John Chen (pictured), CEO of BlackBerry, said he is in early-stage talks with rivals about how to mount a response to the joint push into the enterprise space by Apple and IBM, according to the Financial Times (FT).

This could take the form of partnerships or collaboration, said Chen, but the BlackBerry boss didn’t reveal any names.

The alliance between the Cupertino giant and Big Blue has clearly ruffled BlackBerry’s feathers. The Canadian firm is depending heavily on enterprise services to revive its fortunes.

Apple and IBM will jointly develop more than 100 new apps for various industries including retail, healthcare, banking, travel and transportation, telecoms and insurance. The apps will start appearing in autumn when iOS 8 is launched.

Chen said the IBM-Apple tie-up validates what is a huge market. “It’s competition but it’s good competition and we are going to be more nimble,” he said. “You don’t want to be a strong guy in a market that is not growing.”

Chen added that BlackBerry was out of danger having almost completed its restructuring.

Speaking last month at the company’s conference call for fiscal Q1 2015 (three months ended 31 May), the BlackBerry boss said “all financial metrics show stabilisation”. He anticipated BlackBerry would return to profitability in fiscal 2016.