back to article BlackBerry BLOODBATH! Company warns of nearly $1bn quarterly loss

BlackBerry surprised Wall Street by releasing its second quarter earnings early on Friday, but it was hardly the kind of surprise where a dancer jumps out of a cake. The Canadian smartphone maker warned the market that it expects to post revenues of around $1.6bn when it files its formal earnings report on September 27 – a …

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  1. JeffyPoooh
    Pint

    Ouch.

    Another Canadian success story.

    1. Flip

      Re: Ouch.

      Yup. "Valuable patents" sounds familiar. Lay everyone off, sell off the intellectual property, gut the employee pension fund, fold up and die.

      Face it - Canada is just a warehouse of raw materials to be used by companies that can actually compete in a global economy.

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Ouch.

      Thanks to the guvament.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Ouch.

      Do we have another Kodak - not realising the world had moved on (iOS, Android and Windows Phone) and end up eeking out an existence selling their patents.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Ouch.

        LOL, Windows phone....

        It's just a two horse race, consumers with any sense don't buy Windows Phone, as they too can see it's as dead as Blackberry is.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Ouch.

          "It's just a two horse race, consumers with any sense don't buy Windows Phone"

          Nope - not anymore - Windows phone is growing market share at circa +70% a year. It already hit 10% share of sales in a number of countries. Now that Microsoft bought Nokia's devices arm to help fight The Borg and Android, I would expect that share to grow even more rapidly...

        2. RyokuMas

          Re: Ouch.

          *Sigh*

          Kodak didn't realise that the world had moved on and suddenly collapsed. Blackberry appears to be in the same state.

          Here's hoping the same thing happens to all those who post the usual knee-jerk anti-Windows-Phone comments without having any kind of argument to back their opinions up beyond "It's Microsoft"...

      2. spiny norman

        Re: Ouch.

        Kodak did realise the world was moving on, they invented a lot of the technology behind digital photography. The problem was they had a business that depended on manufacturing, distributing and processing film. They couldn't dismantle the manufacturing and the vast distribution, retail and processing network fast enough, and it wasn't obvious what business they could move into that would allow them to continue to operate at that scale. Whatever Blackberry is, they're not another Kodak.

    4. FanMan
      WTF?

      Don't knock the Kanucks

      Canada survived the recession much better than we did. We have imported their top talent to run our bank better than we can. They're wonderful people, apart from Torontonians. They have a wonderful country. We should be so lucky!

  2. Don Jefe
    Unhappy

    It isn't sales and marketing that's lacking. It's the fucking phones that are lacking. They are in no way bad products, it is just that they are products from 2009.

    I'm not normally a big management hater, but Christ, they've got zero direction, with anything. Pick a path, any path, and run with it. It'll work or it won't but even the closing paragraphs of the article highlight the fact they've lost their rudder. They're rejiggering a basically brand new strategy and product line, but with no more consideration for the new plans than they put into the old ones. Just blaaerrrgh everywhere.

    I hate to see them die like this. Their phones were my best friends for ages and the company was one of my favorites. But this slow death is just awful. Maybe it is even a fate worse than being swallowed by MS. At least then not everybody would lose their investment.

    Ha! They should hire Elop to deal with this. The groundwork is already done. He'll be able to put this thing out of its misery in two quarters or less!

    1. ScissorHands

      No. Just no.

      They're phones from 2012, but at prices from 2009. I'd better get myself a Z10 at the inevitable fire sale (749 pounds at launch, lol!).

      1. RonWheeler

        Re: No. Just no.

        Yep. Prices of the new phones were simply too high. You can get away with that kind of pricing for iPhones and top end Android, or to some enterprises - but not for a relatively unknown platform. Blackberry needed to get some £120 Tesco-phones into the market OR focus completely on enterprise phones. No ficus equalled failure.

        1. John H Woods Silver badge

          Re: No. Just no.

          RonWheeler: "No ficus equalled failure"

          Yep, they didn't give a fig.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Holmes

      @Don Jefe - "I hate to see them die like this."

