[Hende Nicolas]

As for BBM, haven't heard a word...

Posted via CB10

[Hende Nicolas]

Also, and this is a purely 'emotional' observation, the end of BlackBerry hardware is the end of Crackberry...I'm surprise by how few people have spoken about this. Do they think we will all be in here on how Androids talking about new BES12 contracts?

Posted via CB10

[ProudCanadian]

Their Marketing Strategy in the USA is Severely Flawed

Let me share my experience of trying to buy a Blackberry Classic from Verizon (my carrier) and ATT &T (two carriers here in New Jersey who were supposed to be selling this phone). I went into the ATT & T store and asked if they had any Classics that I could see and try out. They looked at me like I had three heads. The guy said, "Do they still make those phones?" I said yes and you are suppose to be selling them. He said he was sorry they didn't have any Blackberry Classics in the store, and he didn't know of any other AT &T stores in the area who did either. This was before my carrier Verizon was carrying them. When Verizon finally was suppose to be carrying them I got the same response from them that I got at AT & T. They said I could check online, but they didn't have any on display in the store. I finally bought one online because I had done my research on the Classic and was going to purchase it anyway. I am definitely loyal to Blackberry and not at all your typical consumer. The problem as I see it is: 1) the consumers have a historical perspective of Blackberry - the dinosaur of the past - there has been an inadequate attempt to educate them 2) they are ignorant that there are new phones out there with new OS's that are not at all like the dinosaurs of the past - except maybe the physical keyboards, and 3) there are none of these new phones on display in the US stores for the consumers to try out to see if they like them in comparison to others currently on the market, 4) there are no staff in the stores who are knowledgable about these phones and no staff promoting these phones. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to conclude that you wouldn't be effective selling any product in this manner, let alone cell phone that is trying to make a comeback. Who the hell is in charge of marketing these phones in the USA?

[Troy Tiscareno]

The kind of marketing (excluding advertising!) and sales support (training the carriers' constantly turning-over sales staff, creating and buying space for in-store displays, etc) nationwide would cost at least a $100M a year - and that's for the US alone. BB simply doesn't have that kind of money to spend - they are still losing money in real life (a tiny profit on paper) and are losing bigger on the hardware line of business. Adding $25/phone in additional costs would kill the hardware business overnight.

There's a reason that Apple and Samsung have corporate reps every corporate store (and many franchises) at least once a month, and why smaller players like Moto, LG, HTC, and Sony have them in at least every other month - that's the cost of being relevant in the smartphone business, because sales staff turns over quickly and you have to not only constantly train the new staff, but also keep everyone up to date on the latest company products and initiatives. Sales staff believe BB is dead because no one has seen a BB rep in 2 years - hard to look legit when you can't compete with HTC for manufacturer's reps in stores.

Those same reps also make sure that the brand's displays in the store are up to snuff - all phones working, plugged in, on WiFi, plenty of marketing materials, etc. All of that costs money - big money - and if you're only selling 4M phones a year, PLUS trying to support the entire platform underneath it, it's VERY hard to justify that cost.

[kellyTKD]

Not only do you have to spend the $100M for the advertising, you have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to order the components and build the phones. You can't do a $100M ad campaign and only have 2 million phones on hand. You have to order 10+ million phones months in advance and if you don't sell them for whatever reason, you write down $900M of inventory and you get fired.

You bet the company when you run an ad campaign for your flagship devices. You're not just testing the waters. Ideally, you've done some market research to figure out what the customer response will be. It's amazing that Thorsten Heins and his team missed so badly with the initial BB10 handsets. They probably figured they were committed even before he became CEO simply due to how far behind the competition they were.

[Bbnivende]

The kind of marketing (excluding advertising!) and sales support (training the carriers' constantly turning-over sales staff, creating and buying space for in-store displays, etc) nationwide would cost at least a $100M a year - and that's for the US alone. BB simply doesn't have that kind of money to spend - they are still losing money in real life (a tiny profit on paper) and are losing bigger on the hardware line of business. Adding $25/phone in additional costs would kill the hardware business overnight.

There's a reason that Apple and Samsung have corporate reps every corporate store (and many franchises) at least once a month, and why smaller players like Moto, LG, HTC, and Sony have them in at least every other month - that's the cost of being relevant in the smartphone business, because sales staff turns over quickly and you have to not only constantly train the new staff, but also keep everyone up to date on the latest company products and initiatives. Sales staff believe BB is dead because no one has seen a BB rep in 2 years - hard to look legit when you can't compete with HTC for manufacturer's reps in stores.

Those same reps also make sure that the brand's displays in the store are up to snuff - all phones working, plugged in, on WiFi, plenty of marketing materials, etc. All of that costs money - big money - and if you're only selling 4M phones a year, PLUS trying to support the entire platform underneath it, it's VERY hard to justify that cost.

I wonder how many Android PKB phones they would have to sell to make a profit.

