[waqar sahi]

I totally agree with this article. Two things pulling Blackberry down, Apps and marketing. I personally have been waiting for banking app which has not made it in seven months. Most ported apps are useless and lack user experience and should not qualify to be on Blackberry world and there is no shout about Blackberry in marketing terms.

Posted via CB10

[JasW]

I miss my banking apps that I had on my iPhone. I even wrote to my banks here in Belgium to ask if an app for Blacberry would come soon, but they are waiting to see if BB OS 10 will grow in market share before developing anything.

Welcome to second-class smartphone citizenship, and don't hold your breath. This has been the case for three years, ever since OS 6 came out. Many developers -- including those who develop apps for banks -- had apps for OS 4.6 and OS 5. This was right when RIM coming off of its peak. However, they were slow to move to OS 6, which required recoding the app, and many simply ended up not doing so. And newer developers didn't bother with OS 6 and the BB platform at all. The rest has been history.

[NassimAG]

In fact the failing is due to a bunch of reasons-in my personal opinion ofcourse. (1) A basic marketing theory that I teach at university is, the product
live cycle. Each product is determined to pass through 4 phases, introduction, growth, peak, decline. Blackberry has done just that, introduction:great,
growth: around the 2006-2007-2008 mere brilliant, peak:2008-2009, decline 2010 onwards with the introduction of iOS and Android innovations.
One would argue, that is the case of every product, how would you maintain sustainability? Answer is simple. Recognize the decline phase and act
immediatley with a good innovation and then you are in the introduction phase, that will take you to another growth phase and so on so forth.

What BlackBerry missed doing in this regard is the recognition of the declination phase in terms of product and not technology nor the company itself.
At which point and innovation was necessary in as quick as possible, which would require some liquidity to help materialize things. In failing to do so
they have stepped in the wrong direction. What they had as innovation was the BBM, when internet became acccessible on other devices and with IM
apps, apps became the innovation and not IM.

This brings us to the (2) reason which consists of not embarking properly and in time to have all the apps and ecosystems in place before the
launching of BB10 and yes it would have meant to go to developers and pay for them, but in the longer run it would have paid off.

(3) Reason lies with the marketing strategy. We can blame the Lizaradis era for not recognizing the decline phase, then the app world team for not
being more aggressive and put the money on the table for developers, lastly the current marketing team takes blame for the lack of advertising of
BB10, which again needs liquidity. Its budget must not be percentage of sales because marketing generates sales and not sales generates marketing.
People still didn't recognize there is a new BB out there! I did not see product placement, nor celebrity endorsement in the way it should be. Alicia keys
alone is not enough, Mercedez F1 alone is not enough.
(4) The techonological experience of having an OS synchronized with my PC, Tablet, and Phone, supported by a cloud was the trend. And Blackberry
were far from it. So for an apple user, why would he leave his iphone if he has a MacBook and and Ipad even if BB10 is actually better than his
iphone 4? He is getting the mobiling and computing experience he really fancies and wants.

Strategic alternatives: Simply, merge, partner, bought by Lenovo. Lenovo adopts a strategy like Apple or Google in which you can an overall
computing experience, from Laptops integrations, tablets, phones, music, videos, playstore apps and a native CLOUD. At this point the whole
experience of having synchronized devices acting together with a cloud would be the minimum for competition. Afterwhich, big money on RnD is
essential for improvments and innovations to keep progressing.

[--TommesJay--]

IMHO the failure has been due to the arrogance of the previous Co-CEOs that refused to innovate BBOS sooner toward what is now BB10.

Plain and quick: I disagree.

Fact no1 is: things looked good with the legacy OS (even after the first iPhone's introduction in 2007, BBRY was rising and expanding strong), so they wanted to the money out of it
Fact no2 is: they couldn't easily ditch and mess up the current platform, because of all the corporate and government users which gave them strong revenues and relied on it
Fact no3 is: making the final decision about how maintaining existing users and value for those while stepping up technology to successfully compete with iOS and Android was a VERY VERY tough one
Fact no4 is: The decision that came out of no3 was to develop a BRAND NEW OS based on QNX. And this is neither an easy task at all nor is it something you can do over night. It takes time. Especially with QNX and its microkernel architecture, which wasn't proven yet in this particular industry.
Fact no5 is: QNX for this purpose has turned out to be a tough pick.
Fact no6 is: As we can see it today, BB10 on top of QNX is ressource hungry in terms of RAM. I doubt something like BB10 was even possible in 2010 or 2011 with the technology available in those days (look up the App Manager of 10.2 - BB10 sucks enormous amounts of RAM and I don't think this is only due to display res)

[--TommesJay--]

Sorry OP. The #1 reason why BlackBerry failed is very clear.

