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BlackBerry Abandons Hardware Business and Pivots Focus to Software
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A lot of people I know have the Good app on their iPhones (I do - my company requires it for server access.) Good is owned by BlackBerry.
This has been coming on for sometime now but it's a sober reminder that a company with the most popular, talked about, "must have" product in a country or the world for years is just one competitor's product away from "has been" status. When Obama first took office the buzz was he demanded Secret Service get him a secure "Crackberry." That is how "it" Blackberry was. And now it's nothing.
I hope the folks at Cupertino appreciate that history and that it can be them someday if they keep wresting on there laurels with similar products year after year. That's the lesson here.
Samsung smartphone division is next....give it 5 years...
It's hard to imagine a worse disaster for Samsung than the exploding phones... but they were doing so well before that, I can't imagine that they won't regain their footing within a few years in the phone market.
The only way I see their phones losing significance is if we move onto something else instead of phones.
I did not state the reason why, and selling lots of phones and making money out of it are two different things anyway.
So yeah I see Samsung leaving the smartphone business in 5 years, they'll still make internals for others as Samsung has lots of divisions.
P.S.
Even the new version of the Note 7 (the "fixed" one) has been found faulty, and it exploded as well, so even the fix is failing...and that ain't good
This is a warning shot across the bow at 1 Infinite Loop, with the iPhone accounting for 3/4 of their business and profit.
Innovate or Perish..
Innovate or Perish..
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oh god another - 'remember when people said' comment
get over yourself man - Apple is a mega power. They will squash anyone in their way.
Blackberry gets a lot of crap these days but this was the top-dog. My first smartphone was a Blackberry. I've owned 3 of them then a Palm Treo 650 (Windows Mobile) and finally I bought the 1st generation iPhone and still had the Treo for work and MS Exchange access until Apple added support for Exchange.
Blackberry and the then necessary BES were juggernauts in the industry.
Blackberry and the then necessary BES were juggernauts in the industry.
It was a top without a foundation (of healthy competition) until Apple entered the scene and changed everything.
I remember trying to help a customer set up her Blackberry back in .. 2004? At the time, email on a mobile device was alien to me, but I gave it a best effort. Trying to navigate the archaic device was a nightmare, though. I didn't understand how anybody could accept that as "ok". Thankfully that is now history.
Even at its peak, the BB was still a POS. I will never understand why it was so popular. I was waiting and waiting for someone, anyone to make a better smartphone. That company was Apple.
P.S.
Even the new version of the Note 7 (the "fixed" one) has been found faulty, and it exploded as well, so even the fix is failing...and that ain't good
Just because one guy in China claims that doesn't make it a fact. Probably used a third part charger or a 5 cent USB-C cable. Using cheap-a** charger already blew up countless iPhones, so that's nothing new.
I think it's always a bad thing when a competitor quits the market. Apple desperately needs a kick in their pompous butt. The 7 may be doing well while the enthusiasts are still interested in it, but in Q1 2017, sales will be collapsing again. I bet they're praying their new Macs are as good as everyone hypes them to be. If they keep the thick bezels, they're toast.
There was a rotten arrogance with the company, starting with the top brass. They thought people and companies would stick with them because of their security standpoint. But they were too late to keep apace, and the competition quickly overtook them on that front, too.
BB10 was brilliant but too late. If you remember, it was delayed big time. Also BB pricing has never been their strength.
The Android strategy would have been a winning one earlier but not now. It's tough to make money on the low end. It's easier to have margins on the high end, but the high end is entrenched with Apple and Samsung now. And Sony in same areas (Europe and Japan).
The Android strategy would have been a winning one earlier but not now. It's tough to make money on the low end. It's easier to have margins on the high end, but the high end is entrenched with Apple and Samsung now. And Sony in same areas (Europe and Japan).
I don't doubt Samsung will bounce back from the battery saga. Their products are far better now than even just a few years ago, as you say they were on a bit of a roll the past couple of years. This is just a blip and it's far from the worst problem to have ever befallen a product.
