John Chen

The BlackBerry Priv is now available for pre-order in the US, UK and Canada. To mark the occasion of the company's latest smartphone, and the first to use Android, BlackBerry CEO John Chen wrote a brief post for the company's official blog.

Chen talks about how they wanted the Priv to be highly secure while offering the larger number of apps that the Android platforms provides. Here is his blog post in full:

BlackBerry is the most trusted maker of secure hardware and software in the world today. World leaders including U.S. President Barack Obama, UK Prime Minister David Cameron, German Prime Minister Angela Merkel, leading government agencies, and the biggest businesses all depend on us.

I committed that we would release an Android phone only if we could make it, like everything else we produce: secure. We have – and so today is that day.

I'm proud to announce the world's first BlackBerry smartphone powered by Android, PRIV, is available for pre-order today.

PRIV will be the solution for smartphone users who are learning daily of the lack of privacy they have on their current devices. PRIV will be the answer for former BlackBerry users who miss the physical keyboard but want more apps. And we're responding to current – and prospective – BlackBerry users who need it all: choice, innovation, security, privacy and productivity.

Please visit www.blackberry.com/privacyon to learn more.

Source: Inside BlackBerry blog

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