BlackBerry kills BB10, will work on mid-range Android phones instead

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in General Discussion
The latest turnaround strategy for formerly-dominant smartphone maker BlackBerry is reportedly centered on mid-range Android devices, as the company will no longer manufacture new phones based on its own BlackBerry 10 operating system.




BlackBerry's change of direction comes after enterprise customers -- the only remaining significant pocket of loyalty for the company -- complained that its first Android entry was too expensive, CEO John Chen said this week. Chen admitted that the release of the $700 Priv may have been a tactical error.

"The fact that we came out with a high end phone [as our first Android device] was probably not as wise as it should have been," Chen told Abu Dhabi paper The National.

"A lot of enterprise customers have said to us, 'I want to buy your phone but $700 is a little too steep for me. I'm more interested in a $400 device'," he added.

The growing duopoly between Android and iOS has squeezed BlackBerry's own in-house operating system out of the market. BlackBerry will continue to support BlackBerry 10 -- once heralded as the company's future -- for an unspecified period of time, but will not release new BB10-based devices.

Still, Chen believes his firm has a chance for differentiation based on BlackBerry's long history of strong security and integration in corporate environments.

"We're the only people who really secure Android, taking the security features of BlackBerry that everyone knows us for and make it more reachable for the market," he said.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 31
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,822member
    Like that's going to work!  Time to close it down and give the share holders their money back.
    larryaargonautcalimagman1979bdkennedy1002mainyehcjbdragoncornchip
  • Reply 2 of 31
    irnchrizirnchriz Posts: 1,617member
    Death of a dinosaur, now just another android beigebox shifter :p
    calimagman1979dysamoriajbdragoncornchip
  • Reply 3 of 31
    rob53rob53 Posts: 3,300member
    President Obama still has to use a BlackBerry phone on their on-site BlackBerry BES (BlackBerry Enterprise Server) because it's the only communications network currently approved for classified discussions (last I heard). iPhones can be managed and used by a BES but I'm not sure if they've been approved for classified use. With BlackBerry no longer making their own line of mobile devices, how long will it take for the government to validate and approve the use of other mobile devices for classified use? Android based phones are only approved when using Samsung Knox but that might not even apply to classified use. BlackBerry saying they can secure Android might be overstating their capability because I don't believe any Android-based phone can really be secured no matter what infrastructure it's added to. If BlackBerry forks Android to create their own OS for mobile devices then I don't see how this would get them into a lower costing market except for those penny-pinching budget people who don't understand what it really costs to provide secure devices to its employees.
    dysamorialostkiwicornchip
  • Reply 4 of 31
    maestro64maestro64 Posts: 5,043member
    Yeah, go after the high end and hope to take on Apple, he thought a keyboard would solve the problem Samsung was having in the high end. He knew who could not win in the race to the bottom and trying to jump in the mid was instant death, so why not go after the high end. Time to close the doors and sell what they have to another company so they can maintain their contractual obligation with the various government agency who require BB for the security aspects. I feel bad for anyone who keep buying into BB stock, they are through good money after bad on this.
  • Reply 5 of 31
    pmzpmz Posts: 3,433member
    BB10 was dead before it even launched. How can these companies be so blind?
    magman1979bdkennedy1002netmagejbdragon
  • Reply 6 of 31
    The only thing that surprises me about this news is that it's newsy enough to reach the front page of anything.
    magman1979
  • Reply 7 of 31
    nolamacguynolamacguy Posts: 4,758member
    $700? ouch...you'd think they'd be coming in more aggressively....
    dysamoriajbdragon
  • Reply 8 of 31
    ivladivlad Posts: 742member
    BB10 was "high end?" Really?
    jbdragon
  • Reply 9 of 31
    dasanman69dasanman69 Posts: 13,002member
    $700? ouch...you'd think they'd be coming in more aggressively....
    So they can be belittled for it? 
  • Reply 10 of 31
    calicali Posts: 3,494member
    Haha 'droid users said it was too expensive. Blackberry learned the hard way. Good luck securing a spyware OS.

    The race to the bottom begins for BlackBerry unfortunately.
    magman1979dysamoriajbdragon
  • Reply 11 of 31
    joshajosha Posts: 901member
    pmz said:
    BB10 was dead before it even launched. How can these companies be so blind?
    Yes BB was fading out then. I have a BB Playbook, which I got because I wanted a smaller tablet than Apple's 10" iPad.
    I also wanted to evaluate BB for investment reasons.   There is much function missing in the Playbook software.
    It's SW hasn't been updated for over a year and I'm losing regularly Apps I use.   
    The Apps are going, no App updates and no new Apps !
    Soon I'll have to trash my BB Playbook, as I trashed my Palm.
    Of course my iPhone4 is gradually losing it's iOS functions, even as an iPad, but my iPhone5c is kept up to date.

    I know a few personal buyers of the BB phones, they aren't aware of how much better the iPhone is.
    They are just stuck on BB, probably because they had been getting cheap clear out models
       and they believed BB saying the BB10 was leading edge. Also they like the BB security story.

