Is Blackberry done for at this point?

maflynn · Feb 26, 2015

So with the IDC numbers released (see MacRumor's news thread)

The news isn't great for blackberry

World wide market share shrank to .4% and while we don't have BB's financials quite yet. What is the state of the union for a company who's marketshare is in free fall?

I know they're focusing on emerging markets, but so isn't everyone else.

Are we getting to a point where BB is on a death watch or can they rebound, i.e., these numbers while telling don't paint the whole picture for blackberry?

MRU · Feb 26, 2015

They will eventually end up partnering with others to be a service company rather than hardware.

The team up with google to offer security for Google Work for example.

But hardware wise - yes - I do think they are likely going to eventually stop.

roadbloc · Feb 26, 2015

I hope not. I must be the only BlackBerry fan on this website. I love my Q10, by far the best smartphone I've owned. I need a real keyboard for my typing and BlackBerry do it best on a mobile.

maflynn · Feb 26, 2015

MRU said:
They will eventually end up partnering with others to be a service company rather than hardware.

I think the rumor of Samsung buying BB is a good example of what might occur.

As for software only, they have QNX which is a good and BBM which is popular, I'm not sure what else they have to offer software wise that will enough to keep them going. Their enterprise solutions, I'm sure are not being sold, as enterprises go with android and iOS.

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roadbloc said:
I hope not. I must be the only BlackBerry fan on this website. I love my Q10, by far the best smartphone I've owned. I need a real keyboard for my typing and BlackBerry do it best on a mobile.

Cube is another BB fan, and in some ways I like them, and I'm sad to see a company who have so many people working for them fail as they are. Those folks will be out of a job and that's not something I'd like to see.

roadbloc · Feb 26, 2015

maflynn said:
BBM which is popular

This may have a large part to play in their decline in hardware sales. There was a time (not long ago) when pretty much everyone had a BlackBerry in my area. It was mostly because of BBM, a tool that pretty much everyone continues to use to chat with, but also because other smartphones were very expensive and often didn't play nice with the area's overall lack of signal.

However, since they pushed BBM as an app to Android and iOS devices, other smartphone prices have dropped and we finally got 3G in the past year, the number of BlackBerrys I see in the wild has dropped. Since pretty much everyone I know (and meet) continue to use BBM, maybe they would have sold more hardware if they had kept it exclusive to BlackBerrys.

Chances are, probably not. But certainly something worth thinking about.

Heavy Fluid · Feb 26, 2015

I honestly feel like the downfall came due to app availability. Once apps were released for the iPhone and Android, and BB stopped being supported, it started tumbling downhill. I know you can get Android apps on there now, but that is about a day late and a dollar short. Most of the people have moved on and love their iPhone/Android/Windows phone and wouldn't consider moving back to the "ancient" BlackBerry. I had a 9930 and a Q10, and the keyboard is absolutely amazing on each of them. The keyboard doesn't make up for what the OS lacks though. That is one of the reasons I left.

roadbloc · Feb 26, 2015

Heavy Fluid said:
I honestly feel like the downfall came due to app availability.

The new generation of BlackBerry devices (ones that run BBOS 10) run Android apps right out of the box, zero configuration required. I have all the apps I'll ever need for my Q10.

Edit: My apologies... missed the part where you mentioned this.

MRU · Feb 26, 2015

roadbloc said:
The new generation of BlackBerry devices (ones that run BBOS 10) run Android apps right out of the box, zero configuration required. I have all the apps I'll ever need for my Q10.

Edit: My apologies... missed the part where you mentioned this.

Well not really out of the box, before 10.3 you had to convert the file and side load many - and often performance isn't the greatest and a lot don't work or suffer major performance issues.

10.3 fixes the converting issue but if you don't want Amazon App Store you still have to essentially side load the Play Store and those apps that rely on Google Services a lot are still very much hit and miss.

I'm still tempted to pick up a BB Passport at some stage though

Oletros · Feb 26, 2015

roadbloc said:
The new generation of BlackBerry devices (ones that run BBOS 10) run Android apps right out of the box, zero configuration required. I have all the apps I'll ever need for my Q10.