      Why? Haven't we seen this movie before with tech companies? Repeatedly?

      The top guys made their billions. The engineers will land on their feet with good jobs at good companies. And the sales and marketing staff will go back to schlepping medical products or used cars - either one of which they are poorly prepared to actually "sell".

      Which group do you feel sorry for? What I feel sorry for is my now-useless thumbs - I hate jabbing at gorilla glass with my fat fingers.

      1. Don Jefe

        I feel sorry for the lot of them. Yay for the folks that made a lot of money, but RIM was actually a decent company. That's probably what killed them. Well, that and the stupid management structure. They could have leveraged market dominance and lowballed their phones to play in the kiddie pool with other junk and hobble Android before it even got started by leveraging their carrier partners to block them off, but they didn't. They could have loaded their consumer phones up with factory intrusion mechanisms and built a marketplace solely around capturing and selling user data, but they didn't. They tried compete by being a decent company. Tried to do something more than just make a quick Loonie.

        It's fairly low to not give a shit about a lot of people who are losing good jobs because of simple bad decision making. They weren't manipulating their company and employees to increase today's share price. They weren't acting like MS or Apple, being dicks because they could. If they went to court it was because they felt they had been wronged. Not to screw someone else. For a global leader in any industry I think they set a standard that a lot of other companies should try to live up to.

        1. Daniel B.

          Agree

          I also like Blackberry (formerly known as RIM) and have stayed on the boat since 2008. In fact, I'm currently toting a brand new 9790, despite many asking me why haven't I migrated to Android or iOS. I haven't done so for security reasons (these are FIPS 140-2 and have real security built from the ground up) and privacy issues (I don't want Google slurping up my stuff). It is sad to see them slowly go down; I had previously seen Nokia as a possible jumpaway boat but Elop killed that option. I'm truly worried about MS circling BB, as I would definitely jump ship if they get their grubby hands on them. There's no way I'll ever use anything MS branded on my smartphone.

          If only BB could release low-end BB10 handsets, they might get back some of the smartphone market. Not all of us are app hoarders.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Agree

            "If only BB could release low-end BB10 handsets, they might get back some of the smartphone market. Not all of us are app hoarders."

            Too late for that. Just as Nokia wasn't sufficiently nimble against the emerging Apple & Android competition, so BB weren't. For the six years or so that took us from the original iPhone and Galaxy through to the iPhone 5 and the S4, regardless of apps, BB simply wasn't in that hardware market, with (until far too recently) no good hardware other than for hardware keyboard fetishists, and no credible OS for the smartphone world. Had the latest products been launched three years earlier, they might have had a chance,but when you lay off 40% of your workforce, and you're not selling your new product, developed as a "bet the ship" gamble, there's nowhere to go (other than Redmond).

            All but the most ignorant phone buyers can smell smoke and hear the crackle of flames, so nobody in their right mind (other than hardware rooters) is going to buy anything labelled Blackberry now, sadly.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Agree

            "FIPS 140-2"

            You're kidding, right?

            Tamper-resistant packaging on a crypto module where the algorithm and the embodiment are likely back-doored by the NSA.

            Read the news lately?

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Agree

              Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 and WIndows RT are also FIPS 140-2 certified by the way....

              The imminent death of Blackberry opens the door wider for Windows Phone in the enterprise...It's the only real remaining option that is secure and easily manageable...

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Agree

                "It's the only real remaining option that is secure and easily manageable"

                Tripe. Android is perfectly secure an manageable in the corporate environment.

                http://www.informationweek.com/software/application-optimization/google-play-opens-private-app-store-for/240143790

                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: Agree

                  "Android is perfectly secure an manageable in the corporate environment."

                  LOL. Android is by far the most insecure mobile OS on the market. If you really want the NSA to listen to everything you do then Android is the most likely to help them achieve that....

