BlackBerry (NADSDAQ:BBRY) fans may be worried about the future of the company after Apple and IBM announced a deal which will see the companies aim directly at BlackBerry’s core business. The Canadian handset maker has had a rough couple of years, and it just seemed to be settling into a comeback strategy as this deal was announced. Fans of the company should not be overly worried, however, as their firm is still in a strong position in the EMM market.

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and IBM (NYSE:IBM) are heavyweights. Apple has all of the cool and user friendliness that anyone could ever hope for; IBM has the enterprise expertise and millions of software packages that corporations crave. Given that partnership across the field, what can BlackBerry hope to offer to corporate customers? The answer lies not in the absolute, but in the relative.

Blackberry Is Still Ahead

Right now, the Apple, IBM partnership has zero customers. BlackBerry may have shed business in recent years, but the company is still a major contractor. That puts the company in a good position to continue its turnaround. With its brand already at the forefront of the minds of many IT managers, and its systems already deployed, Blackberry is in a decent position already.

The enterprise market is not zero-sum. There will not be a single absolute winner as there was with Microsoft twenty years ago. Too many companies with decent offerings are in the market. There will be competition, and, in order to survive, all BlackBerry needs to do is make sure it competes. With its Enterprise Mobility Management system still one of the best, if not the best out there, BlackBerry is ahead of Apple and IBM and it plans to stay that way.

Apple, IBM Partnership Strength Is Not Clear

The strength of the partnership between IBM and Apple isn’t clear, and the form that it will take has not really been described either. It may simply involve IBM selling iPhones preloaded with IBM applications to its customers. In that case, BlackBerry won’t be all that afraid. The company was not going to see many sales out of an IBM operation anyway.

A partnership between Apple and IBM collapsed before, and it’s not clear how long this enterprise deal will last. Apple has made several attempts to enter the enterprise market in the past, but all of them have been without real conviction. The company may see a partnership which requires real software spending on its part and abandon the project.

BlackBerry fans should not be afraid of the Apple, IBM partnership; they should be happy about it. If Apple reckons that there’s money in the market, there should be enough for BlackBerry too, as long as the company stays competitive.

Disclosure: Author represents that he has no position in any stocks mentioned in this article at the time this article was submitted