Edit: My apologies... missed the part where you mentioned this.

Do they run the ones using Google services like Google Maps?

Edit: Seen MRU post

ucfgrad93 · Feb 26, 2015

Blackberry's days as a hardware maker have been number for awhile now. I think Windows Phone isn't too far behind it.

MRU · Feb 26, 2015

ucfgrad93 said:
Blackberry's days as a hardware maker have been number for awhile now. I think Windows Phone isn't too far behind it.

I wonder 'if' Blackberry & Windows Phone embraced android and basically just dramatically skinned it to appear just like their own BB 10 & WP 8.1/10 - so that end user had all the features and GUI familiarity of those platforms - but the added ability to support Google Play Store natively and avail of Native Android apps (BB10.3 still essentially runs its in a separate emu environment) and Google Services, would that bring a lot more users over to BB & WP and allow them to survive.

App availability and Google Services are probably the biggest hindrance to both these platforms and running android underneath a heavily modified skin may be the answer to that.

Only thing is - is anything they do 'too little too late'.

r0k · Feb 26, 2015

Yes BB is done as a mainstream smartphone company. They can, however remain around as a niche player for quite some time if they figure out how to match their cash burn rate to their tiny market share. So no BB is not done as a services and niche devices company.

I'm a former BB user. I loved having email that always worked even if it was text based on my teeny tiny BB8830 running BB OS 4.2.2.196. I felt pretty silly for waiting so long to make the switch to iPhone 4. I'm now on iPhone 6 and nothing BB sells holds the slightest interest for me, especially not that square thing. Because it's based on an RTOS (QNX), BB10 has the potential to be the best performing most reliable OS available. Sadly, BB doesn't have the chops to turn it into something mainstream. The BB10 ability to load apps through the Amazon app store makes BB10 sound to me about as mainstream as one of those $49 off-brand Android tablets at Big Lots running Gingerbread that can only load apps through Amazon app store. BB loyalists won't care about this very much. The other 99.8% of the smartphone market will.

Apple found a way to stick around as a niche player for many years before they found the magic iPod/iPhone/iPad formula that made them the 800 pound gorilla in just about everything tech. I don't see BB coming back into the mainstream but they can cling to life if they manage their cash flow to be in line with their market share.

Savor · Feb 26, 2015

Hardware - yes
Services - no

Michael Goff · Feb 26, 2015

MRU said:
I wonder 'if' Blackberry & Windows Phone embraced android and basically just dramatically skinned it to appear just like their own BB 10 & WP 8.1/10 - so that end user had all the features and GUI familiarity of those platforms - but the added ability to support Google Play Store natively and avail of Native Android apps (BB10.3 still essentially runs its in a separate emu environment) and Google Services, would that bring a lot more users over to BB & WP and allow them to survive.

App availability and Google Services are probably the biggest hindrance to both these platforms and running android underneath a heavily modified skin may be the answer to that.

Only thing is - is anything they do 'too little too late'.

That'd be a bad idea, I'd imagine. You shouldn't link your survival to your competition.

cube · Feb 26, 2015

No, BB10 is the best mobile OS. Most people haven't even tried it yet.

Just bring back the removable batteries (the newer stuff is still pre-Chen, except for the Z3 which was a quick Foxconn design).

LIVEFRMNYC · Feb 26, 2015

Blackberry is basically done. But I would still like to see a Playbook 2, as the original Playbook had the best browser and gestures I've ever used on any tablet. Wish I haven't sold my Playbook as I would still use it for browsing and email. The browser also ran flash as good as any desktop browser.

Savor · Feb 26, 2015

Yes, PlayBook's QNX was definitely awesome! It may have copied some webOS UI elements, but having the video to play in the background while searching for another app was amazing. I doubt it would have a sequel but I wish as well. Increase the RAM up to 4 GB instead of the puny 1 GB and use a better SoC than from TI. The original BB PlayBook was such an underrated tablet. I would go far to say I would rather have that than the HP TouchPad and I loved webOS. But PlayBook with QNX on it felt more refined.

apolloa · Feb 26, 2015

No they are not, because they have a huge hold on the car infotainment market, even Ford are going to use their system. So whilst they may be losing the mobile space they once had, they are strong in other areas.