                  1. Anonymous Coward
                    Anonymous Coward

                    Re: Agree

                    Prove it

  3. Andy Roid McUser

    more staff lay offs

    They still have staff left to sack. ? if they still have 10,000 staff left ( before this round of redundancies ) what on earth are/were they doing ?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: more staff lay offs

      A few thousand were making secure phones for the Dod and won a contract for .... 20000 phones. But after Snowdon noone believes they're secure anyway.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: more staff lay offs

        Maybe I'm missing something, but they're a Canadian company not US, hardly see them of all people (who places security as the first and main feature) co-operating with a US agency.

        Heck the reason why the American government department uses them is probably *because* they know the other American companies phones has backdoors.

        I'd say after Snowden disclosures even after we know that spy agencies has produced spywares and trojans for phones (search for the blackberry snowden disclosure), the fact that they need to do that (create tailored trojans) means Blackberry isn't co-operating with them willingly unlike all the other American companies that has little choice but to comply.

        Maybe it isn't obvious but we've seen over the past decades many news about Blackberry being banned from certain countries for not willing to comply to provide local government access whereas there is hardly any (if there is any) news about other phone platforms causing a problem for governments. That in itself is telling enough.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: more staff lay offs

          "...we've seen over the past few years many news items about Blackberry being allowed to continue selling into certain countries due to them ultimately complying with government direction to provide local government access..."

          There, I fixed it for you.

          1. Chris Parsons

            Re: more staff lay offs

            @AC 21/9 11:19

            Smug tnuc

        2. Don Jefe

          Re: more staff lay offs

          The Canadian government is rather cooperative in most US endeavors. Maybe not as far as mandating back doors in Blackberry products, but as a participant in the largest trading relationship on the planet they are subject to more US leverage than most.

          There's a reason the Canadian Embassy in DC is by far the largest foreign embassy in the country, they're big buddies. Except for Vietnam and Iraq the Canadian government generally acquiesces to US desires. Even in Iraq they provided a vital support role.

          General public opinion in Canada is about 50/50 (maybe a tad lower lately) on a positive US view but closer to 85/15 positive in Ottawa. Like most modern democracies, the views of their leadership don't mesh with those of the electorate. The Canadian people are exceptional and probably my favorite people on Earth, but their government is comprised of mostly the same interchangeable quasi-sleezeballs that make up most Western governments. There's no historical reason to indicate they wouldn't cooperate with the US on shady 'national security' issues.

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: more staff lay offs

          "Maybe I'm missing something, but they're a Canadian company not US, hardly see them of all people (who places security as the first and main feature) co-operating with a US agency."

          I like the sentiment, but sadly, yes, you are missing something:

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes

  4. Nate Amsden

    crackberry spin

    I was still surprised, I guess I should not of been but was reading the take on this on crackberry.com and one user comment summed it up quite nicely

    "An atom bomb could be dropped on Waterloo and Crackberry would still try to find a way to spin it into good news."

  5. Lars Silver badge

    Elop to the rescue

    Elop to the rescue, Canadian, after all. Expert on burning platforms, or, should I say burning platforms, decently cheep and with a final solution in his pocket. The happy end manager, now available for at least six months. No more is needed, he is a proved expert by now.

  6. asdf

    wow

    You knew this company was FUBAR when they had co CEOs. Seriously though how the hell could they not know this was coming. Their have been warning signs since before the launch of BB10. This is HP mobile all over again.

  7. asdf

    quiet in here

    Where are all the BB fanbois that were telling us how BB10 was going to change everything?

    1. Blank Reg

      Re: quiet in here

      Just because Blackberry is in trouble doesn't change the fact that they still have the best Mobile OS currently available. It's a sad but repeating pattern in tech that the best products seldom win.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Facepalm

        Re: quiet in here

        Poor marketing for Blackberry though. They worked themselves into the corporate darling marketplace, and they almost ignored the consumer marketplace and social, fun and personalized applications. Low and behold, consumers started buying iPhones and Android phones and then insisted that their employers support those if they wanted around the clock access to their employees.

