<p>John Chen, who became interim CEO of BlackBerry last month after the company abandoned plans to sell itself to its largest shareholder, has provided few details about how he intends to restore the dilapidated smartphone pioneer. But some early signs of his strategy are emerging.</p><p>The first Chen's late-November C-suite purge, which saw the ouster of COO Kristian Tear, CMO Frank Boulben and CFO Brian Bidulka, and the resignation of board member Roger "Our New CEO Isn't a Moron Like the Rest of You" Martin. News of the shake-up was released along with a comment from its orchestrator, offering the briefest of outlines of BlackBerry's path forward: "I will continue to align my senior management team and organizational structure, and refine the Company's strategy to ensure we deliver the best devices, mobile security and device management through BES 10, provide multi-platform messaging solutions with BBM, and expand adoption of QNX embedded systems."</p><p>Now we have the second evidence of that strategy in deployment. Overlooked amid last week's debut of BBM Channels, BlackBerry's latest addition to its still-popular BlackBerry Messaging application, was a bit of news that shows the troubled smartphone maker once again scrambling to find solid ground in a market it pioneered.</p><p>BlackBerry has inked a dozen deals that will see BBM preloaded on a bunch of Android handsets built by manufacturers in emerging markets like Africa, India, Indonesia, Latin America and the Middle East. Under the new arrangement, BBM will be installed on smartphones from the likes of Celkon, Micromax, Mito, Nexian and Zen. Not OEMs of particular renown in the West, but significant players in the emerging markets to which they cater.</p><p><a href="http://allthingsd.com/20131202/blackberry-targets-emerging-markets-in-bid-to-build-multi-platform-messaging/">Keep reading...</a></p><p>Read also:</p><p><a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57614220-94/blackberry-to-business-customers-we-are-very-much-alive-thank-you/">BlackBerry to business customers: &#039;We are very much alive, thank you&#039;</a> (CNET)</p><p><a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/blackberry-to-focus-on-business-users-chen-says/article15718415/">BlackBerry to focus on business users, Chen says</a> (The Globe and Mail)</p><p><a href="http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/2/5166910/blackberry-ceo-john-chen-says-company-very-much-alive">BlackBerry CEO John Chen says company is &#039;very much alive&#039; and returning to ...</a> (The Verge)</p><p>Explore: <a href="http://news.google.com/news/more?ncl=d52ki-FiEIcy8WMVD1SG1WAIsdx4M&ned=us">50 additional articles.</a></p>