 5 BlackBerry IoT Solutions The BlackBerry IoT Solutions business consists of BlackBerry Technology Solutions (“BTS”) and Secure Communications. BlackBerry Technology Solutions The principal component of BTS is BlackBerry QNX, a global provider of real-time operating systems, middleware, development tools, and professional services for connected embedded systems in the automotive, medical, industrial automation and other markets. A recognized leader in automotive software, BlackBerry QNX offers a growing portfolio of safety-certified, secure and reliable platform solutions and is focused on achieving design wins with automotive original equipment manufacturers (“OEMs”), Tier 1 vendors and automotive semiconductor suppliers. These solutions include the Neutrino® operating system and the BlackBerry QNX® CAR platform, the most advanced embedded software platform for the autonomous vehicle market, as well as other products designed to alleviate the challenges of compliance with ISO 26262, the automotive industry’s functional safety standard. Additionally, the Company’s secure automotive over-the-air software update management service allows OEMs to manage the life cycle of the software and security in their vehicles. The Company recently announced that it has entered into an agreement with Amazon Web Services, Inc. (“AWS”) to develop and market BlackBerry IVY™, an intelligent vehicle data platform leveraging BlackBerry QNX’s automotive capabilities. BlackBerry IVY will allow automakers to safely access a vehicle’s sensor data, normalize it, and apply machine learning to generate and share predictive insights and inferences. Automakers and developers will be able to use this information to create responsive in-vehicle services that enhance driver and passenger experiences. BlackBerry IVY will support multiple vehicle operating systems and multi-cloud deployments in order to ensure compatibility across vehicle models and brands. The Company expects to release an early access version of BlackBerry IVY in October 2021, followed by a commercial release in February 2022 with installations of BlackBerry IVY to begin in 2023 model year vehicles. BlackBerry QNX is also a preferred supplier of embedded systems for companies building medical devices, train-control systems, industrial robots, hardware security modules, building automation systems, green energy solutions, and other mission-critical applications. In addition to BlackBerry QNX, BTS includes BlackBerry Certicom® cryptography and key management products and the BlackBerry Radar® asset monitoring solution. BlackBerry Certicom leverages patented elliptic curve cryptography to provide device security, anti-counterfeiting and product authentication solutions. BlackBerry Certicom’s offerings include its managed public key infrastructure (“PKI”) platform, key management and provisioning technology that helps customers to protect the integrity of their silicon chips and devices from the point of manufacturing through the device life cycle. BlackBerry Certicom’s secure key provisioning, code signing and security credential management system services protect next-generation connected cars, critical infrastructure and IoT deployments from product counterfeiting, re-manufacturing and unauthorized network access. BlackBerry Radar is a family of asset monitoring and telematics solutions for the transportation and logistics industry. The BlackBerry Radar solution includes devices and secure cloud-based dashboards for tracking containers, trailers, chassis, flatbeds and heavy machinery, for reporting locations and sensor data, and for enabling custom alerts and fleet management analytics. BTS solutions also include BlackBerry Jarvis™, a cloud-based binary static application security testing platform that identifies vulnerabilities in deployed binary software used in automobiles and other embedded applications, and BlackBerry Messenger (BBM®) Enterprise, an enterprise-grade secure instant messaging solution for messaging, voice and video. Secure Communications Secure Communications consists of BlackBerry® AtHoc®, BlackBerry® Alert and SecuSUITE. BlackBerry AtHoc and BlackBerry Alert are secure critical event management solutions that enable people, devices and organizations to exchange critical information in real time during business continuity and life safety operations. The platforms securely connect with a diverse set of endpoints to distribute emergency mass notifications, improve personnel accountability and facilitate the bidirectional collection and sharing of data within and between organizations. BlackBerry AtHoc serves the requirements of the public sector market while BlackBerry Alert targets the commercial sector. SecuSUITE® for Government is a certified, multi-OS voice and text messaging solution with advanced encryption, anti-eavesdropping and continuous authentication capabilities, providing a maximum level of security on conventional mobile devices for public authorities and businesses. The BlackBerry Spark and BlackBerry IoT Solutions groups are both complemented by the enterprise and cybersecurity consulting services offered by the Company’s BlackBerry® Professional Services business. BlackBerry Professional Services provides platform-agnostic strategies to address mobility-based challenges, providing expert deployment support, end-to-end delivery (from system design to