        Tech good, business plan bad is a lot worse than business plan good, tech bad.

        1. Don Jefe
          Meh

          Re: quiet in here

          You've got it wrong way round. RIM ignored the corporate market to cater to consumers. Why else do you think the #1 'Businessmans Tech Gadget' became so popular with kids?

          RIM assumed their corporate business was secure because of their underlying technology and they failed to add the consumer oriented features that business folk also wanted. They had this strange idea that business people were somehow 'above' or immune to shiny things. Anyone who has ever worked at a medium/medium large company knows that isn't true.

          They could have maintained corporate dominance, keeping the core market that made them so successful, but they ignored them to cater, poorly, to consumers. Consumers are too fickle, too fashion driven and have no loyalty to anything. They became heavily dependent on the massive, low margin, product churn associated with the consumer market instead of high margin sales and services contracts to the corporate and government world.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: quiet in here

        "...the best Mobile OS currently available..."

        QNX-based BB10? You're kidding, right?

        I understand where you're probably coming from, but it'd be the same logic as preferring to live in a Turkish prison cell because the building's foundation has wonderfully engineered footings.

        As a mobile OS eco-system (i.e. when the device is used for purposes other than browsing Crackberry), it's inherently third rate.

        Blackberry is one of those companies that should have installed a 'Decision Inverter' into their Meeting Minutes Process flow. Don't touch the management, just invert all their key decisions.

        1. Charlie Clark Silver badge
          FAIL

          Re: quiet in here

          QNX-based BB10? You're kidding, right?

          QNX is fantastic. BlackBerry have done all the hard work turning an embedded system in a user-facing one, with Android support. Might be interesting to see whether Google decides to pick them up for the enterprise customers (it would be a great way to cross-sell Google docs on company hardware) and an option to move from Linux to QNX.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: quiet in here

          Just LOL @ "the best Mobile OS". No. QNX is inefficient and bloated like Android.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: quiet in here

        Best in what way?

        Best usability?

        Best performance?

        Best features?

        Best architecture?

        As much as I like QNX, it is the application layer that counts.

  8. This post has been deleted by its author

  9. mraak

    My final offer to Blackberry

    I'm ready to become your CEO, it can't be worse than what you already have, right? I need 7 digit salary for 2 years, and total control, I don't have time for internal politics and such. Rest we'll figure out. If someone from Blackberry sees this, reply to my comment and we'll take it from there. You have 4 days to reply, thanks.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: My final offer to Blackberry

      No singer or actress specified in your offer?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: My final offer to Blackberry

      @mraak

      Offer accepted. Report to Security-Reception at 7:30am EDT Monday to sign in.

      Ah, ...please, ...sir.

  10. julianh72

    "I'm not dead yet"

    "Dead" Man: I'm not dead!

    Dead Collector: 'Ere, he says he's not dead.

    Large Man: Yes he is.

    "Dead" Man: I'm not.

    Dead Collector: He isn't.

    Large Man: Well, he will be soon, he's very ill.

    http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Monty_Python_and_the_Holy_Grail

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "How the analysts managed to miss the mark by such a wide margin isn't clear"

    Investors pay far too much attention to these so called analysts.

    Their predictions are never wrong - it's the company that is wrong for not meeting their expectations.

  12. the-it-slayer

    Blackberry don't deserve to be in the market...

    I owned the Blackberry Z10 from initial launch. I was prepared to dump my iPhone 4 (becoming awful at holding calls in low signal areas). Initially, the Z10 was quite a nice device. Okay design, sturdy and probably ahead of the Samsung generation of phones. But then I discovered some horrible stuff...

    - Phone app was buggy (couldn't return to home if the screen locked mid-call)

    - Account settings (like e-mail etc) would forget the password frequently

    - Although I was willing to wait for the big apps (Spotify, a native Skype app etc) never came. Only Angry Birds was announced this week over 18 months since BB10 was launched to developers.

