[iamagod]

A++

He is a genius. Not being emotionally attached to any part of the company he is making decisions as a true businessman for the better of the company. I love everything he has said and every decision he has made thus far (especially bringing back the trackpad). If the media misquotes him or takes his words out of context its not his fault or even a big deal. It just gets some BlackBerry fangirls panties in a bunch.

I effin love the guy, he is making the right moves and making me money. Stock has been surging and won't look back.

Posted via CB10

[Mr4aces]

I have supported JC with 5 star rating so far. I just hope the rumored specs on the Classic are wrong. He has made all the correct business moves and has put BB back on the map. So I hope the Classic isn't another Q10 with a tool belt.

[Mr4aces]

I have supported JC with 5 star rating so far. I just hope the rumored specs on the Classic are wrong. He has made all the correct business moves and has put BB back on the map. So I hope the Classic isn't another Q10 with a tool belt.

I should never second guess a brilliant leader. DHabkirkDesign released renderings of the Foxconn version of the "Classic". This would mean the "Classic" will be a quality product and not what is rumored.

This along with the QNX and Amazon keeps JC's rating still holding at 5 stars.

All the great ones work in their sleep so the next day they are focused.

[ranzabar]

It was a bold but obvious call to stop trying to compete with iOS and Android in the consumer market. The trick us now to force iOS and Android to compete with BlackBerry in the enterprise market. I give Mr. Chen a 8/10 for now. If the Passport is a success, I'll give him a 9/10.

Posted via CB10

[SuperionMaximus]

I'd give him a C+ or if we are going with a star rating out of 5 I'd give him a 3 out of 5.

This is for his ability to turn investors around mainly, which buys the company more time.

As far as his ability to turn BlackBerry around, I would rather him have kept the interim CEO title because I don't think he's the guy who is going to do it. At least not the way most of us would like.

He will be able to turn BlackBerry into a profitable Enterprise SERVICES business. I don't think he will be able to save the handset business.

I don't think they can hit 10 million units per year sales with just enterprise and I do not think the one device for work and one for pleasure strategy works well below upper management.

BlackBerry will be a multi-vendor supporting MDM service but unless they can find enough business for 10 million units per year in regulated industry, they won't be selling their own handsets much longer.

The Passport is cool and will raise some buzz. The Classic will get a few corporate upgrades to BES 12. But with Music, Videos, and Scoreloop killed, BlackBerry World is going to look like a barren wasteland with nothing but a few enterprise apps. He want's to sell phones with no consumer facing services at all.

That's where I think that John Chen fails hard. He understands enterprise. He has no clue about the consumer market. I do not think BlackBerry will be a viable choice for consumers without their own baked in consumer services. BlackBerry Protect needs to be better and compete with iCloud, Google Drive, and OneDrive. Why kill Scoreloop? Really, how much are they saving? Stupidest decision he's made yet since the cost of the service and staff to maintain it is negligible and it means BlackBerry World isn't a place for games on what's supposed to be the platform for social, hyper-connected users.

So 100% reliance on Amazon for all consumer services. What happens if the Fire Phone is a success and more carriers pick it up? What's the point in buying a BlackBerry if you can get the same services on the Fire Phone? What's Amazon's incentive to continue to prop up BlackBerry if the Fire Phone takes off? I am already betting that the Fire Phone just on AT&T in two quarters outsells all models of BlackBerry both legacy and BlackBerry 10 for the entire year globally. So what happens when more carriers pick up Amazon's phone and the app sales that BlackBerry is generating for the Amazon App store are just a drop in the Bucket? Will Amazon continue to support BlackBerry? What does BlackBerry do if they won't since John Chen killed off all in house or baked in services?

Since people really could not possibly care less what OS their phone is running or how secure it is, BlackBerry 10 alone is not sticky enough to retain customers or attract customers from other platforms they are invested in. iOS doesn't keep customers. iCloud, the App Store, The iTunes store, The iBooks Store, iTunes Radio/Beats Radio etc keep customers on iOS. Android doesn't keep customers, but the Plethora of Google Services that you get with Android sure do.

So far John Chen has killed more services and has not executed anything on his own yet. The Foxconn deal, and the Nanthealth deal were both in the works well before John Chen took the helm. He hasn't launched a phone that was designed by his team yet either and we likely won't see one until sometime around mid next year at the earliest.