But they have launched some interesting new mobile phones lately to try and compete? But it was the network reliability that let them down really, no point having the blackberry mail system when the servers for it all crash.

Altis · Feb 26, 2015

It's kind of sad how they managed to plummet after being so strong, especially in the business and government sectors. They did have a huge overhead cost, I suppose, but still. Companies like Nokia managed to stick around despite being so low-key.

I sure don't like using the keyboards on those phones, though. They really are a way to develop carpal tunnel issues or some kind of RSI.

I remember one of the later commercials for the phone was some woman talking about how she sent "1000 emails a day -- try that on a touch screen" or something. What she really needed was a full size keyboard and a computer. Or an assistant. Not to mention that 1000/day was 1/minute for 16 hours a day.

I hope they find a footing with something just because it's a local company to me and I know some who work there.

cube · Feb 26, 2015

It is like saying Apple was dead at the beginning of OSX.

mojolicious · Feb 27, 2015

cube said:
It is like saying Apple was dead at the beginning of OSX.

Sales volume dropping by 70%, and market share falling by even more, over the course of a year? Apple never experienced anything quite as abrupt as that. The big drop was from around 8% to 3%, over the course of 2-3 years in the mid/late 90s (well before OSX). It took Apple until 2005 to claw its way back to 4% of global sales volumes. It's currently riding high at slightly over 7%.

I think Apple could well have withered and died in the mid 90s if Quark and Adobe hadn't produced such sucky versions of XPress and Photoshop for Windows. By the time those products were usable on the Windows platform, studios had such an investment in Mac OS applications, XTensions/plug-ins, and fonts that migration was a nightmarishly expensive and time-consuming proposition.

Sadly for Blackberry,their core user base of much larger corporations don't have to operate under the same financial constraints.

diamond.g · Feb 27, 2015

They may make a small comeback with QNX in cars. That is what many of the auto manufacturers are using to run CarPlay and Android Auto.

cube · Feb 27, 2015

mojolicious said:
Sales volume dropping by 70%, and market share falling by even more, over the course of a year? Apple never experienced anything quite as abrupt as that. The big drop was from around 8% to 3%, over the course of 2-3 years in the mid/late 90s (well before OSX). It took Apple until 2005 to claw its way back to 4% of global sales volumes. It's currently riding high at slightly over 7%.

I think Apple could well have withered and died in the mid 90s if Quark and Adobe hadn't produced such sucky versions of XPress and Photoshop for Windows. By the time those products were usable on the Windows platform, studios had such an investment in Mac OS applications, XTensions/plug-ins, and fonts that migration was a nightmarishly expensive and time-consuming proposition.

Sadly for Blackberry,their core user base of much larger corporations don't have to operate under the same financial constraints.

Their focus was on stabilizing with enterprise, not on handsets.

They did not launch any full touch flagship, and most people are still waiting for that.

Regarding corporate accounts, today they launched a version of the Classic without camera.

Billy95Tech · Feb 27, 2015

I remember the days when i was at school all my friends had Blackberry phones(with keyboards).

But that was about 5 years ago that was when Blackberry was the main smartphone maker!

I have never had a BlackBerry smartphone and i never will because there are way better options like Samsung.

roadbloc · Mar 1, 2015

cube said:
It is like saying Apple was dead at the beginning of OSX.

+1. BB10 has to be the best phone OS I've used. And I've used them all.

BlackBerry deserve to survive with the great products they're pumping out nowadays. Most people here don't have much of a clue what they're on about when it comes to BlackBerry products, mostly basing their opinions on adhoc experiences with the old generation BlackBerry phones, which were kinda lacking by the time the iPhone became popular. Saying that, I'm not sure about that BlackBerry Passport thing.

Is Blackberry done for at this point?

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