    - Some features were misadvertised (Balance which split work/home apps and content)

    - Updates have been very slow to fix issues (10.2 is still not out there and carrier's blocked 10.1 with a immediate release on some networks - don't make promises and not deliver)

    Blackberry never grew a pair of balls to take control of their inventory and update mechanisms. Then the final blow for me when is when they released a 99xx phone with BBOS7 2 months back. What!? Okay, support the phones out there, but it was BBOS7 that rotted Blackberry's core.

    The sleeping giant along side Nokia. If Blackberry had gone Android (as a medium term project) at least, maybe they'd of saved themselves.

    Anyway, farewell Blackberry. My new iPhone 5C serves me well.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Blackberry don't deserve to be in the market...

      "...My new iPhone 5C serves me well."

      5C? C? Really? Not 5S?

      Jeremy Clarkson: "Your ambition is rubbish."

      1. the-it-slayer

        Re: Blackberry don't deserve to be in the market...

        The 5C is better than you think. And I dislike the 5/5S design. Some personal choices there. Even a 5C is a huge step up.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Blackberry don't deserve to be in the market...

      "If Blackberry had gone Android (as a medium term project) at least, maybe they'd of saved themselves."

      Using such a fundamentally insecure OS as Android would only have annihilated their corporate business even faster....

    3. Electric Panda

      Re: Blackberry don't deserve to be in the market...

      "- Phone app was buggy (couldn't return to home if the screen locked mid-call)"

      "- Account settings (like e-mail etc) would forget the password frequently"

      So that's two fundamental features which are basically a bit pants. Doesn't bode well for everything else.

    4. John Sanders

      Re: Blackberry don't deserve to be in the market...

      RIM and Nokia had a very distinctive advantage over Samsung and the rest, they had interesting hardware propositions like high-resolution cameras, good hardware design and very good qwerty keyboards.

      They could have gone Android, port their software layers and they will still be players in the market.

      It's the software stupid companies!!!! It is and it will always be! The wife wants to play the same game aunt Margaret is playing and her sister Susan wants to share pictures with them both via whatever chat app is in fashion.

      Once an OS gains a sufficiently big market foothold and develops a sizeable software ecosystem around a more or less open platform, the game is over.

      RIM and Nokia should have gone Android and they will be still enjoying their piece of the market, true they will probably not be as big as Samsung/Apple, but that is not the point.

  13. rcorrect
    Pirate

    How the analysts managed to miss the mark by such a wide margin isn't clear.

    In related news, analysts involved in this blunder had their salaries cut in half this quarter. This is because Wall Street has high standards and holds analysts accountable for mistakes.

  14. justincormack

    buyer

    Microsoft can't buy them now, antitrust reasons, nor can Google, Samsung or Apple. Dell now has too much debt, and HP is scared off mobile now. A smaller buyer might turn up, eg Lenovo or Hauwei or someone I suppose. The patents could be split off.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: buyer

      "Microsoft can't buy them now, antitrust reasons"

      The last Kantar figures I saw gave Blackberry 0.7% (versus 5.6% for Windows Phone) for US sales, so I doubt that antitrust would come into it Blackberry don't have a significant market share...

    2. Don Jefe
      Pint

      Re: buyer

      I believe this is a situation where Canadian leverage might outweigh Justice Department inclinations. Every single part of anti-trust law is subject to be situationally overridden by the US President; and for Canada to be open to a buyout by MS seems reasonable. A buyout soon could result in some (small) benefit for Canada and Canadians.

      Canada has a lot of power in relation to US trade, if they want this the US won't stop it I think. They got Smart (autos) into the country over very loud objections from the entire US auto industry, the insurance industry and the oil industry. Three groups, each far more significant than the mobile phone industry, were pushed aside because Canada said so. Should MS decide to buy Blackberry, I don't see it being a problem.

  15. Real Ale is Best

    If I were Google...

    I'd make an offer to Blackberry to licence every patent they possess. They could probably get a pretty good deal, and it would protect them from an ambush without all the anti-trust wrangling.

