Maybe they should hold off rolling the new apps out until someone else develops a equally good product, then maybe wait a little while longer; just for the fuck of it.
No luck at all for BlackBerry as Messenger apps launch stalls
For BlackBerry, it seems, it never rains but it pours. On Wednesday, the woebegone smartphone vendor announced that its long-awaited BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) apps for Android and iOS would be made available over the weekend – but logistical problems have halted that launch for now. "Prior to launching BBM for Android, an …
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Monday 23rd September 2013 04:32 GMT Andrew Jones 2
Re: Fandroid freetards (nonsensical comment makes no sense)
Exactly.... oh but except:
1) It was always a free app anyway so the freetard comment is pointless
2) The app has been leaked at least a week before the official launch - BY AN OFFICIAL BBM TESTER (ie this is completely the fault of Blackberry)
3) If the leaked app was causing issues on launch day - they should of disabled it as soon as it started causing problems (or even as soon as they noticed an outdated version hitting their servers) - not nearly 36 hours later (note that after they claimed the leaked version was a problem and they would be disabling it - it was still active for almost another day)
4) Those people who had access to the latest leak (there was more than one version of the app leaked) claimed it was a major battery hog - within hours of the official app being released - people would of been slating the app for shocking battery performance and rating it very low.
Anybody who knows anything about PR doublespeak knows they chose to blame the leaked APK for the roll out being stalled - but the reality is they just weren't ready at the time they said they would be - if they were - why halt the iPhone rollout, sure halt the Android rollout - that's where the supposed problem lies - but halting the iPhone rollout has nothing to do with the Android version of the app.
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Sunday 22nd September 2013 20:39 GMT Henry Wertz 1
Analyst results
Not that it would improve Blackberry's ultimate outcome any... but, the fact that Blackberry missed analysts' estimates by 48% just shows to me that the analysts are some kind of idiots. The phone was released in January, did they think the sales of the phone would SUDDENLY shoot up 2 quarters after it was released? Just where exactly did they think this money was going to come from then?
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Monday 23rd September 2013 11:54 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Analyst results
"The phone was released in January, did they think the sales of the phone would SUDDENLY shoot up 2 quarters after it was released"
RIM didn't admit how few BB10 devices had been sold in their last quarter's results......
Anyone with at least 1 brain cell could see that made it obvious that sales must be abysmal. Except apparently the analysts....
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Monday 23rd September 2013 17:31 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Analyst results
Just one thing, the phone was only released at the end of March, it was announced in January.
So really they've only had about one quarter's worth of sales to consider, I think it was only a couple of markets that had the Z10 from the off and the Q10 with keyboard (supposedly their top model) wasn't available for a couple of months after the Z10.
Total cock-up with the app though, it has to be said that until BB OS 10.2 is available there are no officially supported headless apps and the background use API is not concrete even then. Mix that with Android which is very sensitive to wakelocks on background apps and a battery life disaster was on the cards anyway.
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Sunday 22nd September 2013 21:57 GMT Anonymous Coward
Back in 2007 I said RIM should get out of the phone business and just offer their server software and the BlackBerry Connect client for phones. They would be farther ahead of they just concentrated on those two products which were really their strengths anyway. The phone business was a necessity in the beginning but given that in 2007 companies wanted secure messaging but were also looking at not using BB phones. This allowed companies like Good to start to take away market share from them.
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Sunday 22nd September 2013 22:09 GMT Anonymous Coward
Blackberry, just stop
The time to "go big or go home" was a year and a half ago, and you blew it. And now your BBM for droid/ios is such a pig's breakfast you've had to pull even that back, hot on the heels of admitting you're axing both legs and an arm.
How about just give this whole BBM thing a pass? Why bother? You're 40% in the grave now. Stop making an ass of yourself and try to salvage what little dignity you've got left.
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Monday 23rd September 2013 02:38 GMT btrower
Go hat in hand
Blackberry should go hat in hand looking to partner with Facebook. This is a network game and loath him or hate him, Zuck's got the network.
The real killer here is that Blackberry has fallen out of favor. People will put up with a lot if they think it's the way to go. With a partner like Facebook with deep pockets, unlimited advertising and a window directly into what is creating 'the buzz' they could give Blackberry a viable path to recovery and the time and money to get there.
Facebook, meantime, gains an entre into a non-trivial existing network that they likely have less penetration into otherwise. Without boring people with details, there are a lot of very, very interesting things that a large distributed player like Facebook can do with a network of mobile phones.
Facebook could do a share swap for BB shares thus incurring no direct cash outlay while still paying Blackberry shareholders a price they can't resist.
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Monday 23rd September 2013 11:47 GMT BigAndos
How exactly will releasing BBM on android and iOS make them money? It might shore up BBM user numbers but I always say this as a service to help sell Blackberry phones as I don't believe it is directly monetised? Don't they have more pressing concerns - i.e. getting people to buy their handsets?
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Monday 23rd September 2013 12:56 GMT Anonymous Coward
Having never been a blackberry user, going straight from Nokia plus email to Smartphones, I was curious what all the fuss used to be about BBM.
However since Blackberry managed to fsck up the rollout so badly, it does make me think that any new service they offer, paid or free would be as badly handled.
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Monday 23rd September 2013 12:59 GMT John Sanders
The elephant in the room
Go Android, Amazon did it en even with their own store. Android allows you to customize it with your own magic sauce and front applications.
All that took is to have a model with Android and see the public's reaction...
Same as Nokia, What could they lose at this point?
But there you go, most CEOs on most large tech companies are completely useless and fail to see the obvious.
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Monday 23rd September 2013 18:11 GMT Daniel B.
BBM is good
It is AFAIK the only mobile IM service that can tell you if:
- Your message has been sent
- Your message has reached the destination
- Your message has been read by the recipient ***
Where the *** marks that one feature no other IM solution gives you. Ok, iMessage does that but you're confined to the iEcosystem. BBM is currently BB-only but opening up to iOS and Android gives all three platforms a worthy opponent. Also, WhatsApp requires you giving out your phone number, which is a concern if you value your privacy. BBM uses PINs, harkening back to the ICQ era and thus you can disassociate your PIN from a real phone number.
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Monday 23rd September 2013 21:35 GMT Anonymous Coward
THIS DOES NOT COMPUTE....
What a total mess. Forget the PR spin. The apps didn't work. BlackBerry is a hardware company at its heart not a software company. So they they pulled it as the lesser of two evils.
But putting aside that small issue. Can anybody please explain how the BBM strategy fits now that BlackBerry have effectively pulled out of the consumer business??? It just doesn't fit at all any more. As a way of hanging on to its consumer base maybe there was some reason. Now?
What a total mess. Can't see where this company is going now and not sure they can either!!
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
