Here, hear!

That's exactly the reason why I'm watching BB10 with great interest... just 3 months after BB10's initial launch v10.1 is out already and 10.2 is coming in a couple of months (SDK in early June, OS update a month or two later), which, among other things, will bring full Android 4.2.2 compatibility (you remember BB10 runs Android apps, right?)... and then there's this rumored 5" 1080p quad-core BB10 device, already in testing (Z15?)..

I'm so fed up with Android's disjointed-disparate communication features - which is still far ahead of iOS crude, basic servcies -, coupled with its ever-present random lags that I have to admit: these two things, full Android 4.2 runtime support and a future-proof high-end (quad-core, 1080p) hardware would immediately make me switch to BB10.

Re: the fat lady is warming up

Another clueless armachair "analyst" opinion...?

FYI BlackBerry is apparently shipping 1-2 MILLION devices per month, with their keyboard-sporting Q10 having a 3:1 ratio over the Z10 - they should sell anywhere between 10-20 million devices this fiscal year which I consider pretty healthy for any fat lady...

Re: Google+ failed? Nobody told Google or the users

Well, define "success"... if you take Google's relentless whoring of G+ in every conceivable online context, the PITA to avoid it when using their services, how much money they are keep throwing into adding more and more free stuff to sweeten the deal and then you look at the utter lack of buzz or noise generated by G+ I would definitely call it a failing investment...

Re: "One million shipped..."

"I cant see anything suggesting WP or BB are creating any competitive pressure or driving innovation outside their own products... and for one of them that innovation seems headed in the wrong direction!"

I have no idea what are you talking about but I suspect neither do you - who's headed where?

I'd also bet you never played with a Z10 for 10-15 minutes, otherwise you'd know BB10's UI, while still needs some refinement, is nothing short of being brilliantly simple and effective, even with one-hand - and I'm a hardcore Android user. Z10's comm center (The Hub) is pretty far ahead of Android's disparate Messaging, Talk, Gmail, Email etc apps (and Android is already ahead of iOS' utter crap comm features), not to mention BB10's built-in project mgmgt/information/organizer/whatnot/manager (I think it's called Remember), working in tandem with calendar, emails, pics whatnot (yes, it can sync with Evernote)... none of them are perfect but they already show BB still got plenty of smart, innovative minds - conversely can you name ONE thing Apple "innovated' in the past few years (they never invented anything, let's generously stick with 'innovation' for now)...?

The only thing that might come close is probably Siri but even that was a usual 'lets-make-a-better-copycat' move from, Apple (voice control was already available on phones running as early as Windows CE or Palm OS as I recall)...

...as for WP I cannot really say much, to each his own - its home page as annoying as possible, the fact that every single new OS version requires a brand new handset is downright ridiculous, just shows how utterly broken MSFT is inside, all the way to the top.

Re: Finally - someone steps on these cockroaches aka "analysts"...

Guess what, THEY ARE SCUMBAGS as Reuters just unearthed several dirty stories from their past: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/blackberry-ask-regulators-probe-report-124314147.html

My fav part:

"While a number of brokerage firms have in recent weeks published reports saying Z10 sales in the U.S. market are slow, none of them have flagged any major concerns about returns.

Since 2007, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the industry body that oversees broker-dealers, has fined Detwiler over $250,000 and has cited it for several compliance violations over the past decade.

In December 2011, FINRA sanctioned Detwiler for failing to properly supervise its employees and for allowing its brokers to make more trades than necessary in clients' accounts to boost commissions during a period between 2006 and 2009.

In 2007, the firm, which was then called Detwiler Mitchell Fenton & Graves, settled administrative proceedings that the SEC brought against it for failing to supervise Bradford Bleidt, a former employee who had been simultaneously running a $30 million Ponzi scheme."

Ouch - thanks for confirming my suspicion, Yahoo.

Re: More being returned than currently being sold...

...but apparently it's not true at all.

BB basically said "publish your numbers, we are not afraid of them" and these scumbags refused to even discuss their methodology, much less show anything to anyone.

Y'know, "put up or shut up" rule.

Since they neither put up nor shut up BB had to move and actually they did the right thing by referring them to the SEC and its Canadian equivalent (instead of bitching about it endlessly.)

Now that shit did hit the fan for them I'm very curious what this company who provides "Institutional Research, Trading, Investment Management and related Brokerage services to select clients and institutions" will show to the SEC about their "direct primary research and leverage proprietary analytic techniques" which resulted in such extreme BS claims...

...pass the popcorn, please.

Re: But

Utter nonsense - no wonder you are just a trolling AC...

