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BlackBerry Board Refused to Break Up Company Despite Interest From Apple, Others
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Similar, but not exact. Apple required a radical restructuring from the board on down, a drastic reduction in the products they were trying to sell, and a totally new direction, in order to survive. Apple pulled off this hat trick, but it's rare when it happens. The mess at Blackberry calls the same recipe, but without the right leadership, total commitment, and enough cash, they aren't going to pull an Apple and go from grave to cradle.
Love my Z 10
While I am a hard core Mac computer guy and I appreciate the iPhone and iPad for what they are they never suited my needs. My Z10 does and I love it. It has all the apps I need and does things with email and messaging and documents and attachments that I would only expect a computer to do. I am in no way bashing the IPhone and IPad. It just didn't suit my needs, was to small and the battery was not removable. The Z 10 and now Z30 are really good phones. Not for everybody but I couldn't see using anything else.
While I am a hard core Mac computer guy and I appreciate the iPhone and iPad for what they are they never suited my needs. My Z10 does and I love it. It has all the apps I need and does things with email and messaging and documents and attachments that I would only expect a computer to do. I am in no way bashing the IPhone and IPad. It just didn't suit my needs, was to small and the battery was not removable. The Z 10 and now Z30 are really good phones. Not for everybody but I couldn't see using anything else.
You are absolutely correct that great leadership and commitment is needed for BB to come back, but it is hard for an outsider to tell whether they have the leadership and commitment at this moment; you only know it when you look back - in 1998 how many of us expected Apple to have such a strong comeback? I am an Apple fan as you are, just trying not to be blinded by my obsession.
Microsoft Corp, Apple Inc and Lenovo Group Ltd: "Hey, BlackBerry, we want to buy your patents."
BlackBerry board: "No thanks. We're going to prolong our death spiral just a little."
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BlackBerry already went in a totally new direction (e.g. PlayBook, BB10, yadda.)
The world didn't follow them.
Remember this gem?
......BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins believes that Apple is losing the smartphone innovation game. As a result, he believes that Cupertinos time at the top is nearing an end...
According to Heins, "History repeats itself again I guess the rate of innovation is so high in our industry that if you dont innovate at that speed you can be replaced pretty quickly. The user interface on the iPhone, with all due respect for what this invention was all about is now five years old."
......BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins believes that Apple is losing the smartphone innovation game. As a result, he believes that Cupertinos time at the top is nearing an end...
According to Heins, "History repeats itself again I guess the rate of innovation is so high in our industry that if you dont innovate at that speed you can be replaced pretty quickly. The user interface on the iPhone, with all due respect for what this invention was all about is now five years old."
But Blockbuster was better than Netflix, just late to the party
I mean, they also copied Netflix totally, but they made it better by allowing customers to receive/return DVDs at their stores.
I agree it's difficult to tell, especially for an outsider, but my point is successful turnaround stories are quite rare. Apple is one of the greatest turnaround stories in business history. FWIW, I placed my bet on Apple in 1997, when Steve returned. Not that I was predicting what happened. At the time I was wagering only that the downside risk was pretty small. The same might be true for BlackBerry today, though I don't think I will bet on it. I don't expect to get that lucky twice.
A new direction that people care about, obviously.
This quote is why I was slightly rooting for BB to die. The CEO is so full of BS. Not nearly bas bad as Google, since they don't steal ideas and... make Google+.
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Wrong. Apple had their exiled cofounder Steve Jobs who would come back. They probably would have died without him. BB doesn't have anyone like that.
I do not believe BB wil not exist in its current form a year or so from now, but it will be interesting to see what actually happens with this once-dominant player...
Not sure why many people on here want blackberry to go away.
Its not like you will gain anything personally from less competition. if anything we will all lose in the long run if there is less competition and thus higher prices and less innovation.
people need to look past their own fanboyism and look at the bigger picture.
Its not like you will gain anything personally from less competition. if anything we will all lose in the long run if there is less competition and thus higher prices and less innovation.
people need to look past their own fanboyism and look at the bigger picture.
The Z10 isn't BlackBerry's latest phone - in fact, it was their first BB10 phone. The company released 3 phones AFTER the Z10 this year - The Q10, Q5 and Z30. How can we take anything you say seriously if you can't even do basic fact checking?