  16. RobHib
    Unhappy

    Oh for the days.

    Oh for the days when the likes of Tektronix and Hewlett Packard made excellent and well-respected equipment which would remain current in the catalog for a decade or more.

    Seems that nowadays in tech, marketing wins out over engineering every time.

    Shame really.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Totally Rimmed

    Blackberry on the slippery slope to Redberry.

    In an era where old tech is a week or month old and the vain have to have the new, this doesn't surprise me.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    This is going to hurt

    In the UK the data tariff for business with global roaming is horrendous (at least with O2 it is).

    I put off renewing the Blackberries because I could see something coming and the other smartphone options would open us to stupid large bills when engineers travel.

    So now I find we are looking at a smartphone, doesn't really matter which OS flavour, for the purposes of billing we will go from an all you can eat sub £50pm on the Blackberry compressed and encrypted mail to (probably) email bloat AKA Outlook and all the other fun shite that can be installed on smartphones.

    A senior manager said to me "you can install far more apps on a smartphone" like that was a good business IT reason for going that way, bit like saying "you might get an infection" as a recommendation of a prospective partner.

    Now if Samsung bought them or the patents, decent build, not MS or Google taint...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: This is going to hurt

      "email bloat AKA Outlook"

      Exchange ActiveSync / Outlook is one of the most data efficient options for remote email. If you are having issues, check that someone hasn't disabled data compression:

      http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd577060(v=exchg.80).aspx

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: This is going to hurt

        @AC 21:11

        I see you conveniently missed the point where the higher compression canes the battery. I'll look into it and ask corporate IT what compression level it currently set to.

        The few Z10's using active sync are running up higher bills and get less battery life already so not sure which to aim for.

        Thanks for the pointer though.

    2. Metrognome

      Re: This is going to hurt

      "A senior manager said to me "you can install far more apps on a smartphone" like that was a good business IT reason for going that way".

      Well, old boy, that was half the reason for Blackberry's demise. The multilock, utterly throttled handsets may give IT admins a hard-on but gave nothing but frustration to the users. I still remember bluetooth issues, lack of tethering etc etc.

      Couple this with devices that would struggle and crash attempting to display a Web page and then the writing is on the wall in bold 72pt arial.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: This is going to hurt

        Blackberry 9790s here. They are comfortably the worst handsets I have ever encountered. Cheap feeling, plastic, buggy and fragile, with a small screen and battery life that seems to vary wildly from handset to handset. IT didn't pick 'em but now we have them everybody who has one in the organisation hates them with a passion.

        Given that RIM (as they were then) was already on a blindingly obvious death spiral when we renewed, the decision mystified me - not least given that we moved from 8520s - comfortably the second worst handsets I have ever encountered. There was a time, before about 2006 that Blackberry made decent handsets (combined with BES) that essentially made them the only game in town for corporate handsets. Those days are long gone.

  19. Spiny_Norman
    Unhappy

    Shame

    I've had 3 work issued BlackBerries - all basic models latest is a 9320 BBOS07 and I'm really happy with it. I guess the issue is what you need your smartphone to do - my company issues BBs purely for the push email facility. There are a few extras like a corporate IM client & VOIP/WIFI bolt ons but very little else - sure it has internet & GPS etc but the point of them is that they sync with our corporate email & handle our S/MIME secure email which all 3 models do really well. Not bad as a phone as well. I have been very nearly able to do a full day's work on the BB. I've not seen anything else that is as good as BB as a corporate comms tool. A shame it looks like they are going down the tubes.

    1. AndyMulhearn

      Re: Shame

      +1.

      I've been using a Q5 for a week now and I'm wondering why all the negative press. The OS is stable and responsive. Messaging is better than the old Torch I used before the upgrade. Battery life is more than good enough. Apps? Shmapps, it's a phone not a games console. And it's costing me £3 per week for 24 weeks, so a total of £72.