Re: My Prediction

I never understood how FB Home should be the Holy Grail for most of the market... business people? Mom&Pop? Corporate world? IT folks? iDrones? They are all out, for sure.

What's left, millions of teens/frat boys? There, have at it, Sugarhill.

"A dying phone for a dying company"

...BlackBerry has 80 million users, out of which 18 million are Enterprise subscribers, just released a brand-new OS and handset and sold 1-2 million units in its first 2-3 weeks, with half of its new customers are reportedly converting from Android and iPhones - aye, a dying company...

...probably the most hilarious comment this week - and it's only Monday. :)

Re: Longevity

You're 1) blowing things out of proportions 2) ignoring the fact that this is pre-BB10/Z10 numbers for Blackberry.

As far as I can tell they had a pretty successful launch last month here in the US and a very good one beforehand - and I'm an Android guy,I always hated BBs for their idiotic, outdated OS and devices (I was very impressed with WebOS but only bought a Touchpad on firesale, Pres were always built on rather mediocre hardware...but. I had more than my fair share of the usual force-closed, crappy Android apps, their old WinMo-style slowdowns etc so I decided to keep an open mind and on one of my lunch break last week I went to a TMO store (Manhattan) and

1. first I had to get the guy to hook up a charger to their SINGLE display Z10 because it was fully discharged (yes, you read it right.)

2. go out and have a lunch because he said it is at least 10 minutes until I can use it (might be just he was clueless)

3. when I was back it was on in Retail Display Mode - which is the most annoying lick-based video demo crap I've ever seen

4. he didn't know the pass to deactivate it so we had to call another store person

5. she found the pass but it simply sent it into a reboot, ending up in the same mode (password was OK, I found it online in 30 seconds)

6. so eventually I had to hack my way out of this mode by pushing/holding the voice control and requesting a browser...

...and voila, I was out, running free.

I played about half an hour with the Z10 and I have to admit I was *VERY* impressed.

The BB10 OS, more precisely its swipe-based UI is simply *BRILLIANT*, way less clunky than my JB-based Xperia T, I am simply speechless when idiot reviewers claim it comes with "steep learning curve" - it's something that I picked up in about 10 minutes, without ever asking a question from store people or viewing any help, videos, nothing.

All I keep hearing about is 'missing Netflix in the app store' etc - but seriously, who cares? Besides as far as I know you can sideload most of your Android apps...

...although BB10 comes with its Map I'd still prefer sideloading Google Maps which, as I heard, works as long as you are using Maps and navigation but GPS is missing when you are using the look up feature (restaurants whatnot around you)... dunno but BB needs to beef up their Maps quickly.

Anyhow, I was so impressed I'd even give up my superior camera for that superior UI and unified communication Hub (email and IM are very heavy for me, both for work and personal) - and, again, I'm a pretty solid Android user. That being said I'll sit out until 10.1 comes out, in the meantime list up all my Android apps and take a look, how can I convert/sideload or simply switch to a BB10-based one... as long as BB can keep up the growth in the app store and keep bringing out new features in updates they will have a very worthy alternative on the table, I'm telling you (as I hard over half of their new customers are coming from Android and iOS already.)

Re: Nimbus is right

Read my prev posts about their past sales tactics (aka 'demo unit for testing'), if you think about it it's not that far away from anonymous trolling...

Re: CEO is holding the company back

I don't know about it but my dealings with him certainly left me thinking there might be something going on here, see my comment about the 'testing offer' (=tryout buy sales pitch) he gave us last year.

Re: Why the Nimbus bashing here?

Aye,

good luck trying to "get some kit running" - the CEO was giving me the classic BS sales trick, putting mandatory terms *after* we already agreed on a test kit, eventually backing out of the whole agreement when I refused to sign a mandatory purchase beforehand (it was hilarious, it even sanctioned a purchase in case of being a day late beyond the 15 (!!!) test days- just think of West Coast -> East Coast -> testing -> West Coast)... he was citing lack of 'resources' if I don't have the money upfront - quite telling, obviously he even lacked the resources to keep few boxes in circulation for testing purposes (of course we did have the budget but only a complete idiot would buy into his kind of BS sales pitch about a box we haven't even seen before, it was a complete joke at the end.)

Re: ... roughly akin to an Office 265 for Creative Suite

Yeah, it's the name with the average annual service outages already accounted for... while still being generous to MS' service track record, of course. :)

Re: What...?

BINGO, finally someone mentions Imagination. :) OTOH aside of Virgin I admit I could only name 2-3 big recent (and competing in fair/real market conditions) UK success stories too, but first would be PowerVR/Imagination...

Re: What...?