    So how can BB use android and continue to say they are secure?   Android is Google spyware, period!
    Nice knowing you BB !!!  :'(

    afrodridysamoria
  • Reply 12 of 31
    jungmarkjungmark Posts: 6,927member
    BB's strategy is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titantic. 
    dysamoria
  • Reply 13 of 31
    BB's Chen quote... "We're the only people who really secure Android..." Surely "secure" and "Android" in the same sentence is a contradiction of terms!
    dysamoria
  • Reply 14 of 31
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,625member
    $700? ouch...you'd think they'd be coming in more aggressively....
    So they can be belittled for it? 
    It's hard to know what they were thinking. I think that Chen is deluding himself. He likely thought that Blackberry had the prestige it had several years ago in certain quarters. But it doesn't. In addition, using a very middle of the road 808 SoC in a $700 phone was highly criticized.

    now, just a few days ago in Blackberry's  last quarterly analysts call, after the results came out, he retiterated his previous statement that they needed sales of 5 million for the year to make a profit on hardware. He then stated that he thought they could break even on 3 million sales a year. But the last quarter, they sold just 600,000 phones, which was a mixed bag of BB10 and the Priv. He then said that there would be no more new BB10 phones, and that they would have medium priced models of their Android line. But what does that matter? It's thought they sold about 400,000 Privs last quarter. But even the full 600,000 sales were just 0.2% worldwide marketshare.

    so yes, they can be belittled for coming out with a premium priced middle line phone in a time when consumers, businesses and government agencies are running away from their products. And it's in the Android market, which isn't kind to flagship phones, a market where even Samsung's Galaxy models are rapidly discounted after they come out. A market where Chen, in describing the security model of the Priv, said that is was about as secure as a Samsung Galaxy model with Knox. In other words, just middling secure.

    why not just go and buy the much better Samsung product? And that's exactly what is happening.
    edited April 2016 bestkeptsecret
  • Reply 15 of 31
    igorskyigorsky Posts: 774member
    "The fact that we came out with a high end phone [as our first Android device] was probably not as wise as it should have been," Chen told Abu Dhabi paper The National

    What does John Chen do at this company? Doesn't he get paid the big bucks to know what type of phone to release and in what price range?
    edited April 2016 dysamoria
  • Reply 16 of 31
    roakeroake Posts: 821member
    The latest turnaround strategy for formerly-dominant smartphone maker BlackBerry is reportedly centered on mid-range Android devices, as the company will no longer manufacture new phones based on its own BlackBerry 10 operating system.




    BlackBerry's change of direction comes after enterprise customers -- the only remaining significant pocket of loyalty for the company -- complained that its first Android entry was too expensive, CEO John Chen said this week. Chen admitted that the release of the $700 Priv may have been a tactical error.

    "The fact that we came out with a high end phone [as our first Android device] was probably not as wise as it should have been," Chen told Abu Dhabi paper The National.

    "A lot of enterprise customers have said to us, 'I want to buy your phone but $700 is a little too steep for me. I'm more interested in a $400 device'," he added.

    The growing duopoly between Android and iOS has squeezed BlackBerry's own in-house operating system out of the market. BlackBerry will continue to support BlackBerry 10 -- once heralded as the company's future -- for an unspecified period of time, but will not release new BB10-based devices.

    Still, Chen believes his firm has a chance for differentiation based on BlackBerry's long history of strong security and integration in corporate environments.

    "We're the only people who really secure Android, taking the security features of BlackBerry that everyone knows us for and make it more reachable for the market," he said.
    Welp!  That didn't work!  Let's join the race to the bottom!
    dysamoria
  • Reply 17 of 31
    jbdragonjbdragon Posts: 2,312member
    I said this this the released the PRIV that BlackBerry the OS was DEAD!!! Why would you release a competition phone otherwise? That would kind of like Microsoft Releasing their next Surface Tablet with ChromOS on it. That would not be good. What I don't get is, How is this suppose to Help them? So they went with Full control of everything just like Apple. Create their own OS, hardware and Services/App Store, and now what do they have? Creating yet another one of many Android phones, running on a OS you no longer control, and you can't even make money after the sale with your own store because everyone on Android goes to Google Play and use Google services. Everyone except most all in China. it's almost a whole different world. So now it's more Android phones. Weak sales, slim to none in profit margins and lost all control. Am I missing something??? BlackBerry is really looking weak. This is just sad at this point. I don't see how any Blackberry fan could ever defend this move.
  • Reply 18 of 31
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    I give them a year before they are either sold or go under.
  • Reply 19 of 31
    rob53 said:
    President Obama still has to use a BlackBerry phone on their on-site BlackBerry BES (BlackBerry Enterprise Server) because it's the only communications network currently approved for classified discussions (last I heard). iPhones can be managed and used by a BES but I'm not sure if they've been approved for classified use. With BlackBerry no longer making their own line of mobile devices, how long will it take for the government to validate and approve the use of other mobile devices for classified use? Android based phones are only approved when using Samsung Knox but that might not even apply to classified use. BlackBerry saying they can secure Android might be overstating their capability because I don't believe any Android-based phone can really be secured no matter what infrastructure it's added to. If BlackBerry forks Android to create their own OS for mobile devices then I don't see how this would get them into a lower costing market except for those penny-pinching budget people who don't understand what it really costs to provide secure devices to its employees.
    Blackberry 10 has the highest certification of any mobile OS on earth. It has never been rooted or jail broken either.There has been tons of time for Apple and Google to do this but it is not a priority for them obviously. The things Apple is going through with privacy, Blackberry already went through it years ago. Blackberry is way ahead on security and privacy, but it doesn't seem to matter to the majority. Blackberry cannot fork Android or they will lose access to google services. This was the problem for BB10 and apps.
  • Reply 20 of 31
    ivlad said:
    BB10 was "high end?" Really?
    Still the most secure mobile OS on earth. Very problem free too, I would call it high end. Unless your idea of high end is snapchat.
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