Posted via CB10

[RyanP002]

I have to agree with this post. I don't use a BB device. Wanna know why? Two simple reasons. I'm with AT&T and they make a point of NOT providing any working BB devices in their stores. Oh sure, I saw the new Classic recently. But oddly enough, it was the only non-functioning device. I haven't seen a functional BB phone since BB10 came out. Either BB isn't paying enough for proper marketing or Apple and Google are paying way more. Reason Two - BB won't take the time or bother to take the Hint from Windows. Take one of your cheaper models (Z10 and/or Q5) and get them into the pre-paid market! Nobody is dying to part with hard earned money for phones that look good but have no market familiarity. And finally, as noted above, Market, Market, Market! With Androids recent security flaw issues, it wouldn't hurt to go nostalgic. ("Remember when you didn't have to scroll thru 60 applications to send a document using your phone? Remember when just you and your recipient were the only ones that got to see that document?"). C'mon, make people remember Blackberry!

[cgk]

Also, and this is a purely 'emotional' observation, the end of BlackBerry hardware is the end of Crackberry...I'm surprise by how few people have spoken about this. Do they think we will all be in here on how Androids talking about new BES12 contracts?

Posted via CB10

Well that raises an interesting question - if they switched to android - does crackberry end up a sub-section of android nation or become a zombie site like webos nation.

[Bbnivende]

I hope that BlackBerry stays the course with their BB10 forked android approach. The Android approach will only work if it is full google compliant and such an approach would kill their BB10 all touch platform. Hopefully the Leap will have enough sales to Enterprise so that Chen realizes that PKB's are part of their handset strategy and not the entire strategy. It seems to me that Chen has realized that BlackBerry no longer can afford to design their own phones. That maybe a good thing.

[Hende Nicolas]

BlackBerry simply need to focus on user numbers. Chen has talked about making profits on handsets, but that should not be his priority at the moment. You don't want to lose money on them, but you want to sell the darn things. Aim for break even plus a tiny margin, and use the lower price to tempt people to give BlackBerry 10 a chance. If you increase those user numbers, then you can try increase the app availability. That's always been the case. If BlackBerry had been able to reach 10% market share instead of 1%, we would be in much better shape.

Posted via CB10

[Hende Nicolas]

Slightly off topic, but has anyone heard anything about the 'Passport II'? Im sure he mentioned making another Passport, but that was ages ago...

Posted via CB10

[ljfong]

Well that raises an interesting question - if they switched to android - does crackberry end up a sub-section of android nation or become a zombie site like webos nation.

I think CrackBerry will end up being part of Android Central. Android Central will simply add another subforum for BlackBerry branded Android and will start reporting releases from BlackBerry just like any other Android OSes. Meanwhile CrackBerry will continue focusing on BlackBerry 10 and any hardware, corp news and such. CrackBerry will only follow WebOS Nation into 'zombie' state after BlackBerry the company itself follows Palm into 'former shadow' state.

[nt300]

You predicted 2 Million Classic and Passport sales this quarter and they had maybe a third to quarter of that based on the ASAP. May of the devices sold were older devices being cleared out or the ASAP would have been higher. The Classic and Passport are sales failures. They have delayed a Z30/Z10 upgrade devices, and probably lost more users than they gained with them due to loss in all touch people coming out of contract. The Classic was supposed to convert all those BBOS holdouts and their was pent up demand. WRONG! They are diverting money and resources away from hardware to software. Not BB10 Software, but BlackBerry Experience Software to run on other people's hardware. You can't spin anything in the Quarterly call to support your unicorn and rainbows outlook of BlackBerry and BB10 and the hardware.

Anyone notice how the Blackberry user base wasn't reported? It would have shown how bad the hardware mismanagement has cost the company. I don't own a BES server, don't care about EMM, and could care less about stock price or share holder value. I am here for BlackBerry phones, and based on the call that is done.

Posted via Z30

Now that's complete nonsense. The majority of devices sold were Passport and Classic.
And I underestimated John Chen's initial strategy. I didn't think he would GUTT the HW division so much with Zero Marketing. The Carrier support is finally here, but the staggered WW device releases gave mixed results.

The next 2-3 quarters will be a better indicator.

Posted via CB10

[nt300]

Slightly off topic, but has anyone heard anything about the 'Passport II'? Im sure he mentioned making another Passport, but that was ages ago...

Posted via CB10

YES. Passport 2 and the Slider both powered by BB10. Release sometime between August and November. 2015.

Posted via CB10

[nt300]

Absolutely right. Passport and Classic have been utter failures, and I'm writing this from a Passport, which is a brilliant phone. Chen can neglect hardware to save cash quarter to quarter, but he's starving himself over the medium to long term. What a waste. The Classic never excited me, but BlackBerry have wasted the Passport. It was the iconic, differentiated device that could have put them back out there as a relevant consumer and enterprise phonemaker. Great device, and hard to knock in reviews because it can't really be compared to anything else. Some focused marketing would have made a difference. What a waste.

Posted via CB10

FULLY AGREE.