I said no state-sponsored scumbags (RR, BAE etc.)

Re: What...?

I said from Britain, not bought my multis HQ'd in Britain.

Xstrata - Swiss

BP - you kidding, right? A parasite built on colonial exploitation vs ARM's smart design? Serioulsy, it's offensive for ARM...

Barclays - BWAHAHAHA... sorry, couldn't resist but I'm sure it was a joke, comparing it with ARM's successes... :)

British Land Company - who...? And how is it some preeminent intn'l company for the rest of the world...?

Shell - see BP and Xstrata. ;)

Vodafone - this sounds like an example, I take it.

GlaxoSmithKline - perhaps yes... weren't they originally American... or founded by Americans...? Also big pharma's market raping techniques are hardly comparable with ARM's success in open competition, I think...

StanChart - another joke or another miss of more colonial-era leftover crooks, nowadays specialized in large-scale money-laundering for drug lords, Mexican cartels or just about anyone who pays the 'extra fees'...?

AstraZeneca - hardly Brit, but even ICI was just another state-sanctioned colonial leftover...

...so it's about 1, perhaps 2 more examples? Author was indeed way off branding ARM a typical British story, it seems. :)

Re: As odd as it sounds

Nope,

as in 'NO hoPE' - at least not as long as it's being run as a one giant Ballmerian Chimera: it's made up of ~3 different animals (desktop/server/systems, services and apps, mobile & entertainment), resulting in a monster with more than one head, running amok due to the lack of utterly clueless leadership...

...which is the direct result of Gates throwing the reins at the horse, in this case at the angry, bald, chair-throwing one. Let's face it: MS' current CEO wasted a DECADE not doing anything meaningful and I'm being very generous here - he pretty much destroyed its soul - and now it's trying to force-feed us with a bunch of half-baked junk like Windows 8 and, apparently, following it up with trying to put even more lipstick on this pig, using the only (stupid) formula he knows, throwing more and more money at everything, disregarding the more and more diminishing returns...

...BALLMLER MUST GO, urgently, ASAP or it will be very painful for MS.

TL,DR: ut sementem feceris ita metes.

PS: Vanity Fair's excellent piece from last Fall is a mandatory read about Ballmer/MSFT:

"How Microsoft Lost Its Mojo: Steve Ballmer And Corporate America's Most Spectacular Decline"

http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2012/08/microsoft-lost-mojo-steve-ballmer#1

Err, no

First, Dell's servers are actually really nice and their ProSupport is usually much better than HP's myriad of higher level support/CarePacks/whatnot - while HP's support people regularly told me they cannot do/won't do this and that Dell's support staff always starts with a WebEx and have no problems even trying to fix non-Dell-branded gear.

(Best story about HP: ProCurve support, brand new ~$30k switch, something does not add up when we were trying to validate 10Gb modules... support contract personnel picks up the phone, we worked a bit without much success then I asked him to set up a remote session to make it quicker and look around in the unit/fix it if possible - the answer is "we do not do that"... I ask back something along the line of "Come again? You are the support I am paying for" he then basically told me they are not allowed to do anything in customer units (sic!) "because what if we make a mistake?" (sic!!!)... I couldn't believe what I just heard... upon request he repeated it again and again, then his supervisor repeated it again... I had to take it up to 2-3 steps higher in the food chain to finally have someone admit it is indeed utterly retarded, someone really did screw up something along the chain... took days, of course.)

That being said yes, price is a very important factor albeit not the single deciding one - support plays a huge role when it comes to server and network rooms.

Re: Are you serious?

I'm using linux for 10-15 years and I'm still saying the same thing: wake me up when linux runs at least the same amount of games and apps Windows does. I WISH it would - unfortunately it has yet to happen, with linux still being nowhere near to even match OS X on the desktop when it comes to usability and user experience despite OS X is still being a niche compared to Windows 7 and its entire ecosystem...

Re: Dell gone? There's always...

Uhh, actually the one that has the best chance taking over Dell's position in case of a blowup is most likely Lenovo, not HP - they have the balls, the agility and the will.

HP lacks all of them especially since HP'S UTTERLY CLUELESS, FRIGHTENINGLY INCOMPETENT, CLUELESS BOARD pushed out Hurd, the last knowledgeable guy on trumped-up BS claims, only to first nominate a recently-fired ex-software sales guy who in just about two speeches he gave quickly ERASED 1/3RD OF HP'S VALUE (remember? entire $1.2B Palm investment was sent down the toilet due to his utter lack of clue about the market, PC division was almost put up on a stoop sale, all announced MONTHS AHEAD) then proceeded to make the most incredibly retarded purchase of the industry, to buy a near-worthless UK auditing firm specialized in cheating for almost ~$9B which, not too surprisingly for anyone who knows these firms, turn out to be a complete fraud (again, it was their business model, to help companies to cheat, lie in order to evade paying taxes.)

