R.I.P Blackberry Ltd (1984 - 2013)

[Harry Bizzle]

That video is magnificent. For RIMs sake I hope the new OS is good as well.

Their multitasking and notification system in BB10 genuinely looks excellent. Let's hope they can put some decent hardware together for the launch of BB10.





Dat hub.


Their corporate solutions are pretty damn cool too, if you're actually going to use it for work.

[Lex-Man]

Apparently they aren't doing as badly as everyone thought.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012 ... mments-bar

[Mafro]

The two flagship BB10 phones have been leaked:

[Harry Bizzle]

Both look alright, but if that QWERTY one is good, it's got the potential to be huge.

[NickSCFC]

Blackberry unveil Z10

http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/30/blac ... -official/

[NickSCFC]

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/technology ... e-has-won/

Blackberry. Ten years ago, it was the toast of the business world; it was the must-have accessory – the first real smartphone. If people took one out in public, there would be coos of affection. It had a keyboard! It could do maps! Get your emails! It was all but magic compared to the brick-like Nokias most of us were still toting. When Channel 5 comes around to commissioning "I love the noughties", they are sure to be featured, with a forgettable comedian saying "Oooh! I remember them! With the little screens!"

Sadly, Blackberry wasn't able to keep pace with its rivals – it was too wedded to old ideas. Its farcical idea of launching one OS for 10 years is looked at in the tech world with derision. Who knows what tech will look like in ten years time? I'll tell you something for nothing, it won't look like Blackberry 10.

Today's launch of the new system (at which the company ditched the name RIM, as if anyone cared) has attracted more morbid fascination than excitement – it has the feel of a faded Hollywood star turning to "erotic thrillers" to pay the rent. From the red carpet to the sticky carpet, if you like.

What's tragic is that Blackberry won't admit their mistakes – as this absolute car-crash BBC interview with their European Managing director demonstrates. The man's clearly been media-trained within an inch of his life, but when asked the question, "what went wrong?" he starts sweating like a paedophile in a playground. The truth is, they had a dominant market position – as much as 46 per cent of the business market in 2008 – which has now shrunk to a pathetic 2 per cent, taking $70 billion of shareholder value and thousands of Canadian jobs with it. Just like many other businesses that have folded over the last year, the symptoms vary but the illness is the same – catastrophically poor management. Of course, it's probably hard for a spokesperson to say that out loud.

Blackberry is a dying brand, living out its death throes mostly being used by low-value customers. Poor youths in the first world are enticed by its free BBM messaging, but people who are dissuaded from spending a penny on a text are not really the people you want using your phone, especially when they use it to advertise looting hot spots.

Equally, I'm assured it's the phone of choice among the hot-to-trot in downtown Lagos, but again, a small band of wealthy folk in the third world does not a business model make. Besides, evidence from China seems to suggest that Apple's strategy of rebranding once-top-of-the-line handsets as budget entry models seems to suggest that even these few remaining profitable niches will soon disappear.

Blackberry never saw Apple coming, always assumed it would control the high-end business market. They saw the iPhone as no threat to the mighty RIM product, that a specialist phone company would always beat a vaguely artsy design-led computer firm. Of course, Apple definitely aren't a computer company any more. Last quarter, they sold 4.2 million Macs, but 23 million iPads and an astonishing 47.8 million iPhones, and the phone numbers are only rising and rising. This is over a period where Blackberry sales have been falling as much as 43 per cent a quarter, and in the last quarter of 2012, fewer than five million Blackberries were shipped.

The fruit war is over, and Apple has won. If you need any more proof that I am right, Piers Morgan has taken to Twitter to tell us exactly how cool he thinks his new BlackBerry 10 phone is. The real fight is now Apple vs Android. The only question remaining over BlackBerry is "when will it fold?"

[Kezzer]

the z10 is a pretty cool phone.

it has some nifty features.

[Cosmo]

Was rather amused by this.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p014f43k

[NickSCFC]

Was rather amused by this.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p014f43k

Real answer: "strawberry float all"

Also that guy's face on the media window

[Oh Teh Noes]

I like the look of the new BlackBerries

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD

[NickSCFC]

I like the look of the new BlackBerries

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD

I think the handsets look decent (specs wise), BB10 look awful though, whatsoever with the navigation

If you're an Android user then you'll find Windows Phone and iOS easy to use and vice versa vice versa, but I see existing smartphone users struggling to use BB10, there isn't even a home button.