All he's done is reorganize the business units a little, and streamline the Enterprise service offerings. Given the way the numbers are trending and the fact that service revenue is rising again, this likely will allow him to achieve his goal of BlackBerry being profitable by March next year. But I don't see a future for BlackBerry hardware under John Chen since he is not doing anything that would grow consumer interest in the Platform and I don't see the 10 million units per year number being achievable with just enterprise upgrades alone.

[Mr4aces]

It was a bold but obvious call to stop trying to compete with iOS and Android in the consumer market. The trick us now to force iOS and Android to compete with BlackBerry in the enterprise market. I give Mr. Chen a 8/10 for now. If the Passport is a success, I'll give him a 9/10.

Posted via CB10

Mike L was one brilliant person, his only problem was he was to arrogant and not a business man. RIM grew very fast and it is hard to find that many good executives to help. Yes RIM had some good ones but when your scrambling to hire so many people are you really hiring the best? And how many out grew their ability? Numbers aren't always the best indication of success it takes smart collective decisions to keep being out front.

JC seems to have that one of a kind instinct and drive. He has surrounded himself with that same type of executives that work in their sleep dreaming how to make a better mouse trap. He might be seeing the end of the tunnel and shifting to 5th gear. He predicted 2 year to turn BB around, but that hair pin is coming quicker, because of his straightaway speed.

Everybody hopes BlackBerry is successful. Let's see what happens in December and hope 3 years from now BB is not sold a giant. Remember JC does not need the money he is doing this for the challenge.

My rating is based on what I "think" he is doing and how it is getting done. He has that instinct when to change gears and correct the steering.

[Mr4aces]

I'd give him a C+ or if we are going with a star rating out of 5 I'd give him a 3 out of 5.

This is for his ability to turn investors around mainly, which buys the company more time.

As far as his ability to turn BlackBerry around, I would rather him have kept the interim CEO title because I don't think he's the guy who is going to do it. At least not the way most of us would like....

Amazon bad decision? Do you really think app developers are going to spend time on a BB OS with 1% of the market? BB will perfect the side loading and 3 years from now the app developer will see that BB is the OS of the future.

So you want JC to follow the others? JC is thinking way beyond.

I respect your opinion. Next year at this time hit me up if you feel the same way. I will bow down.

Edit: Mark Wilson another example of his hiring.

Mark Wilson on Blackberry's Marketing

[SuperionMaximus]

Amazon bad decision? Do you really think app developers are going to spend time on a BB OS with 1% of the market? BB will perfect the side loading and 3 years from now the app developer will see that BB is the OS of the future.

So you want JC to follow the others? JC is thinking way beyond.

I respect your opinion. Next year at this time hit me up if you feel the same way. I will bow down.

Edit: Mark Wilson another example of his hiring.

Mark Wilson on Blackberry's Marketing

I didn't say having Amazon on board was a bad decision. I am not opposed to it at all, and I think that the more choices available to BlackBerry customers the better.

Where I take objection, and where I see John Chen as not "Thinking way beyond" but rather being so short sighted he can't see past his own nose, is killing off in house and baked in services. Relying 100% on a direct competitor for all your consumer services and apps seems like an incredibly bad idea if your goal is long term success and growth in the handset business.

So sure, have Amazon pre-loaded and offer all their apps and services. But for heavens sake keep your own apps and service offerings for consumers as well.

What developers are going to want to put games in BlackBerry World with Scroeloop killed? The most social, connected Platform just killed its social gaming service. Plus, no native music or videos in BlackBerry World. You want consumer apps and services? Hit up Amazon. Bad idea if you want BlackBerry to succeed.

BlackBerry is NOT selling 10 million units per annum through enterprise channels and I strongly doubt they ever will.

Even the phones that are issued through enterprises to employees, if you wanted to grow BlackBerry's phone business you'd think you'd want those customers to give a crap about the personal side of BlackBerry Balance and think "I might want this to be my only phone", or "I should get a couple more of these for the wife and kids"

But when the non-work side of the phone offers nothing other then a competitors app store, you might think, "the OS is cool, but the wife would probably like the Fire Phone better"

The consumer market is like 90% of BlackBerry's handset business. I think a big part of what caused BlackBerry 10 to flop with consumers was killing off all BIS services. No more BlackBerry Protect Backups, no more BlackBerry.net email, no more ultra-cheap social media plans etc... These things mattered to consumers.