user training), application consulting, and experienced project management. The Company’s 6 cybersecurity consulting services and tools, combined with its other security solutions, help customers identify the latest cybersecurity threats, test for vulnerabilities, develop risk-appropriate mitigations, maintain IT security standards and techniques, and defend against the risk of future attacks. Beginning in the first quarter of fiscal 2022, the Company intends to describe the Software and Services group as consisting of the Company’s Cyber Security business and the BTS business. Cyber Security will consist of BlackBerry Spark together with BlackBerry AtHoc, BlackBerry Alert and SecuSUITE, and the BlackBerry IoT Solutions and Secure Communications nomenclature will no longer apply or be used. Licensing and Other The Company’s Licensing business is responsible for the management and monetization of the Company’s global patent portfolio. The patent portfolio continues to provide a competitive advantage in the Company’s core product areas as well as providing leverage in the development of future technologies and licensing programs in both core and adjacent vertical markets. The Company owns rights to an array of patented and patent pending technologies which include, but are not limited to, operating systems, networking infrastructure, acoustics, messaging, enterprise software, automotive subsystems, cybersecurity, cryptography and wireless communications. As of February 28, 2021, the Company owned approximately 38,000 worldwide patents and applications. In fiscal 2018, the Company entered into a strategic licensing agreement with Teletry under which Teletry may sublicense a broad range of the Company’s patents to a majority of global smartphone manufacturers. The Company also continues to operate its own licensing program outside of Teletry’s sublicensing rights and intends to increase recurring revenue from this program. The Company's technology licensing revenue from Teletry represented approximately 22% of the Company's net sales in fiscal 2021. In addition, in recent years, the Company has licensed its device security software and service suite and related brand assets to outsourcing partners who design, manufacture, market and provide customer support for BlackBerry-branded handsets featuring the Company’s secure Android™ software. The Company also entered into licensing arrangements with manufacturers of other devices with embedded BlackBerry cybersecurity technology. In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021, the Company entered into exclusive negotiations with a North American entity for the potential sale of a portion of the patent portfolio relating primarily to non-core or legacy mobile devices, messaging and wireless networking technologies. The Company expects to retain rights to use these patents if a transaction is completed and does not intend to sell patents associated with the Company’s current Software and Services business. Negotiations are ongoing and there can be no assurance that the Company will reach a definitive agreement or that a transaction will be consummated. The Company’s Other business generates revenue from SAF charged to subscribers using the Company’s legacy BlackBerry 7 and prior BlackBerry operating systems. Sales, Marketing, Distribution and Customers The Company primarily generates revenue from the licensing of enterprise software and sales of associated services, including its endpoint management and cybersecurity solutions, BlackBerry QNX software for the embedded market, technology licensing and professional consulting services. The Company focuses on strategic industries with vertical-specific use cases, including regulated enterprise markets such as financial services, government, healthcare, professional services and transportation, and other markets where embedded software and critical infrastructure are important, such as utilities, mining and manufacturing. The Company licenses the BlackBerry Spark platform, including its individual components and complementary third-party applications, through a geographically-dispersed direct sales force, value-added resellers, managed security service providers and alliance partners. The Company continues to build its global BlackBerry Partner Program for resellers and distributors to bolster its direct sales and marketing efforts. The Company also licenses its enterprise software and services through global wireless communications carriers, which are able to bill separately for BlackBerry UEM services, and other distribution partners around the world. The Company licenses BlackBerry QNX and BlackBerry Certicom technology and provides professional engineering services to OEM customers in the automotive, mobile and other embedded software markets via a direct sales force and indirectly through channel partnerships. The licenses are primarily monetized as royalties on units shipped and through project development seats, tools and maintenance fees. The Company markets and sells its BlackBerry Radar secure asset monitoring products and services to enterprise users through its internal sales force as well as through third party distribution channels. 