Under Mr. Giamatteo's watch BlackBerry has cut more than US$150-million in annual costs and thinned its ranks – leaving its QNX division largely untouched – in part by selling its money-losing Cylance cybersecurity business that BlackBerry had purchased in 2018 for US$1.4 billion. That deal, the biggest in BlackBerry's history, was meant to cement Mr. Chen's legacy after the company exited the smartphone business to focus on software and services. But Cylance became a cash-sucking anchor.