Again, no one gives a crap about the OS these days. It's the services. Even the corporate workers like to play a little music on the way home or compete with friend on a game. Without these things natively. Bye Bye handset business. It's only a matter of time

[axe50]

I didn't say having Amazon on board was a bad decision. I am not opposed to it at all, and I think that the more choices available to BlackBerry customers the better.

Where I take objection, and where I see John Chen as not "Thinking way beyond" but rather being so short sighted he can't see past his own nose, is killing off in house and baked in services. Relying 100% on a direct competitor for all your consumer services and apps seems like an incredibly bad idea if your goal is long term success and growth in the handset business.

So sure, have Amazon pre-loaded and offer all their apps and services. But for heavens sake keep your own apps and service offerings for consumers as well.

What developers are going to want to put games in BlackBerry World with Scroeloop killed? The most social, connected Platform just killed its social gaming service. Plus, no native music or videos in BlackBerry World. You want consumer apps and services? Hit up Amazon. Bad idea if you want BlackBerry to succeed.

BlackBerry is NOT selling 10 million units per annum through enterprise channels and I strongly doubt they ever will.

Even the phones that are issued through enterprises to employees, if you wanted to grow BlackBerry's phone business you'd think you'd want those customers to give a crap about the personal side of BlackBerry Balance and think "I might want this to be my only phone", or "I should get a couple more of these for the wife and kids"

But when the non-work side of the phone offers nothing other then a competitors app store, you might think, "the OS is cool, but the wife would probably like the Fire Phone better"

The consumer market is like 90% of BlackBerry's handset business. I think a big part of what caused BlackBerry 10 to flop with consumers was killing off all BIS services. No more BlackBerry Protect Backups, no more BlackBerry.net email, no more ultra-cheap social media plans etc... These things mattered to consumers.

Again, no one gives a crap about the OS these days. It's the services. Even the corporate workers like to play a little music on the way home or compete with friend on a game. Without these things natively. Bye Bye handset business. It's only a matter of time

Finally someone who can see past smoke and mirrors. Killing those services off effectively killed of any chance of me getting another BB10 device (and no touch upgrade really what the writing on the wall). I use my device for work, but I also have a long commute where I wind down with a game or some music, watch a video, or even peruse app world for something to buy to occupy my time for a week or two. Why would I even bother now? The OS is good, but not good enough for me to stay. I'm not going to use or trust a device that can't even offer the basics.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for choice of services and I'm vehemently anti-walled garden, but BlackBerry just removed their choice from the equation. Would you consider buying a house that meant you had to go use your neighbors toilet?

Posted via CB10

[Mr4aces]

I'm in the minority as I do not use the phone to play Candy Crush like my wife does on her Samsung, which I hate. I use the phone for calls, texting, tweeting and emails. I use to keep up on the latest and greatest, but since I have retired I could care less. If you read my intro it summarizes my past. Everybody bases their opinions and decisions on their past, so I apologize for my strong opinions.

From what I "know" BB can not compete in the mobil market "today" they got behind because of ML arrogance. For the past 3-5 years BB has been in a catch up mode trying to do to many things without the proper foundation.

The PassPort, QNX and BES is only the start of BB's new foundation. Why start 10 houses when you only have the funds for 3? Why build residential when you specialize in commercial? The greatest down fall on any company is uncontrolled growth.

The real money maker will be QNX. We are only getting a glimps of the iceberg. BB needs buget their $ where they know it will return a profit. Not some wireless consumer market that they are still behind.

The PassPort was built for a specialized industry, not for surfing and gaming.

Everybody would like to see BB produce more phones "today", so when someone sees you using a BB they don't laugh. Let BB concentrate on what they know best "today". Vertical screens on a phone is ridiculous, but everybody followed Apples path. The 1 to 1 ratio screen makes more sense. App developers will start to build on this platform. This one thing will start to bring developers back to BB. BB is not going to keep making gesture phones to play Candy Crush and keep following Apple and Samsung.

Unless you have ran a company it is hard to imagine what goes on and how not to micro-manage. JC has surrounded himself with key people that have helped him be successful. I would bet he still puts in a 60+ hours at the office and his "thinking" hours. He also has to balance his family life in California. Did everybody forget what he was hired for? To turn a company around and make a profit.

Again this is only my "opinion" from what little "knowledge" I have.

[SubCamp]

I'm going to pull an NHL executive scout line and say, ask me in 3 years

Posted via CB10

[Andreas Uberman Z]

I will admit I feel that he is not great in interviews and seems to lack clarify when called up on specifics. I think BBRY needs to hire someone who is charismatic and well spoken so they can start publicly promoting a philosophy beyond" we are the best at mobile security and we aren't going under".