7 Competitive Strengths Key competitive factors important to the Company across its businesses include product features (including security features), relative price and performance, product quality and reliability, compatibility across ecosystems, service and support, and corporate reputation. The Company believes that it delivers the broadest set of security capabilities and visibility in the market, covering users, devices, networks, apps and data. BlackBerry Spark The BlackBerry Spark platform establishes the most complete security controls in any connected IoT environment and meets a growing market demand for a comprehensive solution that integrates unified endpoint security and endpoint management capabilities in a single console with visibility across all endpoints. The platform is differentiated through its use of a zero-trust architecture that uniquely combines intelligent security with a user experience that requires little to no support from end users or IT administrators, simplifying management and reducing costs. The BlackBerry Cyber Suite leverages Cylance AI, machine learning and automation to provide improved cyber threat prevention and remediation, and can help users to understand risks, make contextual decisions and dynamically apply policy controls with no user interruption, mitigating risks before they materialize. The Company trains its AI model against data lakes containing billions of files so that it learns to autonomously convict, or not convict, files prior to their execution. Unlike traditional signature-based cybersecurity technology, this prevention-oriented approach is able to protect enterprises from malicious zero-day payloads before they are deployed, and even when protected endpoints are offline. Additionally, detection and response decisions are pushed down to the endpoint, minimizing response latency so that a minor security event can be addressed before it becomes a widespread incident. BlackBerry Protect has earned Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (“FedRAMP”) authorization. The BlackBerry Spark UEM Suite includes leading unified endpoint management, secure business productivity, application containerization, secure collaboration and digital rights management capabilities. BlackBerry UEM has earned National Information Assurance Partnership (“NIAP”) certification and is the only mobile device management solution on the U.S. Department of Defense Information Network’s Approved Product List. The Company also provides a full development solution for the creation and retrofitting of apps for use in a container and offers an extensive library of secure enterprise applications. The inclusion of a sophisticated network operations center in the BlackBerry infrastructure is also a key differentiator. The Company pioneered the use of this architecture to route messages reliably and efficiently to and from mobile devices, and over time has expanded capabilities to enable end-to-end secure communications between endpoints and applications and enterprise networks. BlackBerry IoT Solutions In the embedded software industry, systems are becoming increasingly connected and complex, with software being used for functions that were previously performed by hardware, driving new functional safety considerations. BlackBerry QNX is recognized for attaining the highest levels of security certifications and approvals for many of its embedded products and is the leader in safety-certified, secure and reliable software for the automotive industry. BlackBerry QNX is a trusted supplier of operating systems, hypervisors, development tools and support to automotive OEMs and Tier 1 vendors and to the general embedded market. BlackBerry QNX technology is embedded in over 175 million cars. The BlackBerry AtHoc and BlackBerry Alert platforms are mobile and scalable, integrate with legacy systems and support on-premise and cloud-based deployments. With available incident management and encrypted end-to-end instant messaging capabilities, the platforms offer a suite of secure crisis communication services to meet the growing number of use cases for emergency or mass notifications. BlackBerry AtHoc has received FedRAMP certification and is the leading provider of network-centric, interactive crisis communication to the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, among other governmental bodies. BlackBerry AtHoc helps to protect more than 70% of U.S. government personnel. The Company’s SecuSUITE technology has been certified to be compliant with the Common Criteria protection profile for VoIP applications and SIP servers. It has also earned NIAP certification and has been placed on the National Security Agency’s Commercial Solutions for Classified Program component list of products certified for use on classified systems. Competition The Company is engaged in markets that are highly competitive and rapidly evolving. Frequent new product introductions and changes to endpoints, operating systems, applications, security threats, industry standards and the overall technology landscape result in continuously evolving customer requirements for mobile solutions. The Company competes with a broad range of vendors in each of its businesses. See “Competitive Strengths” above for a discussion of how the Company believes it differentiates itself from competitors in its various businesses. 