The first generation iPhone was released on June 29, 2007. It took BlackBerry until January 30, 2013 to come anywhere close to a full touch screen competitor. (argue all you want, the Storm, was and still is a piece of ****)

That means BlackBerry was asleep at the wheel for 5 years, 7 months and 1 day or, for those of you keep score at home 2,042 days.

The lack of apps doesn't help, but other than the core BlackBerry loyalists most consumers moved on to iOS or Android and got tired of waiting.

Ah and let's do not forget that the first iPhone iteration was basically an overpriced piece of crap. It could only do one task at a time, it didn't even have 3G, no copy & paste and no apps at all. The only thing it was good at was ease of use and user experience (pinch-to-zoom/multitouch/fluid flicking and scrolling) and the browser and Gmaps.

[Hippotwits]

The fact that Android apps can be side loaded on Bb10 shows that BlackBerry knows that apps are central to any platform. Side loading is the problem. BlackBerry should run Android straight off of Google Play as a QNX task. But they wanted developers to port their Android apps onto BB WORLD so they could get sales revenue. the flaw in that plan is that they are left at the mercy of the developer to port the app to BB10, and many of them just aren't interested in doing that.
If BlackBerry makes BB10 capable of downloading apps straight off Google Play then their fortunes and sales of phones will jump.

Posted via CB10

[Syrous44]

Its really sad that Blackberry has let years of miss management and sitting back lead to it be being in critical condition. I am still pulling for Blackberry to come out of this mess so I once again can go back to a blackberry device to complement my playbook.

On the other hand the funny ironic part is many Berry faithful have been telling you guys this exact situation is the problem for the last 3 years, in turn you mocked us as turncoats, traitors and trolls. Hate to say it but we told you so.

Apps and programs in general Is what drives computing sales not the os. Number 1 reason why google is king now and apple second. Google makes money off app and overall ecosystem, not the os as they give it out for free.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 4

[anon(4099613)]

The answer is simple and right in front of them but pride won't let BlackBerry do the smart thing.

The smart thing?

Conform to Android specs - screen size - and outsource or piggyback on the open source Android system.

Essentially, they've half-a$$ed it on that front by allowing sideloading but acting as if it's a hush hush thing that can't be done in full. Well, it should be done and BlackBerry shouldn't have any qualms about it. There WAS no reason BlackBerry couldn't fully invest in that ideal. It would have leveled the playing field in a major way. Actually, it may have given BlackBerry a leg up with the ability to run the playstore AND BB World - Android apps + native BlackBerry apps. Scoooore!!

Blackberry wouldn't have to beg these developers for anything and they could concentrate on developing native apps where possible to further enhance the BlackBerry user experience.

The greater point is, BlackBerry can and should do more to bring people what they're asking for, even if all they want is games and BS!

Posted via CB10

[jessjames]

Agreed. The playbook was an excellent test bed to get the necessary apps on board and BBRY left that to the developers instead of taking the aggressive position of paying for some apps to be there. Netflix, instagram and banking apps come to mind. Since I have been a loyal BBRY person (2 Playbooks, and Z10) I now find myself debating over which OS I am moving to. I never thought I'd ever type this but BBRY is dying a slow death and ecosystem is the last nail in the coffin. Any suggestions on which OS to move to?

[JasW]

Agreed. The playbook was an excellent test bed to get the necessary apps on board and BBRY left that to the developers instead of taking the aggressive position of paying for some apps to be there. Netflix, instagram and banking apps come to mind. Since I have been a loyal BBRY person (2 Playbooks, and Z10) I now find myself debating over which OS I am moving to. I never thought I'd ever type this but BBRY is dying a slow death and ecosystem is the last nail in the coffin. Any suggestions on which OS to move to?

I've been happy since dumping my 9810 and PB at the beginning of the year and moving to Android. From a techie perspective, I've found it much more satisfying than iOS. Lots of customization possibilities just running stock, even more if you put on a launcher to replace the manufacturer's skin, and of course the world of rooting and ROMs. My Note 2 has a reassuring LED notification like the BB, and the variety of email solutions -- basically, whatever you want -- in a way makes it even more satisfying than BB.