But if you look at all the short term achievements that Chen has accomplished, it is very hard not to give him pretty high praise. He has worked to leverage the company's strengths while offsetting it's weakness.

To anyone complaining about BBRY's decision to partner with Amazon, focus on QWERTY devices and cut Scroeloop, I ask you the following. Do you really think BBRY could produce a product that could actually change NA consumer perspective about the brand in the short term? At least enough to give them a fighting chance against Apple Samsung and Google ?

I'm a consumer living in Canada, I obviously would be sad if the company abandoned the consumer market or the handset industry in general, but the game has changed drastic action needed to be taken to save the company from a horribly orchestrated launch and a very I'll adviced attempt to sell itself. I would rather the ship take a few turns I feel uneasy about then sink. John Chen A- (I'm a harsh marker)

Posted via CB10

[Mr4aces]

It has been a little over 2 months since I started this thread. For not knowing anything about BlackBerry and John Chen in April I think my comments on JC have been spot on and one step before any BlackBerry releases. Of course my comments were pure speculation, but maybe the naysayers will jump off ML's and the prior adminstration's wagon.

How do you score him now?

[adarred]

I will admit I feel that he is not great in interviews and seems to lack clarify when called up on specifics. I think BBRY needs to hire someone who is charismatic and well spoken so they can start publicly promoting a philosophy beyond" we are the best at mobile security and we aren't going under".

But if you look at all the short term achievements that Chen has accomplished, it is very hard not to give him pretty high praise. He has worked to leverage the company's strengths while offsetting it's weakness.

To anyone complaining about BBRY's decision to partner with Amazon, focus on QWERTY devices and cut Scroeloop, I ask you the following. Do you really think BBRY could produce a product that could actually change NA consumer perspective about the brand in the short term? At least enough to give them a fighting chance against Apple Samsung and Google ?

I'm a consumer living in Canada, I obviously would be sad if the company abandoned the consumer market or the handset industry in general, but the game has changed drastic action needed to be taken to save the company from a horribly orchestrated launch and a very I'll adviced attempt to sell itself. I would rather the ship take a few turns I feel uneasy about then sink. John Chen A- (I'm a harsh marker)

Posted via CB10

I respect your opinion, but just wanted to point out that the markets seem to react favorably to John's interviews and presentations. Every time he speaks, the market reacts favorably. I think that is the most important thing.

There are a lot of examples of this but just take today's comments about potentially partnering up with another company. The stocked jumped over 5%.

Posted via CB10

[Mr4aces]

I respect your opinion, but just wanted to point out that the markets seem to react favorably to John's interviews and presentations. Every time he speaks, the market reacts favorably. I think that is the most important thing.

There are a lot of examples of this but just take today's comments about potentially partnering up with another company. The stocked jumped over 5%.

Posted via CB10

Hmm..........

.....Someone not knowing anything about the industry is tough. Who do you take advise from within BB? What key executive positions to you replace? With who? Budget and cash flow projections? What projects are on the table? Keep or abandon? How to stop the bleeding and the forecast when funds are available for R&D? Policies? ..... The list goes on and on.

Keep in mind that the shareholders feel it is "their" best interest to save the company. Otherwise they would have hired a "liquiditor".

JC must feel he can do it otherwise there would not be the moves he is making.

I predict sometime in December BB will partner up with someone very big.

It all boils down to money JC had to establish BlackBerry before he could make this move. I didn't think it was going to happen until the end of the year. BB is under capitalized for the projects it wants to follow through. Another example of JC working his instincts. He knew this after he analyzed BB's before he took the job and confirmed after.

Of course this is only my opinion and was speculation on my part.

"When your short of capital you trim the fat, sell the meat and heal the bone." Dean S. Oshiro 2007

[SuperionMaximus]

Finally someone who can see past smoke and mirrors. Killing those services off effectively killed of any chance of me getting another BB10 device (and no touch upgrade really what the writing on the wall). I use my device for work, but I also have a long commute where I wind down with a game or some music, watch a video, or even peruse app world for something to buy to occupy my time for a week or two. Why would I even bother now? The OS is good, but not good enough for me to stay. I'm not going to use or trust a device that can't even offer the basics.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for choice of services and I'm vehemently anti-walled garden, but BlackBerry just removed their choice from the equation. Would you consider buying a house that meant you had to go use your neighbors toilet?