8 With the BlackBerry UEM Suite, the Company competes primarily with providers of enterprise software solutions. BlackBerry’s UES Technology, including the BlackBerry Cyber Suite, competes with various types of providers, including: traditional signature-based antivirus vendors and identity management; vendors whose business focuses almost solely on EPP; EDR vendors, which primarily focus on continuous monitoring and human response to advanced security threats; companies that provide endpoint systems management; and large network security providers, which have entered the market primarily through acquisition. The Company’s BlackBerry QNX automotive business competes principally with providers of embedded software that employ customized Linux open-source operating systems for the transportation and logistics industry, and with Google’s Android Automotive OS. See Part 1, Item 1A “Risk Factors - The Company faces intense competition ”. Product Design, Engineering and Research and Development The Company’s research and development (“R&D”) strategy seeks to provide broad market applications for products derived from its technology base. The Company dedicates a major portion of its R&D investments to the development of software products and services for the BlackBerry Spark platform and BlackBerry IoT solutions that meet the needs of both enterprise IT departments and end users. Solutions include leading security capabilities at each level of the platform in order to address the needs of customers for securing devices, applications, content and work data at rest and in transit. The Company makes significant investments to support its cybersecurity solutions and is committed to hiring and retaining top data scientists and engineers in the areas of artificial intelligence and machine learning. R&D investments at BlackBerry QNX are increasingly focused on software innovations for autonomous and connected vehicles. The Company’s investment in longer term research is, in part, supported by taking advantage of specific government financial assistance programs where available. For example, the Company participates in the Strategic Innovation Fund program of the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada. For additional information, see Note 11 to the Consolidated Financial Statements. Third Party Software Developers The Company offers the BlackBerry Development Platform, an enterprise-grade toolset which enables application developers and ISVs to build secure, powerful and customized solutions for almost every use case and to commercialize them on the BlackBerry® Marketplace for Enterprise Software, which contains over 130 enterprise applications and solutions. The platform includes the BlackBerry Dynamics software development kit (“SDK”), which allows developers to integrate BlackBerry security into their enterprise applications, resulting in a managed application where corporate data is protected. The platform also includes SDKs for BlackBerry UEM, BlackBerry Workspaces, BlackBerry AtHoc and other products. The primary development platform for BlackBerry QNX-based systems is the QNX® Software Development Platform (SDP), which includes the QNX Neutrino Realtime Operating System and the QNX Momentics® Tool Suite. The QNX SDP is complemented by QNX® Hypervisor, QNX® OS for Safety, QNX® Hypervisor for Safety, QNX® Acoustics Management Platform and QNX® Platform for Digital Cockpits and other products. To support BlackBerry UES products, the Company offers the BlackBerry Endpoint ISV Technology Integration program featuring an application programming interface (“API”) development platform that enables developers and ISVs to develop robust extensible security integrations for BlackBerry UES, creating results-based offerings for targeted use cases. Completed integrations are shared with the user community and promoted to market partners and AWS Marketplace opportunities. During fiscal 2021, the Company launched the beta program for its Spark SDK, a new in-app protection solution powered by the Company’s enterprise security assessment framework. The Spark SDK enables mobile app developers to enhance their iOS and Android applications with a rich set of security capabilities to prevent device, application or user level attacks. The Company also expanded its developer partner program with the introduction of the BlackBerry AtHoc Development Partner Program, which invites partners to integrate with the BlackBerry AtHoc service and allows them to create alerts based on more event types or to leverage alerting capabilities based on critical events from within other systems. The Company also offers BlackBerry® Spark Communications Services to application developers to integrate the secure messaging, voice and video capabilities of BBM Enterprise into their applications and services. Intellectual Property The protection of intellectual property is an important part of the Company’s operations. The policy of the Company is to apply for patents, acquire and/or seek other appropriate proprietary or statutory protection when it develops valuable new or improved technology. The Company believes that the rapid pace of technological change in the industries in which the Company operates makes patent and trade secret protection important, and that this protection must be supported by other means including the ability to attract and retain qualified personnel, new product introductions and frequent product enhancements. 