Posted via CB10

[Prem WatsApp]

Not only do you have to spend the $100M for the advertising, you have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to order the components and build the phones. You can't do a $100M ad campaign and only have 2 million phones on hand. You have to order 10+ million phones months in advance and if you don't sell them for whatever reason, you write down $900M of inventory and you get fired.

You bet the company when you run an ad campaign for your flagship devices. You're not just testing the waters. Ideally, you've done some market research to figure out what the customer response will be. It's amazing that Thorsten Heins and his team missed so badly with the initial BB10 handsets. They probably figured they were committed even before he became CEO simply due to how far behind the competition they were.

You get "heinsed", probably... :-)


�   Pastaporto aglio e olio... Mmmhhh!   �

[Hende Nicolas]

What on earth...? You can't do a $100 million ad campaign because you MIGHT SELL TOO MANY PHONES!!?? Man, that's the best one I've heard yet.

Posted via CB10

[lnichols]

Now that's complete nonsense. The majority of devices sold were Passport and Classic.
And I underestimated John Chen's initial strategy. I didn't think he would GUTT the HW division so much with Zero Marketing. The Carrier support is finally here, but the staggered WW device releases gave mixed results.

The next 2-3 quarters will be a better indicator.

Posted via CB10

If that were true the ASAP would $400+. It was $240. You are in denial and ignoring facts. I'm sure you said the same thing 2 or three quarters ago.

Posted via Z30

[Hende Nicolas]

I'm hearing a lot of excuses and more excuses about the hardware results, but the fact is that the Passport and especially the Classic were supposed to sell. They weren't supposed to sell in iPhone numbers, but they were supposed to sell. Failure cannot be a part of any overall company strategy. That's just ridiculous. People speak as though the handsets don't have the BlackBerry brand on them or something. If I own a company, I want it associated with success, not repeated failure. I wouldn't be looking as super short term numbers while ignoring failure after failure. Chen is a good man in many areas, but he doesn't get phones and refuses to hire someone who does.

Posted via CB10

[KR2013]

...
The next 2-3 quarters will be a better indicator.

I think I have heard that before! :-)

[Hende Nicolas]

Lol so have I...

If BlackBerry fail, it will go down as a classic lesson on how to drive your company into the gutter and keep driving it into the gutter into you fall into the sewer.

For the record, I'm not saying that will happen. I don't want that to happen, but BlackBerry are going to need some luck in order to avoid a slow decline into irrelevance. They need to sell devices and they need to market those devices. Any attempt to ignore the link between hardware success and software/enterprise success is lunacy and has been lunacy.

Posted via CB10

[dbq10]

Whenever they plan to release new phones "by November" why doesn't BlackBerry put any effort into Christmas retail sales? That's a lost opportunity to make money. How about a white Classic for the US? They already have the white shells so how hard could it be? As for IoT, a lot of companies are pushing it as The Next Big Thing but how much consumer demand is really there? People are slowly becoming more aware of the security risks involved and the consequences of being hacked.

[Bbnivende]

Whenever they plan to release new phones "by November" why doesn't BlackBerry put any effort into Christmas retail sales? That's a lost opportunity to make money. How about a white Classic for the US? They already have the white shells so how hard could it be? As for IoT, a lot of companies are pushing it as The Next Big Thing but how much consumer demand is really there? People are slowly becoming more aware of the security risks involved and the consequences of being hacked.

Or you can do a BlackBerry and make the Leap with a Black front and a white case. Do they not realize how popular white phones are?

Posted via CB10

[Hende Nicolas]

Whenever they plan to release new phones "by November" why doesn't BlackBerry put any effort into Christmas retail sales? That's a lost opportunity to make money. How about a white Classic for the US? They already have the white shells so how hard could it be? As for IoT, a lot of companies are pushing it as The Next Big Thing but how much consumer demand is really there? People are slowly becoming more aware of the security risks involved and the consequences of being hacked.

Yeah, I agree with the fact that the IoT space is a big unknown. It's easy to imagine a world where everything is online, but that is by no means a guarantee, and isn't likely to happen any time soon in any event. IoT fire alarms make sense, but there aren't that many things we need to connect to the Internet really. I've hear a lot about IoT fridges, but...for what? Why do I need an IoT fridge? The darn thing works already! It keeps my food cold - job done!

We will finally be able to see what's what by this fall. We've heard loads of excuses and reasons why BlackBerry can't advertise, but let's see what they do with this slider. It's clearly meant to be a big deal. If they market it properly, then perhaps they are ready to get back into hardware. If they release it into a void like every other BlackBerry 10 phone, then we can carve in stone the fact that BlackBerry haven't got a clue how to sell things.

Posted via CB10

[dbq10]

Other than a few gadget geeks, does anyone really want Google to know when you come and go when a five dollar timer will also turn your lights on and off? You don't need an Android app to raise and lower the temperature in your home - old school programmable thermostats work just fine, and when they break you just go to the nearest store and get another one.