Posted via CB10

Yeah, Killing Music and Videos off from BlackBerry World convinced two of my friends to switch as well simply because they liked the convenience of carrier billing in BlackBerry world and now they have to use their credit card in 7 Digital and as of yet there is no replacement for videos.

Most people here are praising Mr Chen like he's some sort of genius. But if you listen closely to what he's been saying plus his actions, he's likely planning to dump the hardware business. He's said BlackBerry needs 10 million units per year for handsets to turn a profit. That's more then they currently sell to regulated and security minded corporate customers. So he NEEDS consumers. He's also said he has no emotional attachment to any part of BlackBerry and that he will let the market tell him if BlackBerry should keep making phones. Well, he is influencing the market's vote by ensuring consumers (which he needs to meet his minimum volume for profit) will reject BlackBerry devices. Having the Amazon App store preloaded will not win any new customers, but losing the few services that BlackBerry already offered will cause existing customers to leave. Also, Amazon has nothing really to gain from a BlackBerry partnership, but they sure could use a hardware business that comes ready made with connections to 700 carriers around the world since Amazon really wants to be a player in the hardware business. So, getting close to Amazon may have nothing to do with offering BlackBerry customers a better app experience. Getting close with Amazon may be John Chen's solution to selling the part of the business BlackBerry can no longer sustain to a company that really wants to grow it's hardware offerings. His most common response when asked if BlackBerry will stop making phones has been 'what is BlackBerry without devices?'. This answer can be seen two ways. First is that he is firmly committed to making hardware. The second, is he wants you to start thinking about what BlackBerry would be without devices. You can bet your last $1 that John Chen has thought about what BlackBerry would be without devices, and you can also be certain he sees Amazon as a potential buyer if he wants to pull the plug on making phones.

If BlackBerry does stay in the hardware business, then well, 10 million and 1 might be all the phones they ever manage to sell per year without significant interest from consumers. Also, those phones are going to be very highly specialized niche products and you'll get one if your job issues you one, and really you wouldn't want a personal one anyway because the phones will become very tailored to the needs of whatever industries are buying them.

If the sole measure of his success is that BlackBerry the company will again be profitable, then John Chen will achieve that goal and deserves high marks.

If the measure of his success is for BlackBerry to be a competitive smart phone maker while turning a profit, if you're a CIO you might think he's doing great.

If you're a CIO who likes to rent a movie on his phone to watch on the train ride home from work, or a consumer in general, you might want to knock a few points off of Mr Chen's grade.

I will stick with my C- grade cause I haven't seen anything from him that has impressed anyone but investors. Thorsten did the heavy lifting of rightsizing the company. We haven't seen a device launch that Mr Chen had much say in as even the Foxconn deal was on the table when Thorsten was still CEO. As was the Nanthealth deal. That one might go back as far as when Mike L was still CEO.

John Chen has so far fired all of Thorsten's guys, lost some more talent on top of that, sold every piece of land BlackBerry owned at way below market value, hired a bunch of his friends, and reorganized BlackBerry into 4 business units. He's also killed all consumer services off, and seems to not think existing BlackBerry 10 customers are a significant enough group to worry about since he has killed music and videos months before any potential (keep in mind nothing has been promised) Amazon replacements arrive. Speaking of Amazon, the only thing that has been promised is the Amazon App Store. Not Amazon Music, Amazon Prime, Instant Video, or any other Amazon service. So I wouldn't be expecting to much. I also really do not think John Chen, or anyone he's hired is the person to make BBM a legitimate competitor to anything in the mobile messaging or social networking space. They are still lacking vision for BBM, executing way to slowly and growth has completely stalled. Plus, according to BlackBerry 40% of active users of BBM are in Indonesia alone. 85 million active users total and 34 million in Indonesia. That's not looking to good.

We will see what happens over the next few months, but so far I'm not all that impressed with what I've seen from the new team at BlackBerry.

[eyesopen1111]

Carrier relations: F
Developer relations: F
Smartphone hardware strategy: F
Development of native ecosystem: F
BlackBerry brand image: F
Increase addressable market: F
Selling out consumer market: A


Z-30/STA 100-5/10.3.0.700+.296/T-Mobile USA

[Q10Bold]

I'd give him a C+ or if we are going with a star rating out of 5 I'd give him a 3 out of 5.

This is for his ability to turn investors around mainly, which buys the company more time.

