What happens when BlackBerry gobbles up your startup?

You work at a startup, then out of nowhere 'BlackBerry' of all companies swoops in and buys you up for $59 million in cash. You're now an enterprise developer, and your work culture has entirely shifted. But what happens next?

That's the initial framing for a fascinating story shared by BlackBerry employee Uri Shaked who came to work at BlackBerry as part of the WatchDox acquisition which happened two years ago this very month in April 2015.

The piece is not endorsed or sponsored by BlackBerry, yet it's interesting to see how much research Shaked did to assemble his observations and understand the BlackBerry 'software' mission.

Shaked remarks in his piece, "...BlackBerry began starting the transition, which went way better than we were expecting. BlackBerry did a good job of doing the transition slowly and carefully, making sure that we didn't feel bombarded by the things that go along with corporate living all at once."

Beyond this Shaked goes into a more meta conversation about what it means to work for BlackBerry in 2017, and what it is BlackBerry does. Most of us are aware that software is the new BlackBerry but at a social gathering and amongst friends and family that software talk is often obfuscated by our preconceived notions about BlackBerry smartphones.

While Shaked works on BlackBerry Workspaces (formerly WatchDox) he goes through an eye-opening breakdown on BlackBerry QNX, the future of autonomous drive and other mobile efforts geared at the enterprise space. While there isn't a lot of new information here, getting the inside perspective on the John Chen's integration of these acquisitions and how employees have gone through a significant mindset change to align with the BlackBerry vision is incredibly interesting.

For the full effect, give it a read, it should take about 10 minutes to get through but you'll gain a great sense of perspective on BlackBerry and the way forward. When employees are this pumped and excited about the move to software and services you can't help but feel BlackBerry is on a strong path forward, with many more successes ahead in the years to come.

Read "I work for BlackBerry. Yes, they still exist."