9 The Company believes that its patent portfolio continues to provide a competitive advantage in its core product areas as well as provide leverage in the development of future technologies. The Company does not believe that it is dependent upon a single patent or even a few patents and instead primarily depends upon its extensive know-how, innovative culture, and technical leadership. The Company protects its technology through a combination of patents, designs, copyrights, trade secrets, confidentiality procedures and contractual arrangements. The Company seeks to patent key concepts, components, protocols, processes and other inventions that it considers to have commercial value or that will likely give the Company a technological advantage. Although the Company applies for patent protection primarily in Canada, Europe and the United States, the Company has filed, and will continue to file, patent applications in other countries where there exists a strategic technological or business reason to do so. To broadly protect the Company’s inventions, the Company has a team of in-house patent attorneys and also consults with outside patent attorneys who interact with employees, review invention disclosures and prepare patent applications on a broad array of core technologies and competencies. As a result, the Company owns rights to an array of patented and patent pending technologies which include, but are not limited to, operating systems, networking infrastructure, acoustics, messaging, enterprise software, automotive subsystems, cybersecurity and wireless communications. As of February 28, 2021, the Company owned approximately 38,000 worldwide patents and applications. It is the Company’s general practice to enter into confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements with its employees, consultants, contract manufacturers, customers, potential customers and others to attempt to limit access to, and distribution of, its proprietary information. In addition, the Company generally enters into agreements with employees that include an assignment to the Company of all intellectual property developed in the course of employment. In fiscal 2018, the Company entered into a strategic licensing agreement with Teletry under which Teletry may sublicense a broad range of the Company’s patents to a majority of global smartphone manufacturers. The Company also continues to operate its own licensing program outside of Teletry’s sublicensing rights. The Company does not rely primarily on patents or other intellectual property rights to protect or establish its market position; however, it is prepared to enforce its intellectual property rights in certain technologies when attempts to negotiate mutually agreeable licenses are not successful. The Company also enters into inbound licensing agreements related to technology and intellectual property rights, including agreements to obtain rights that may be necessary to produce and sell products. Regulatory Environment Foreign and domestic laws and regulations apply to many aspects of the Company’s business. The Company collects and uses a wide variety of information for various purposes in its business, including to help ensure the integrity of its services and to provide features and functionality to customers. This aspect of the Company’s business is subject to a broad array of evolving privacy and data protection laws, including the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, the proposed Canadian Consumer Privacy Protection Act, regional privacy frameworks such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Privacy Framework, and national and state laws within the United States, including the California Privacy Rights Act. These laws impose strict operational requirements and can provide for significant penalties for non-compliance. Elements of these evolving laws and regulations, as well as their interpretation and enforcement, remain unclear and the Company may be required to modify its practices to comply with them in the future. The Company is also subject to numerous international trade laws and regulations, including, without limitation, tariffs, trade sanctions, export controls and technology transfer restrictions, as well as anti-corruption legislation such as the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and Canada’s Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act. Additionally, the Company is subject to domestic and international laws relating to environmental protection and the proliferation of hazardous substances. In parts of Europe, North America, Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region, the Company is obligated to comply with substance restrictions, packaging regulations, energy efficiency ratings and certain product take-back and recycling requirements, principally for the BlackBerry Radar business. The U.S. Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act also requires the Company to comply with certain due diligence and disclosure obligations with respect to the use of conflict minerals. Furthermore, the Company may be subject to a variety of local laws unknown to the Company in foreign jurisdictions where customers are located. Any actual or perceived failure to comply with these requirements may result in, among other things, revocation of required licenses or registrations, loss of approved status, private litigation, regulatory or governmental investigations, administrative enforcement actions, sanctions, civil and criminal liability, and constraints on the Company’s operations. It is also possible that current or future laws or regulations could be interpreted or applied in a manner that would prohibit, alter, or impair the Company’s existing or planned products and services, or that could require the Company to undertake costly, time-consuming or otherwise burdensome compliance measures. 