As far as his ability to turn BlackBerry around, I would rather him have kept the interim CEO title because I don't think he's the guy who is going to do it. At least not the way most of us would like.

He will be able to turn BlackBerry into a profitable Enterprise SERVICES business. I don't think he will be able to save the handset business.

I don't think they can hit 10 million units per year sales with just enterprise and I do not think the one device for work and one for pleasure strategy works well below upper management.

BlackBerry will be a multi-vendor supporting MDM service but unless they can find enough business for 10 million units per year in regulated industry, they won't be selling their own handsets much longer.

The Passport is cool and will raise some buzz. The Classic will get a few corporate upgrades to BES 12. But with Music, Videos, and Scoreloop killed, BlackBerry World is going to look like a barren wasteland with nothing but a few enterprise apps. He want's to sell phones with no consumer facing services at all.

That's where I think that John Chen fails hard. He understands enterprise. He has no clue about the consumer market. I do not think BlackBerry will be a viable choice for consumers without their own baked in consumer services. BlackBerry Protect needs to be better and compete with iCloud, Google Drive, and OneDrive. Why kill Scoreloop? Really, how much are they saving? Stupidest decision he's made yet since the cost of the service and staff to maintain it is negligible and it means BlackBerry World isn't a place for games on what's supposed to be the platform for social, hyper-connected users.

So 100% reliance on Amazon for all consumer services. What happens if the Fire Phone is a success and more carriers pick it up? What's the point in buying a BlackBerry if you can get the same services on the Fire Phone? What's Amazon's incentive to continue to prop up BlackBerry if the Fire Phone takes off? I am already betting that the Fire Phone just on AT&T in two quarters outsells all models of BlackBerry both legacy and BlackBerry 10 for the entire year globally. So what happens when more carriers pick up Amazon's phone and the app sales that BlackBerry is generating for the Amazon App store are just a drop in the Bucket? Will Amazon continue to support BlackBerry? What does BlackBerry do if they won't since John Chen killed off all in house or baked in services?

Since people really could not possibly care less what OS their phone is running or how secure it is, BlackBerry 10 alone is not sticky enough to retain customers or attract customers from other platforms they are invested in. iOS doesn't keep customers. iCloud, the App Store, The iTunes store, The iBooks Store, iTunes Radio/Beats Radio etc keep customers on iOS. Android doesn't keep customers, but the Plethora of Google Services that you get with Android sure do.

So far John Chen has killed more services and has not executed anything on his own yet. The Foxconn deal, and the Nanthealth deal were both in the works well before John Chen took the helm. He hasn't launched a phone that was designed by his team yet either and we likely won't see one until sometime around mid next year at the earliest.

All he's done is reorganize the business units a little, and streamline the Enterprise service offerings. Given the way the numbers are trending and the fact that service revenue is rising again, this likely will allow him to achieve his goal of BlackBerry being profitable by March next year. But I don't see a future for BlackBerry hardware under John Chen since he is not doing anything that would grow consumer interest in the Platform and I don't see the 10 million units per year number being achievable with just enterprise upgrades alone.

100% yes!!!

Posted via Q10Bold

[Killjoyhere]

Valid points. I'm scared for the company.

Posted via CB10

[southlander]

This is true. It's like, "What can make us money? Ok, let's consider it."

Which is exactly what any sane person would do when running a company faced with extinction. Look at Nokia. Look at Microsoft long term. IBM. And the list goes on. There's no rule that says BlackBerry has to always mainly be a smartphone marker.

[eyesopen1111]

Yeah, Killing Music and Videos off from BlackBerry World convinced two of my friends to switch as well simply because they liked the convenience of carrier billing in BlackBerry world and now they have to use their credit card in 7 Digital and as of yet there is no replacement for videos.

