BlackBerry, which you may recognize as 2006’s premier choice for smart phones, has been having a tough time as of late. Quickly losing ground to devices powered by Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS, the ailing company received what many viewed as a death blow in October of 2011, when a massive server outage left customers without email or messaging services for four days. CEO John Chen, forever the optimist, promises a new strategy will right the ship.

That strategy? Lean on their existing customers and hope they don’t make the switch to iPhone or Android.

“When it comes to enterprise, we’re still the leader,” said Chen. “Don’t be fooled by the competition’s rhetoric claiming to be more secure or having more experience than BlackBerry. With a global enterprise customer base exceeding 80,000, we have three times the number of customers compared to Good, AirWatch and MobileIron combined. This makes BlackBerry the leader in mobile-device management.”

Their advantage, Chen says, lies in the fact that BlackBerry’s devices have exclusive security clearances among clients with high security requirements, like government agencies.

“Many in the regulated industries — those with the most stringent security needs — still depend solely on BlackBerry to secure their mobile infrastructure. For governments, BlackBerry cannot just be replaced — we are the only MDM provider to obtain “Authority to Operate” on U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) networks. This means the DoD is only allowed to use BlackBerry. Across the globe, seven out of seven of the G7 governments are also BlackBerry customers.”

While technically true, governments (particularly the U.S.) may not be as wedded to BlackBerry as it appears. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Defense Department and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) all announced that they were dropping BlackBerry in favor of either Android or iOS devices.

Many contractors, themselves a significant portion of the federal workforce, have made the switch to either Android or Apple, with clearance to use the devices in all but the most secure government sites.

The news comes from an open letter to CNBC, wherein Chen preaches a view of unrelenting optimism for BlackBerry. “We’ve accomplished a great deal in these last couple months, and we’re positioned for the long haul,” said Chen. “We have a strong cash position with more than $3 billion on hand, a renewed spirit, and trusted technology, network and platform. I believe BlackBerry has a clear lane ahead of us to create new trails as a nimbler, more agile competitor.”

Part of that plan involves outsourcing hardware to iPhone manufacturer Foxconn, allowing BlackBerry to focus more on software development. On that front, things do appear to be looking up. According to Chen, in the last 60 days, over 40 million new iOS and Android users have registered to use BBM.

It should be noted that this is tantamount to placing a Nike sticker on a cooler, faster pair of Adidas sneakers.