10 Corporate Responsibility The Company observes the highest ethical standards in its operations and has adopted policies and practices that require the same of its business partners. The Company’s business is based on trust, and the Company maintains its position as a global leader in data security and privacy by developing new technologies, complying with established and evolving regulatory frameworks, acting with integrity and adhering to responsible business practices. See also “Ethical Business Conduct and Code of Business Standards and Principles” in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. The Company is committed to operating in a sustainable way that respects the environment, the Company’s employees and business partners, and the communities in which the Company operates around the world. To honor this commitment, the Company maintains a variety of programs to identify, execute and maintain sustainable initiatives and to reduce the environmental impact of its products throughout the product lifecycle. In fiscal 2020, the Company joined the United Nations Global Compact (“UNGC”) and committed to the ten principles of the UNGC and to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals that are relevant to the Company’s business. In its procurement activities, the Company engages with its suppliers to conduct due diligence into the source of the so-called “conflict minerals” (which currently include the minerals from which gold, tantalum, tin, and tungsten are derived) that are necessary to the functionality or production of the Company’s hardware products, principally for the BlackBerry Radar business. The Company also seeks to make a positive impact in the communities in which it operates by investing in strategic charitable partnerships, supporting charitable endeavours by employees, and building community relationships through local offices. The Company has formalized a number of policies to reflect its commitment to responsible business practices, including a Privacy Policy, Supplier Code of Conduct, Human Rights Policy, Equal Employment Policy and Supplier Diversity Policy, and periodically issues a corporate responsibility report. Through the report, the Company provides visibility on its environmental, social and governance initiatives such as mitigating its corporate carbon footprint and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, improving water sanitation and fostering diversity. These documents and policies relating to the Company’s corporate responsibility initiatives can be viewed on the Company’s website at https://www.blackberry.com/us/en/company/corporate-responsibility and are not incorporated by reference in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Information about our Executive Officers The Company made two executive officer appointments during fiscal 2021, naming Tom Eacobacci as President and Marjorie Dickman as Chief Government Affairs and Public Policy Officer. The following table sets forth the name, province or state, and country of residence of each executive officer of the Company and their respective positions and offices held with the Company and their principal occupations during the last five years. Name and Residence Current Position with Company Principal Occupation During the Last Five Years (other than Current Position with Company) John S. Chen California, USA Chief Executive Officer; Executive Chair/Director (since 2013) Randall Cook California, USA Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary General Counsel, Calypso Technology (2017 to 2018) Marjorie Dickman Washington D.C., USA Chief Government Affairs and Public Policy Officer Global Director and Associate General Counsel, IoT and Automated Driving Policy, Intel (2017-2020); Global Director and Managing Counsel, IoT and Automated Driving Policy, Intel (2015-2017) Thomas Eacobacci Florida, USA President President, Americas, Citrix (2018-2020); VP Sales Strategy & Operations, Citrix (2014-2017) Sai Yuen (Billy) Ho California, USA Executive Vice President, Product Engineering, BlackBerry Spark Steve Rai Ontario, Canada Chief Financial Officer Deputy Chief Financial Officer (2019), Vice President and Corporate Controller (2014-2019) Nita White-Ivy California, USA Chief Human Resources Officer 11 Mark Wilson California, USA Chief Marketing Officer Senior Vice President, Marketing, BlackBerry Limited (2014 to 2017) Human Capital The Company’s 3,497 employees as of February 28, 2021 work as a team in 21 countries worldwide, of which approximately 51% are in Canada, 32% are in the U.S., and the remaining 17% are outside of North America. The Company offers employees a fair, equitable and competitive total rewards program, designed to recognize and reward both individual and company performance. The Company provides a range of financial and benefit programs such as its employee share purchase program, employee recognition programs, retirement savings plans, family-friendly leave policies, health