A year or two from now it'll all be forgotten, well except for the occasional person on macrumours who will inevitability say, yeah but remember their phones might explode
I don't understand. Hardware and security were the two things they've always been competitive with, even when their popularity flagged. It's not 2009 anymore, when they had the only MDM service worth a damn. What's left when you take away the hardware?
It's easy to mock Blackberry now, but there is an important lesson here for Apple. Strong leadership is required to survive. Lazardis and Bassile had no vision, and stubbornly ignored the trends of the market. "Our users don't care about listening to music. Our users don't care about cameras". This is the attitude that squanders a world leading brand, and we're seeing the same thing with Tim Cook. What has Apple achieved since he took over? The unpopular watch that didn't address the number one complaint (battery life) in its recent update? Why doesn't the iPhone have wireless charging or removable storage yet? Why is Xcode 8 such a mess? They better get their act together. Apple's leadership looks a little too familiar to this former Blackberry developer.
It's easy to mock Blackberry now, but there is an important lesson here for Apple. Strong leadership is required to survive. Lazardis and Bassile had no vision, and stubbornly ignored the trends of the market. "Our users don't care about listening to music. Our users don't care about cameras". This is the attitude that squanders a world leading brand, and we're seeing the same thing with Tim Cook. What has Apple achieved since he took over? The unpopular watch that didn't address the number one complaint (battery life) in its recent update? Why doesn't the iPhone have wireless charging or removable storage yet? Why is Xcode 8 such a mess? They better get their act together. Apple's leadership looks a little too familiar to this former Blackberry developer.
No it's not. If Apple immediately lost 3/4 of their profit they would still be a pretty profitable company. And nothing suggests they're in any danger of losing significant profits.
The most stunning part of this story must be that Blackberry actually still has 0.2% market share.
Apple Watch is a juggernaut in waiting. Many didn't believe it but it's starting to look clear now that the Series 2 has been released. Apple Watch quietly sold more units in its first year than the first iPhone did in 2007. Now, I'm beginning to see them on wrists everywhere. It's really following the path of the iPhone and we're at iPhone 3G now. That phone corrected some of the major issues and features that the iPhone lacked and made it mass-market ready. The same was done with the Series 2 Apple Watch.
Just like the iPod went from being a niche product to a huge juggernaut that transformed the company before dying off and giving room to the iPhone, Apple Watch is on that same path.
Apple is not sitting idle.
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I can remember when Blackberry was the staple for major corporations. Blackberry was known for their security in their Email systems and software. I still know companies in my area who use Blackberry hardware. Blackberry was on top of the game, they struggled in poor battery life and software that completely locked up or would freeze frequently. In the end game, Blackberry failed to innovate and proceed further into the smart phone market.
nonsense. apple is the one tech company that has longevity -- it's first mass market success was in 1977, and it's still dominating that industry. it's non-iphone business is bigger than amazon and googles. and they're constantly producing great updates to their iphone leaving it still the most desired phone, 10 years later.
speaking of google, google has one real product -- ads. are you concerned about their innovation?
They were saying that with respect to business users, although eventually they proved wrong about them as well.
IMO, RIM's first mistake was trying to chase the iPhone's consumer touchscreen market. Many enterprises relied on Blackberries and had their own corporate apps. The halo effect of this was the use of BBs by everyone in that company.
However, the moment that RIM dropped support for their original Java based BBOS, those custom apps became obsolete and they lost all those enterprise customers.
Personally, I love that they went with QNX as their next OS, and hired The Astonishing Tribe to do their UI. That's super cool stuff. But it took way too long to bring it all to fruition. Timing is everything.
Apple's PROFITS are bigger than other computer/phone makers, but not their user base.
Interestingly, RIM is the only other smartphone maker that used to have profit margins in the same high range.
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In a way, can you blame them? They thought they saw the phenomenal growth of the iPhone and they thought why not BlackBerry
Any company that relies so much on a single product is in danger. Microsoft had the same thing, but they diversified somewhat and streamlined their revenue streams, thanks to subscriptions.
Steve Ballmer.
Yes.
Indeed. I remember smiling to see it as one of the biggest parody objects in Grand Theft Auto IV. Rockstar's writers impress me.