back to article BlackBerry ends write-off of a year with $4.4bn write-down

BlackBerry announced a whopping non-cash charge on its assets of $4.4bn in its earnings statement today. The company booked a loss of $354m on income of $1.2bn, the result of a continuing collapse in handset sales. In Q2 this year BlackBerry lost $254m on sales of $1.6bn. BlackBerry will continue selling BlackBerrys, but much …

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  1. jai

    On the positive side...

    BBM now has 40 million users

    But, does BBM provide any revenue? it's a free app on Android isn't it?

    Is there an advertising stream that they can tap into via it then?

    1. Steve Evans

      Re: On the positive side...

      If BBM on android is an example of their current work, they're truly doomed.

      First it hung when I first tried to sign in, because I'd set up my account on the PC only 30 seconds before, and that was too fast for it. No message though, just a white screen.

      Then once I did get in ten minutes later, I added two real BB users to my BBM contacts and sent a few messages back and forth... and then discovered a problem... There is no log out. No exit... You can never escape... well you can, you have to terminate the app with extreme prejudice.

      Logged in later to check I hadn't missed an obvious "allow logout" option, and was surprised to see I had a contact request to join a chat... from myself!

      How odd I thought... And hit accept (out of curiosity more than anything else)... This appears to be the hidden logout function, as the app exploded.

      Settings/Apps/Uninstall.

      And this was the app they released after the aborted release cock-up and month long wait... I don't even want to think how flaky the first attempt must have been.

      RIP BB, if we're honest you've been rotting for quite a while now, and the smell is starting to annoy.

  2. Mage Silver badge
    Flame

    Hmm ...

    They sound like they have 6 months to 18 months left.

    Definitely a burning platform.

    1. Spoddyhalfwit

      Re: Hmm ...

      This is where Nokia could have been if they'd stuck with it

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ouch!

    That's a lot of money to lose...

    Yet there's still all those corporate and government users who really, really care about security and have nowhere else to go. If BlackBerry sink, then what? Could we find ourselves in the weird position where, say, a bank or a government buys BlackBerry because that'd be cheaper than risking a migration to another mobile platform?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Ouch!

      "Yet there's still all those corporate and government users who really, really care about security and have nowhere else to go."

      The option that many of them are looking at is Windows Phone. Government and military security certified, and without the myriad of security holes in Android and IOS...

      1. 0laf

        Re: Ouch!

        Samsung KNOX within the S4 has already been signed off for use within some US Government departments. Quite likely that acceptance will spread into other Governments like our own.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Ouch!

          "Samsung KNOX within the S4 has already been signed off for use within some US Government departments"

          Says quite a lot though that the underlying product isn't very secure and you have to shore it up with bolt ons. Reminds me of SEL with Linux.....

      2. Jess

        .. option that many of them are looking at is Windows Phone..

        Which is American owned. So if the NSA wants a look round a device, it can. (The same will be true of iOS and android phones of course).

        At least RIM is Canadian.

        And I just got a Q5, rather nice, apart from a few features yet to make it from the old system.

    2. asdf

      Re: Ouch!

      >a bank or a government buys BlackBerry

      The US government (DoD ie military) is the only ones I could see doing it. They did it with Iridium (through a private front company IIRC) but if they do they will wait for fire sale prices.

  4. Unicornpiss

    They had the world and lost it

    Blackberry had everything going for them and just let the world pass them by. If they would have just reacted a little faster to the trends, we'd at least have a 3-way split between Android, Apple, and Blackberry. Commodore did the same thing decades ago...

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Could be a win/win

    This deal gives Foxconn access to a branded OS that they can use in their own products, getting them a bit from under the shadow of Apple. And it gets BlackBerry out of a hole - their final hardware wasn't at all bad but it was too expensive.

    But it does mean my next phone might be an Oppo or similar.

  6. Dennis 6

    "Yet there's still all those corporate and government users who really, really care about security and have nowhere else to go."

    LOL Now we all know what government security means - the back doors are in place and and everyone and their dog has a key.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Seems odd that if you're struggling to make your devices sell or stand out that you would delegate the important part (the hardware interface) to a manufacturing company. You'll end up with the most generic lookalike crap imaginable.

    1. asdf

      not quite

      >Seems odd

      Nope par for the course for a Canadian telecom related company. When they go under they go big and spectacularly.

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