Most people here are praising Mr Chen like he's some sort of genius. But if you listen closely to what he's been saying plus his actions, he's likely planning to dump the hardware business. He's said BlackBerry needs 10 million units per year for handsets to turn a profit. That's more then they currently sell to regulated and security minded corporate customers. So he NEEDS consumers. He's also said he has no emotional attachment to any part of BlackBerry and that he will let the market tell him if BlackBerry should keep making phones. Well, he is influencing the market's vote by ensuring consumers (which he needs to meet his minimum volume for profit) will reject BlackBerry devices. Having the Amazon App store preloaded will not win any new customers, but losing the few services that BlackBerry already offered will cause existing customers to leave. Also, Amazon has nothing really to gain from a BlackBerry partnership, but they sure could use a hardware business that comes ready made with connections to 700 carriers around the world since Amazon really wants to be a player in the hardware business. So, getting close to Amazon may have nothing to do with offering BlackBerry customers a better app experience. Getting close with Amazon may be John Chen's solution to selling the part of the business BlackBerry can no longer sustain to a company that really wants to grow it's hardware offerings. His most common response when asked if BlackBerry will stop making phones has been 'what is BlackBerry without devices?'. This answer can be seen two ways. First is that he is firmly committed to making hardware. The second, is he wants you to start thinking about what BlackBerry would be without devices. You can bet your last $1 that John Chen has thought about what BlackBerry would be without devices, and you can also be certain he sees Amazon as a potential buyer if he wants to pull the plug on making phones.

If BlackBerry does stay in the hardware business, then well, 10 million and 1 might be all the phones they ever manage to sell per year without significant interest from consumers. Also, those phones are going to be very highly specialized niche products and you'll get one if your job issues you one, and really you wouldn't want a personal one anyway because the phones will become very tailored to the needs of whatever industries are buying them.

If the sole measure of his success is that BlackBerry the company will again be profitable, then John Chen will achieve that goal and deserves high marks.

If the measure of his success is for BlackBerry to be a competitive smart phone maker while turning a profit, if you're a CIO you might think he's doing great.

If you're a CIO who likes to rent a movie on his phone to watch on the train ride home from work, or a consumer in general, you might want to knock a few points off of Mr Chen's grade.

I will stick with my C- grade cause I haven't seen anything from him that has impressed anyone but investors. Thorsten did the heavy lifting of rightsizing the company. We haven't seen a device launch that Mr Chen had much say in as even the Foxconn deal was on the table when Thorsten was still CEO. As was the Nanthealth deal. That one might go back as far as when Mike L was still CEO.

John Chen has so far fired all of Thorsten's guys, lost some more talent on top of that, sold every piece of land BlackBerry owned at way below market value, hired a bunch of his friends, and reorganized BlackBerry into 4 business units. He's also killed all consumer services off, and seems to not think existing BlackBerry 10 customers are a significant enough group to worry about since he has killed music and videos months before any potential (keep in mind nothing has been promised) Amazon replacements arrive. Speaking of Amazon, the only thing that has been promised is the Amazon App Store. Not Amazon Music, Amazon Prime, Instant Video, or any other Amazon service. So I wouldn't be expecting to much. I also really do not think John Chen, or anyone he's hired is the person to make BBM a legitimate competitor to anything in the mobile messaging or social networking space. They are still lacking vision for BBM, executing way to slowly and growth has completely stalled. Plus, according to BlackBerry 40% of active users of BBM are in Indonesia alone. 85 million active users total and 34 million in Indonesia. That's not looking to good.

We will see what happens over the next few months, but so far I'm not all that impressed with what I've seen from the new team at BlackBerry.

This is the best post I've ever read on this forum! Sooo true.

Z-30/STA 100-5/10.3.0.700+.296/T-Mobile USA

[SuperionMaximus]

Which is exactly what any sane person would do when running a company faced with extinction. Look at Nokia. Look at Microsoft long term. IBM. And the list goes on. There's no rule that says BlackBerry has to always mainly be a smartphone marker.

This is very true. BlackBerry is looking more and more everyday like a company that does not need to rely on it's hardware business for it's long term survival. The thing is, this change was not John Chen's brain child. BlackBerry buying QNX is what is making the changes possible and why John Chen agreed to take the Job. The future revenue streams for BlackBerry are mostly from QNX and Project Ion. That's the market that is going to explode in the coming years.

Most of the hard work was done when John Chen took over - the company had already been rightsized - and the main change under Mr Chen was to tinker with the BES price structure a little and getting BlackBerry out talking to it's business clients again to reassure them that there is in fact a long term plan and that BlackBerry will be around to support them.

But through all the transition, BlackBerry never lost it's number 1 spot in enterprise, but the uncertainty of the company being up for sale certainly did cost them.

The biggest disappointment for me, as some one who loves BlackBerry phones and really enjoys using BB 10 and would like to see it continue in the market, is that I don't see Mr. Chen as the guy who can save BlackBerry's devices business. At least not in it's present form.