Not content on resting on their laurels/newly found fame - of being the MOST UTTERLY CLUELESS BOARD OF THE ENTIRE INDUSTRY - these @ss-backward clowns (= HP's board members) topped it off by replacing the glorified sales guy with a glorified sales woman, their then-paid "board advisor", previously famous for pissing away 2.5 BEEEELIONS of eBay's money on Skype (her successor eventually sold it for $1.9B, retaining ~1/3rd and if it weren't for Andreessen-Horowitz/Silver Lake's golden deal with MS' insane $8.5B purchase of Skype eBay would have lost a boatload of money on it.) Fear nothing, Meg Whitman declared turnaround is just around the corner - a year later that corner looked more and more elusive, farther and farther away, she admitted, sending HP's stocks into new lows again...

...in the meantime the entire world+dog moved onto mobile systems, running Android and iOS, so with their $1.2B Palm investment still sitting in their portfolio as a shut project what did this glorified aging sales lady do?

Yep, you've guessed right, the exact opposite of the most logical decision - instead of salvaging their Palm/WebOS investment and restarting development etc she just ditched the entire dev group, turning some of the code into open source and selling the rest to LG to be used in TVs for ashtray change and - wait, wait for it - decided to release...

....WINDOWS 8 TABLETS. Yes, you are reading it right, the world's WORST-SELLING TABLET, with zero differentiation whatsoever, spending ANOTHER gazillion development bucks on developing ANOTHER bland tablet nobody wants to buy.

Let's face it: unless something radical happens and HP'S UTTERLY CLUELESS, CRIMINALLY INCOMPETENT BOARD is thrown out HP is DONE in ~5 years.

As for Dell my guess is that Michael Dell is very well aware of this short-term-oriented, retarded stock-jock investor view hence his move to take Dell private - no need to fear a similarly retarded board takeover in HP's fashion, they can focus on building something worthy of a couple of years investment...

Re: <Yawn>

Umm

analyst:

a bean-counting bloke trying to find his 'niche' among the many markets and segments, armed only with a tad more understanding than a totally clueless person but a tad less than an enthusiastic home user and unwilling to ever listen to anyone with technical expertise (eg engineers, management etc) who's not interested in short-term gains or in his pitiful game to play up his own positions.

In short the so-called 'analyst' is really a clueless bean-counter or less - being called an 'analyst' is pretty much a derogatory term if he works for these hilarious 'market research' outlet...

Re: Errr, no...

Not only that but I was talking about x264 - something he didn't even understand. ;)

Re: Errr, no...

That fact that you don't even understand the difference between h.264 and x264 yet you try to loudmouth about it says more about you than anything else, you fool. =)

HINT: one is a library, the other one is a format...

...but hey, just keep on embarrassing yourself publicly, it's entertaining. :)

Re: Great move Elop

"Erm - but Nokia are back making a profit - largely thanks to Microsoft."

No, they are NOT, they are QUICKLY LOSING MARKET SHARE, and their most important segment, SMARTPHONE SALES ARE FALLING OFF A CLIFF.

Elop is a clueless corporate/MS shitkicker, nothing less, nothing more - cutting back on poeple, research and taking huge payoffs from MS will might turn the bottom line to black but it's KILLING OFF NOKIA, DELIBERATELY.

Lot of us suspected from the beginning: it's a win-win for MS, they give a chance to someone to try with WP but if didn't work (as expected) they will be able to pick up Nokia's excellent HW/design division and distrib channels for peanuts... great work, Elop, you clown.

Errr, no...

...iOS is rather a pile of crap nowadays, even compared to Android, it's a blast from the past with all its (Apple-typical) stupid limitations, restrictions, completely inexplicable stupid behavior (example: try playing back a regular x264-encoded mp4 video that plays fine on literally every other OS you throw it on, Android, Windows, WP, linux, even WebOS - but not on this crap called iOS unless you go and tweak it to hell, resulting in at least 20%+ bigger files than on any other OS); UI is just boring and indeed looks very outdated in 2013.

Ummm...

...and what way, actually? BB has pretty much nothing to do with the BB OS you are probably thinking of and iOS is indeed a boring, locked-down, limited UI and as a multimedia OS it's far the worse kind of junk out there.

Exactly. I'm already paying some low annual fee for extra ~20GB space on Google, they could throw this bone at least for us, paying customers.