[ubizmo]

Apps = functionality.

Each app does something, and the popular ones do something that a lot of people want their smartphones to be able to do.

Missing apps = missing functionality.

In addition to popular apps and games, there are thousands of niche apps that are used by people in specific lines of work, or people with particular hobbies: engineers, botanists, bagpipers, auto mechanics, etc. Individually, these apps only appeal to a small number of people, but collectively they represent a lot of functionality. The developers of these apps want to put them where they are most likely to be bought.

If it were easy to get apps on a platform with a small user base, WP wouldn't still be struggling to get them. Microsoft has more money to throw at this problem than BlackBerry can dream of, but that hasn't solved it for them.

In addition to apps and accessories, an ecosystem includes integrated services. Apple has iCloud services; Google has a whole suite that includes mail, docs, maps, and gtalk. WP has mail and office suite apps. BlackBerry has only BBM at the moment. Back when we were all still guessing about what BB10 would be like, I hoped that BlackBerry mail would be expanded to a secure web/cloud suite that would include calendar, notes, contacts, etc.--something similar to the old SideKick Desktop Interface. Instead, BlackBerry mail is gone and one either uses someone else's web/cloud suite, i.e., Google or Outlook, or does without. There's limited integration with Evernote. At the ecosystem level, this is fragmentation.

Granted, BlackBerry didn't have the resources to do all this. But I think that fact tells the story. To be competitive in the smartphone industry, you have to be big enough to support a true ecosystem. The industry has matured from what it was in 2007, and people (and businesses, government agencies, etc.) expect much more from a smartphone platform.

[DINGSTER1]

I agree with this sentiment concerning ecosystem. I have Apple products ( iPad, MBP,and soon a iPhone 5whatever) Love the seamless integration. I also have BB products, Z, Playbook(hopping mad about this disaster!), 9930, Pearl Flip and. 9650(?) I think that not enough effort was put into making the Playbook work with BB10!

[BroncoVAL]

Just asking because i don't know how developers' world works:
The lack of apps is Achilles' heel right, how difficult could it be to define a top 500 apps that Iphone-Android live on?
I mean real top notch apps (Maps, Ebay, Flipboard, Netflix, ereader etc. ) designed with specific gestures/shortcuts for the Z10 OR the Q10. (no universal app but different versions wether it's full touch or keyboard oriented)
From there making deal with best app developpers/companies and pay them to beef up the appstore.
How hard would it be really?
I personnally would have ditch or delay Z30 development to focus on the black gold so much needed by those great Z10 /Q10 engines...

Posted via CB10

[Tre Lawrence]

Just asking because i don't know how developers' world works:
The lack of apps is Achilles' heel right, how difficult could it be to define a top 500 apps that Iphone-Android live on?
I mean real top notch apps (Maps, Ebay, Flipboard, Netflix, ereader etc. ) designed with specific gestures/shortcuts for the Z10 OR the Q10. (no universal app but different versions wether it's full touch or keyboard oriented)
From there making deal with best app developpers/companies and pay them to beef up the appstore.
How hard would it be really?
I personnally would have ditch or delay Z30 development to focus on the black gold so much needed by those great Z10 /Q10 engines...

Posted via CB10

It would be a VERY expensive proposition, IMHO. These big house developers know that BBRY needs them more than they need BBRY, and it shows. I firmly believe that BBRY has spent a LOT to get some apps on board, and I also believe that they had to draw the line somewhere. Now, the argument could be made that they didn't go for more productivity apps earlier, but I do believe they made the effort.

But, to be fair to developers, why shouldn't they want to make as much money as possible? Development and maintenance isn't cheap.

In the end, it goes back to BBRY not reacting quickly enough, IMHO.

[privateeyes]

For a company that prides itself "for professional" and a government device I believe the bank apps are important. I am not talking about the Instagram and few of the very popular one's for teens although if it is important for them and they are potential buyers of BlackBerry it behooves BlackBerry to try and make it a native app. For me a business professional apps such as the bank apps would be very nice to say the least.

Posted via CB10

[mikeo007]

How much do you think Blackberry paid Rovio to have Angry Birds available at launch for free? I bet it wasn't cheap.