I had a work issued BlackBerry 850 (the pager looking one) once upon a time, and that device was an amazing work tool. Focused, efficient, and productive. There was no fluff. If you were a consumer there was no draw other then it looked kinda cool. I had several generations of BlackBerry after that all issued through work as well. But it was still a few more years before I bought my first personal BlackBerry.

Under Mr. Chen, the only path I can see for BlackBerry hardware is to go back to those early utility days. Sure, there will be the Amazon App Store, and there will still be a solid web browser, but there will never be the level of native services that were available to consumers pre-BlackBerry 10.

I would rather see a CEO in place that had a vision for BlackBerry as a company that was able to work hard, and play hard. John Chen knows enterprise, and what tools are needed to get work done securely and efficiently like no one else. But even though he's on the board at Walt Disney, he doesn't seem like he knows much about having fun when the work day ends, and does not seem to get the smartphone market very well. Google gets the smart phone market. Apple get's the smart phone market. Microsoft is trying to figure it out. BlackBerry under John Chen? Clueless.

[adarred]

The sole purpose of any company is to enrich it's investors. If the handset business is not profitable and BlackBerry does not have enough capital to turn things around, it has to be dumped. John Chen has a job to do and that job isn't to make BlackBerry phones, it is to provide a return for investors.

I've had BlackBerry phones since they were black and white and I'm a huge fan. But unfortunately if this part of the business isn't profitable it has to go. This will be upsetting for fans like us but I don't think we should be surprised. Also, I'd rather see Blackberry survive in some form and provide high quality jobs for Canadians than go belly up trying to compete with the likes of Apple and Google. I'm pretty sure their annual r and d budgets are close to blackberry's entire market value.


John Chen is not our best friend but doesn't make him a bad CEO.

Posted via CB10

[SuperionMaximus]

The sole purpose of any company is to enrich it's investors. If the handset business is not profitable and BlackBerry does not have enough capital to turn things around, it has to be dumped. John Chen has a job to do and that job isn't to make BlackBerry phones, it is to provide a return for investors.

I've had BlackBerry phones since they were black and white and I'm a huge fan. But unfortunately if this part of the business isn't profitable it has to go. This will be upsetting for fans like us but I don't think we should be surprised. Also, I'd rather see Blackberry survive in some form and provide high quality jobs for Canadians than go belly up trying to compete with the likes of Apple and Google. I'm pretty sure their annual r and d budgets are close to blackberry's entire market value.


John Chen is not our best friend but doesn't make him a bad CEO.

Posted via CB10

BlackBerry does not need to have the resources of Apple, or Google, or Samsung to compete in the consumer smart phone market. They just have to have a compelling suite of quality services that are sticky enough to retain customers. They had this with BIS on legacy devices. They didn't realize it mattered and failed to retain existing customers or attract new ones to BB 10.

Everyone wonders, why do legacy BlackBerrys continue to outsell BlackBerry 10 phones when the software is so superior on BlackBerry 10? Because consumers got more value from the services offered on legacy devices. I LOVED not having to use Desktop Manager to Backup or restore my phone. I used my @carrier.blackberry.net as my primary email address. I liked BlackBerry Wallet. And the list goes on.

BlackBerry does not need to spend tens of billions to offer the services they offered all along. They just need a CEO that understands that the core services matter and that's why the dominant players are so dominant. They offer the best set of services. Why are OEMs more willing to pay Microsoft fees to continue to sell Android Phones then to hop on the Windows Phone Bandwagon now that it is 100% license free? The same reason only a company like Amazon and other big companies in China and Russia who offer a full suite of consumer services are willing to fork Android and not agree to Google's wishes. Because everyone wants access to Google services. Just search this forum, there's countless threads begging for access to Google Services on BlackBerry.

[eyesopen1111]

The problem for me is that I simply don't believe that Chen ever really handled BlackBerry 10 in a way reasonably calculated to give BB10 a chance. We never got, and perhaps will never get, a BB10 device that had all of the following:

(1) a reasonable design, given the market (i.e. all-touch rectangle)
(2) a reasonable set of specs (i.e in line with average competitor flagships)
(3) a reasonable price (i.e. In line with price of similar spec'd competitors)
(4) a reasonably effective carrier relations campaign
(5) a sales volume plan that would support native developers by spreading BB10

If BlackBerry had just put up an average effort, then I have to believe that at least 1 in 20 smartphone shoppers would have gone our way. That would be 5% share, which would be better than MS right now.


Z-30/STA 100-5/10.3.0.700+.296/T-Mobile USA