      OK, so a BB should have a trackpad and it's taking me a while to get used to it not having one but I'm getting there but aside from that, I'm really struggling to see why people don't like BB10 and the phones.

      1. Don Jefe

        Re: Shame

        Note your comment: "a BB should have a trackpad". What you've said underlies a lot of the reasons for the press opinions. I used a Blackberry since 2002 until earlier this year; in 11 years the most significant changes were moving to a color display, the addition of the central trackball and transition to a trackpad. Everything else was incremental and nothing outside of what you'd expect over the course of a decade of product evolution.

        What a Blackberry is, is so fixed in people's minds that changing it upsets the user base. Like taking away the Start button in Windows: That would just be crazy! Had they continuously changed the devices they could have slowly evolved to meet the advancing expectations of their customers. But they never did. It was the same basic phone for over a decade, the same decade that made mobile streaming of feature films a normal thing, interfacing with home entertainment devices the 'new' remote control and decent cameras the default on every phone.

        Most wouldn't have even really minded if Blackberry was a little slow rolling out new features. The core business customer is used to things like that taking a little longer with most products, as it is usually accompanied by increased stability and reliability over consumer products. But they never rolled them out. They kept the same thing so long it became impossible to do anything but ride that horse right over the cliff. Changing after so long would only pull the rug out from under them, and that's exactly what happened.

        They probably could have done better financially to just toss in a really nice complete accessory package and keep the same phones, instead of spending big money on developing something completely new. Now they've got no customers (effectively).

        In February of this year my 17th Blackberry died (work kills most of my phones, I just lose the rest :) People, my staff and wife included, laughed so hard at me for declaring I was going to buy another Blackberry that I was shamed into trying something else (that's a big deal because I'm nearly impossible to shame). I went with an iPhone, which I like, I wish I had done it years ago. I'm sure a Samsung or Windows Phone would have met my needs just as well. Hell, from what I can tell a nameless phone from the weird street vendor in DC would have been more feature laden than my beloved, but not so smart, Blackberry smartphone. Holy shit that's a long post. I should probably stop now. Yes. You should. You've bored everyone to death and you've got to get up early tomorrow.

  20. ratfox
    Unhappy

    Feeling sorry for them

    Have felt that way for about three years now

  21. Fihart

    The last new Blackberry customer ?

    Given a boxfresh Blackberry by a friend, what's not to like?

    Tank-like construction, but the previous two 9800's my friend had packed up within contract. By the time EE replaced the latest, she had a new iPhone.The 9800 is a remarkable hybrid -- touchscreen and slider. Sadly, neither keyboard works well with my adult male fingers.

    Initially, my friend and myself (LG and Nokia users) were puzzled by the small slot for entering messages. Larger grey area on screen above looks like where you'd text on any other phone. For 4 hours after inserting my SIM and paying for a data plan I was without data -- seemingly until I got a message from Blackberry confirming that my phone was registered. What's that all about? I don't wish to use so-called Blackberry Internet Service, I'm paying EE.

    BB manual refers to wireless but means wireless telephony, not wifi. Confusion extends to the fact that actual wifi doesn't work unless mobile data is switched on. Oh, and BB maps don't work unless you have data plan. Nokia's excellent maps worked (slowly) on GPS alone -- which better when lost in wilderness ?

    I want Google maps. BB app store wants money for a BB version. While Google site displays no sign of BB support, download app anyway as it's free -- and it works. Then I want the My EE app for tracking usage -- downloading via phone from BB store they say that (fake) email address I've given for BB ID will henceforth be my email address. No, I may want to add push email later.

    Instead, download My EE via BB suite on a PC. But BB installs a new version of the ID software and a new desktop suite. When it finishes after about 15 minutes this permits me to download My EE. However, install rebooted the phone twice (3.5 minutes x2). I think I'll stay away from BB sites if poss.