[Dante]

I've had to roll out 7 training sessions on BB10 this past 2 weeks and have been playing with the cloaked versions for the past three weeks and it really is a very lovely phone. the main thing is that it all works really well

What did make me laugh, the RIM rep stating "We dont' care how many the phone sells, it's about getting our users back. It's about business, personal users mean very little right now" Which is the right attitude, RIM strawberry floated themselves when they stretched themselves too thin going for all markets, but if you want your user base back, you kinda need to worry about selling thep hones

[Fatal Exception]

Was rather amused by this.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p014f43k

How can the BBC get away with gooseberry fool like that?

[Rightey]

Was rather amused by this.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p014f43k

Real answer: "strawberry float all"

Also that guy's face on the media window

Considering how Apple seem hell bent on suing anyone and everyone maybe he didn't want to comment on that question because it could be misconstrued?

[Fatal Exception]

Was rather amused by this.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p014f43k

Real answer: "strawberry float all"

Also that guy's face on the media window

Considering how Apple seem hell bent on suing anyone and everyone maybe he didn't want to comment on that question because it could be misconstrued?

That's exactly it. The reporter is hell bent of trying to make him give a sound bite that sounds like they copied Apple. He could have handled the question better though.

[NickSCFC]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/news ... Japan.html

Blackberry surrenders in Japan

Troubled smartphone maker BlackBerry has run the white flag up in Japan, by effectively withdrawing from that market.

The company, which is being soundly beaten by iPhone maker Apple, will not sell its two long-awaited BlackBerry 10 handsets in Japan in the market.

BlackBerry had pinned its hopes on the BlackBerry 10 to help it rehabilitate itself after a disastrous few years, which have been blighted by service blackouts in Europe and falling sales worlwide. Apple and other rivals like Samsung have consistently outflanked the Canadian company, which last week changed its name from Research In Motion.

According to The Nikkei, BlackBerry used to have around 5pc of the Japanese market for smartphones, but that figure has slumped to 0.3pc. In the six months to September last year, the number of smartphones sold in Japan grew 40pc to around 14m, but BlackBerry sold fewer than 100,000.

A BlackBerry spokesman said it would continue to support Japanese customers on its network, adding that the country did not rank as a “major market”. The company thought it would cost too much money to develop a Japanese-language operating system for the Japanese market.

[KK]

BlackBerry Z10 Returns ‘Exceed Sales’

What could be worse for BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion Ltd. than weak early sales of its new flagship phone? The possibility that people who did buy the phone are returning it.

In two separate reports Thursday morning, analysts noted a weak launch of the BlackBerry Z10 in the U.S.

ITG analyst analyst Joe Fersedi writes that the Z10 launch “started poorly and weakened significantly as the days passed,” and that Z10 sales are “in line-to marginally ahead of anemic sales” of older BlackBerry models and the Nokia NOK1V.HE -1.45% Lumia 822.

Fersedi said that initially the Z10′s share of sales was 4% at Verizon stores and 7% at AT&T T +0.13% stores, but those numbers have fallen to about 1% to 2%.

Perhaps worse, according to a report from Detwiler Fenton, customer returns of the Z10 are actually outnumbering sales.

“We believe key retail partners have seen a significant increase in Z10 returns to the point where, in several cases, returns are now exceeding sales, a phenomenon we have never seen before,” Detwiler analyst Jeff Johnston writes in the report.

In response to the reports, the company issued the following statement: “BlackBerry wishes to respond to media coverage today regarding speculation that there have been abnormally high levels of returns of BlackBerry Z10 devices. This is absolutely false. Our data shows that return rates for BlackBerry Z10 devices both in the U.S. and on a global basis are in line with or better than our expectations and are consistent with return rates for other premium smartphones in the market today.”

In its most recent earnings call, RIM said it sold 1 million Z10s, but the quarter did not include U.S. sales.

If there is a silver lining for RIM, it’s that Mr. Johnston and many other analysts expect the forthcoming, keyboard-equipped BlackBerry Q10 to sell much better. The Q10 just became available for pre-order in the U.K. and Canada this week and is expected to ship at the end of April. The Q10 should arrive in the U.S. in May or June.

But for the Z10, which RIM expects to compete head-to-head with the iPhone 5 and the latest Samsung Galaxy, these early indicators do not bode well.

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/04/11/ ... _news_blog

This company is finished, surely.

[massimo]

I'm surprised the Wall Street Journal doesn't even know the name of the company.

[NickSCFC]

That's pretty awful if it's true, don't people try things before they buy them anymore?

[Zellery]

I'd buy a Blackberry Deathwatch.