Kinda makes a statement when their headline launch app is a game, doesn't it?

[JasW]

Missing apps = missing functionality.

Bingo. Nail, meet Head.

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

Just asking because i don't know how developers' world works:
The lack of apps is Achilles' heel right, how difficult could it be to define a top 500 apps that Iphone-Android live on?
I mean real top notch apps (Maps, Ebay, Flipboard, Netflix, ereader etc. ) designed with specific gestures/shortcuts for the Z10 OR the Q10. (no universal app but different versions wether it's full touch or keyboard oriented)
From there making deal with best app developpers/companies and pay them to beef up the appstore.
How hard would it be really?
I personnally would have ditch or delay Z30 development to focus on the black gold so much needed by those great Z10 /Q10 engines...

Posted via CB10

The more apps the better, BUT I bet that just having the top 10 - 20 apps would have made a HUGE difference in getting the platform going. Would have got customers interested in the platform and maybe even caused a "me too" attitude among the smaller developers and gotten even more apps on the platform.


Just three apps would have gotten my wife on board - and yes I could have sideloaded them, but from experience there are some apps that just don't work well this way, and there was no REASON to force her to go thru those issues.

[Tre Lawrence]

How much do you think Blackberry paid Rovio to have Angry Birds available at launch for free? I bet it wasn't cheap.

Kinda makes a statement when their headline launch app is a game, doesn't it?

Not to mention EA, Gameloft, etc. I think after they looked at what they spent versus the value obtained, they put a hold on payouts LOL.

But, yes, it is very telling.

I also wonder if management threw in the towel at some point. Like, "we could pay big bucks for Instagram and Netflix, but since we want to be bought out anyway, let's keep us much cash in hand for the balance sheet."

DANG IT. Now I'm spouting off conspiracies too...

[JasW]

Just asking because i don't know how developers' world works:
The lack of apps is Achilles' heel right, how difficult could it be to define a top 500 apps that Iphone-Android live on?
I mean real top notch apps (Maps, Ebay, Flipboard, Netflix, ereader etc. ) designed with specific gestures/shortcuts for the Z10 OR the Q10. (no universal app but different versions wether it's full touch or keyboard oriented)
From there making deal with best app developpers/companies and pay them to beef up the appstore.
How hard would it be really?
I personnally would have ditch or delay Z30 development to focus on the black gold so much needed by those great Z10 /Q10 engines...

Posted via CB10

We've been talking about this on CB for more than two years. Throw Netflix a huge check, RIM. They either didn't or Netflix didn't want it.

[Hal Cull]

(argue all you want, the Storm, was and still is a piece of ****)

The Storm was the REASON our entire company switched to iOS. It was without exception the worst phone I ever owned and I've owned many.

We were looking at coming back to Blackberry when it looked like they had cracked the tablet/phone code with the Playbook/Z10/Q10 integrated combo, but they killed the PB and Thor said there wouldn't even be tablets in 5 years (such a visionary ) so our CEO killed all new BB purchases. Not sure what we'll be getting next, probably a 5S and the new Nexus 7. Sadly no bridge with that combo though.

[Tre Lawrence]

We've been talking about this on CB for more than two years. Throw Netflix a huge check, RIM. They either didn't or Netflix didn't want it.

I honestly believe Netflix wanted a high number.

[BroncoVAL]

Well i understand sometimes big companies like Netflix certainly use their position to take as much as they can grab.
But in that case wouldn't it be wise to try with some independent app developpers? A Netflix app could be done be another company or not?
Like Blaq vs. Twitter official app ?


Posted via CB10

[Eric Ton]

Ah and let's do not forget that the first iPhone iteration was basically an overpriced piece of crap. It could only do one task at a time, it didn't even have 3G, no copy & paste and no apps at all. The only thing it was good at was ease of use and user experience (pinch-to-zoom/multitouch/fluid flicking and scrolling) and the browser and Gmaps.

yeah MS CEO and RIM CEOs also thought the first iPhone was overpriced piece of crap...don't think Google CEO thought that though (i could be wrong)

[Tre Lawrence]

yeah MS CEO and RIM CEOs also thought the first iPhone was overpriced piece of crap...don't think Google CEO thought that though (i could be wrong)

He was on Apple's board at the time (am I getting my execs mixed up again?) so probably not LOL.