[Marc_Paradise]

I've no experience or knowledge when it comes to supply chain management, so please someone correct me if I'm wrong.

It seems that by providing carrier-radio-frequency specific builds for every carrier under the sun (or at least the 6-8 distinct models that this results in) BBRY is incurring more cost than they would be just including the radios and selling a single device to everyone.

Yes, the radios cost more - but the flip side of that is managing stock for each model. They can't manufacture x million Z10s a month - they have to manufacture x * thousand of AT&T model, x thousand of Sprint, x thousand on Wind/TMO, times many more for other carriers. They have to carefully monitor supply needs on a regional and carrier basis, and selectively ramp up production of specific models.

( That's without even getting into the firmware management...)

So am I crazy here? Doesn't it seem like monstrous additional overhead to manage it this way, vs a single 'world phone' device?

[Sqoon]

A single world phone is the dream, unfortunately it is not yet possible. Companies are working on it, I think there was an announcement recently about a universal radio, but I don't remember the specific details.

Posted via CB10

[Marc_Paradise]

A single world phone is the dream, unfortunately it is not yet possible. Companies are working on it, I think there was an announcement recently about a universal radio, but I don't remember the specific details.

Posted via CB10

So it's just that there's no SoC that's capable yet?

[ccbs]

It is not the SOC, as in application processor. The radio chip and radio freq tuning is the problem. If one uses the multi-band amplifier + antenna circuit, all that have to do is change the BOM option on the RLC values to tune the frequency.