BBOS 10 is great - I urge everyone to give it a try. I think anyone who gives it a serious look (i.e. does more than play with it for 30 seconds in the store, and proclaim it sucks because it doesn't have Instagram) will really like it. The app situation isn't as great as Apple, but the OS itself and the phones are really, really good.
Actually their most valuable assets are QNX which opens a lot of doors to different markets and their Enterprise Server Service
To be fair ...
The Blackberry Z10 (and sequels) were products with some innovative ideas. The weak sales are mostly due to poor perception of the brand itself at this point, combined with a hesitation for businesses to change direction again (after many abandoned the Blackberry platform just a couple years ago).
I know my workplace is in the later situation. Our I.T. staff took a good look at the Z10 and were impressed by such features as the "personal" and "business" profiles that could co-exist on the device. (It was a great concept allowing employees to install whatever they liked on the "personal" side, but the phone effectively firewalling that content off from the corporate approved side.)
But we JUST completed a total elimination of Blackberry products from the corporation, issuing everyone iPhones or Android phones and setting up MDM to manage the devices, etc. It would have been REALLY difficult to explain to the CEO why we suddenly wanted to "go back to Blackberry" after getting the budget approval to move away from it!
Plus, there's the overall lack of confidence that they'll be around for the next few years. What happens if they go under and the central messaging servers are taken offline? We'd rather not be stuck in a situation where everyone's in "panic mode" needing to switch phones ASAP.
I can respect the owners of the business for wanting to try to make a comeback instead of just selling out -- but it's probably best it throws in the towel.
The Blackberry Z10 (and sequels) were products with some innovative ideas. The weak sales are mostly due to poor perception of the brand itself at this point, combined with a hesitation for businesses to change direction again (after many abandoned the Blackberry platform just a couple years ago).
I know my workplace is in the later situation. Our I.T. staff took a good look at the Z10 and were impressed by such features as the "personal" and "business" profiles that could co-exist on the device. (It was a great concept allowing employees to install whatever they liked on the "personal" side, but the phone effectively firewalling that content off from the corporate approved side.)
But we JUST completed a total elimination of Blackberry products from the corporation, issuing everyone iPhones or Android phones and setting up MDM to manage the devices, etc. It would have been REALLY difficult to explain to the CEO why we suddenly wanted to "go back to Blackberry" after getting the budget approval to move away from it!
Plus, there's the overall lack of confidence that they'll be around for the next few years. What happens if they go under and the central messaging servers are taken offline? We'd rather not be stuck in a situation where everyone's in "panic mode" needing to switch phones ASAP.
I can respect the owners of the business for wanting to try to make a comeback instead of just selling out -- but it's probably best it throws in the towel.
Carefully... just ask all the banks that sold mortgage-backed securities, especially collateralized mortgage obligations and collateralized debt obligation yet survived the banking crisis.
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Your avatar reminds me of a tesseract, but circular.
On BlackBerry's marketing.
It's just marketing. Of course they never really believed Apple products were toys built by amateurs; quite the opposite - they were totally taken aback and impressed, just as everybody else was.
Source: How BlackBerry blew it: The inside story
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Don't blame BlackBerry though, almost everybody does it:
Source: This is how a Helsingin Sanomat journalist tried to save Nokia
It's just marketing. Of course they never really believed Apple products were toys built by amateurs; quite the opposite - they were totally taken aback and impressed, just as everybody else was.
Source: How BlackBerry blew it: The inside story
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Don't blame BlackBerry though, almost everybody does it:
Source: This is how a Helsingin Sanomat journalist tried to save Nokia
Saying the app situation isn't as great as Apple is an understatement. The App situation is a freaking wasteland. And this is kind of shocking since an HTML web app should basically work on any phone.
But yes the OS is solid and has some very nice user interface features. I use my Q10 about as much as my iPhone 5. The iPhone 5 with iOS 7 looks fantastic. But Q10 does a number of the basic functions a bit or even a lot better. If websites would just recognize that I'm accessing their site from a mobile device more often that would help a lot. That is the most frustrating thing when the websites send my phone the site optimized for a desktop instead of a phone. The text gets really small and stuff is hard to read.