This month's BlackBerry CEO vows: I won't axe the smartphone-making biz Newly appointed BlackBerry CEO John Chen has wasted no time letting the world know that he has big plans for the troubled Canadian firm – and shutting down its ailing smartphone division isn't one of them. The former Sybase chief exec was introduced as BlackBerry's interim chief exec on Monday, following the unceremonious …
The shame is that BB10.2 is really nice and the phones are very solidly built and smooth to use. My daughter loves her Z10 but I wonder if they will manage to get enough of the manufactured stock out in the market to make a difference.
Just goes to show how the mobile game requires companies to run to stand still and run like hell to win.
Personally I'd like to see BB survive, but with a focus back on business-like mobile devices and services for all sizes of enterprise. The biggest problem with Apple's iPhone, Google's Android and Microsoft's WinPho devices is they are far too consumer- and cloud-centric and in being so, they're moving too far away from what a business phone needs to be - independent and secure (IMO).
Actually think this guy might be what they need. Thorsten wasn't the man, he took a plane that was free falling and pushed the nose to the ground. How Thorsten could see those crappy alpha and beta devices that came across his desk and not smell a dead fish is beyond me.
The BB10 OS with its true multitasking actually makes Android look like something from the 1990s, If Blackberry can produce phones that don't look like they came from a Canadian tractor plant they really might have something that can compete. That and add something new and innovating to the phone (Home control, smart chip technology, can openner, etc) then they have a chance.
The point is he CAN'T "axe the handset business". At least not for a long time. BlackBerry's entire business model is predicated on device sales. People talk about their software and services business and of course BlackBerry PR department aren't going to stop them but the revenue from software and service is tiny.
It's increased a bit as a percentage recently but that is almost certainly simply a reflection of the fact they aren't selling many phones these days. Worse still the revenue they do list as software and services is almost entirely derived from the service fee they charge carries on the OLD BBOS devices. They don't get this on the new ones so that number is going to start falling through the floor very soon.
Historically BlackBerry almost gave the software away. Chen can change that of course but yet again this is something that should have been done years ago. Ramping up your prices at exactly the time the World has decided you are a loser is not easy.
This is probably why everybody that actually looked at the books ran a mile.
Read the article in The Globe and Mail of a few weeks back. Based on this and some recent articles, the following litany comes out.
Verisign, angry at being shut out by Apple, asked (pre-Heins) RIM to make an "Apple-killer" and RIM agreed: Bad mistake. Then came their Playbook (also pre-Heins): Really bad mistake. Heins then decided on keyboardless touch first, ignoring their keyboard-loving base: Really, really bad mistake.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