and wellness programs, employee and family assistance program, as well as corporate discounts, all designed to support the overall wellness of the Company’s employees and their families. The Company embraces a diverse and inclusive workplace, providing a welcoming environment in which every individual is valued and respected, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, age, veteran status, disability status or any other protected element of diversity. The Company recognizes diversity, equity and inclusion as business imperatives and commits to attract, develop, and retain the best and brightest talent. The Company strives to maintain an environment where people are valued, have a sense of belonging, and feel they can bring their authentic selves to work, every day. The Company is committed to maintaining a respectful and productive work environment free from discrimination and harassment, supported by diversity and inclusion unconscious bias training, outreach and partnership programs like the Company’s Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) and Indigenous students awards programs, and development opportunities such as the Taking the Stage program for female and aspiring leaders. The Company does not tolerate, condone, or ignore workplace discrimination or harassment or any unlawful behavior and investigates all complaints regarding such conduct in a timely manner. The Company believes career development is unique and personal for each employee. The Company offers career development and growth in many forms such as job shadowing, job rotation, stretch assignments, enhanced scope or responsibility, networking, lateral movement, promotions, and volunteering. The Company encourages opportunities for employees to broaden their scope and understanding of the business, and to build additional skills to attain their career aspirations. Employees are supported in their growth and development through the Company’s tuition and educational reimbursement programs, subsidies for professional association memberships, global mentorship program, career planning services, and various training programs. The Company is honored that its determination to support smart, dedicated, creative employees who are driven to succeed has been recognized through numerous awards, including Best & Brightest Companies to Work For (2016 - 2020), Best & Brightest Companies in Wellness (2016 - 2020), Canada’s Top 100 Employers for Young People, Canada’s Top 100 Greenest Employers (2016 - 2020), among others. The Company also takes pride in its award-winning paid co-op and intern student program, through which the Company invests in the personal and professional development of the next generation of BlackBerry talent. Building upon its culture of teamwork, the Company is a proud and committed civic leader. BlackBerry employees are passionate, mobilized and empowered by their involvement in corporate-run community initiatives to actively participate in volunteer activities and environmentally friendly initiatives where they live and work. Together with its team of community-minded employees, the Company believes there is great potential to make lasting local impacts. Available Information Our internet address is www.blackberry.com. Our website is included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K as an inactive textual reference only. Information contained on our website is not incorporated by reference in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. As of March 1, 2020, the Company began reporting with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) as a domestic issuer instead of a foreign private issuer. Prior to that date, the Company was a foreign private issuer and, in compliance with SEC regulations, furnished its interim financial statements on Form 6-K and filed its Annual Report on Form 40-F. The Company continues to be a reporting issuer subject to continuous disclosure obligations under applicable Canadian securities laws. Access to our Annual Reports on Form 10-K and 40-F, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and 6-K, Current Reports on Form 8-K, supplemental financial information, earnings press releases, and amendments to these reports filed with or furnished to the SEC may be obtained free of charge as soon as is reasonably practical after we electronically file or furnish them through the Investors section of our website at www.blackberry.com/ca/en/company/investors. In addition, our filings with the SEC may be accessed through the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov and our filings with the Canadian Securities Administrators (“CSA”) may be accessed through the CSA’s System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval (“SEDAR”) at www.sedar.com. Except for the documents specifically incorporated by reference into this Annual Report, information contained on the SEC or CSA 12 websites is not incorporated by reference in the Annual Report on Form 10-K and should not be considered to be a part of the Annual Report. All statements made in any of our securities filings, including all forward-looking statements or information, are made as of the date of the document in which the statement is included, and we do not assume or undertake any obligation to update any of those statements or documents unless we are required to do so by applicable law.