    How is the phone to use, aside from mad keyboard ? Actually, not bad -- setup screens are fairly logical (compared to Nokia) and comprehensive. Frequent reminders that inbuilt memory is full -- clearly too small for a system where stuff remain resident when you think you've finished with it. Touchscreen is overcrowded with duplicate icons. As a phone -- well my friend sometimes sounded like she was calling from under water when using the BB. I suspect noise cancelling isn't good. Battery is also too small -- normal user would charge every day. With similar use Nokia E71 with 3 year old battery lasted 2 to 3 days.

    Now BB wants to sell a phone for £600. And I'm lukewarm about one that was free ?

  22. Hoe

    LOL, And they said nobody could see this coming?

    Must be blind too at BB!

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    google apps for business

    Anyone who said bb had the best push email service is crazy, i know many organisations who transitioned to google apps for business, gmail, doc, drive, shared calendar, etc is easily on par with bb offering and was less of a headache to deploy and works cross platform. What bb did wrong was not allowing other platforms service access to services like bb messenger and other platforms earlier on. Fighting to keep bbos alive instead of getting in bed with google and going android and transitioning into being a handset hardware manufacturer and service provider. Instead they wanted to hold onto everything when the boat had already started to sink. its really the bad management that sunk the bb ship, their products and offerings were never that bad, ok they were never great either, but shortightedness and holding onto a vision/method when the ecosystem / landscape that had changed to much. Nokia made pretty much the same mistakes with holding onto an os that was already dead in the water for to long... just look what happened there.

  24. Zack Mollusc

    survived longer than i expected

    I had a Blackberry Something in 2008, it was a dismal experience as it could not deal with many file types, had a low resolution screen, crappy browser etc. The only good part was the trackball, which was soon removed on the next generation of Blackberry. I am amazed that they have lasted this long.

  25. Frank N. Stein

    Sales and marketing is only of real value if you're selling something that people are buying. It's still possible that other platform owners may be interested in hiring these people, particularly those that seek to gain ground in the enterprise mobile device management market.

  26. herman

    No security

    What this saga shows me, is that most users only used BB because of their previously much vaunted security. As soon as they caved in to governments the world over and made their servers open, the users left in droves and BB collapsed. Security matters more to ordinary users than most IT geeks tend to think.

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Couldn't find a BB anywhere

    I'm in Toronto area this half year and when my old BB broke I was looking for a new phone but noone tried very hard to sell one to me! Blackberry can't be interested in selling at all if there's a customer looking for a phone who doesn't see a compelling message to buy their product.

    Also, the launch early in the year was a debacle. If you don't have phones to sell in the stores then wait until you do before launch.

  28. Arcsur
    Trollface

    Circling the Rim....

    Title says it all. Pity El Reg seems to have missed the opportunity in the subtitle.

  29. Muskiier

    Too bad about the current losses. Love my Z10.

    I spend all week working with users and their Android, Apple, and Blackberry phones and devices. I really don't see any dramatic advantage from one to the next. And, I've personally used every phone platform from Palm to Windows to Android (I've never owned an Apple product) and Blackberry 10 has been solid and simple to set up and use. The current phone marketplace is mostly the result of marketing, and timing. It's true that Blackberry missed the tide/current/boat when the smartphone market really started to grow. Nevertheless, their current product is solid, stable, well-designed, easy, efficient, and fun to use. If I had to bet, I would say that Blackberry will be around for the long-term. After all, a small slice of a huge smartphone market still means very significant revenues.

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Blackberry's death knell was after the riots.

    Chav: Nah, Five-O can't see my messages, cus Im on Blackberry, init.

    one court order later.

    Chav: Whacha mean I am getting sent down, it was only some kickin trainers man (sound of that weird tutting noise). Insurance will pay the shop.

  31. Katie Saucey
    Unhappy

    RIM, Canadian tech giant destroyed by management, Nortel 2.0.

  32. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    FiPS 140-1 list

    For the adults in the forum, the list is here: http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/STM/cmvp/documents/140-1/1401vend.htm

This topic is closed for new posts.

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