[El Platanero]

By not kicking Basille and Lazaridis to the curb sooner than they did. The two of them hadn't done anything innovative for the previous 5 years and that's not good.

If the Z10 (or something like it) had hit the streets 2 years ago, we'd be having a whole different conversation today.

The only negativo I see with this is that they built it from the ground up. Without them who is making sure that legacy users would upgrade? All the things that came with bb10 are awesome but like my last comment they left out too much to attract the power user.

Posted via CB10

[anon(3732391)]

in response to post #70...

Why "exactly" are you still here?

[heymaggie]

There's really nothing at all interesting or compelling about Blackberry's plan. It assumes that companies like Apple and Samsung sit around doing nothing but churn out hardware and cash checks, waiting for someone else to innovate them out of business. That's why it seems that all of Blackberry's new devices are aimed at the 2011 smartphone market - it's because they are!

Also, it's interesting how people on these forums think that Blackberry's or HP/Palm's failures are so surprising that they will be studied in business schools for years to come. Give me a break. Blackberry will be know as a pager company that transitioned to a successful smartphone company and then was out-innovated by Apple and then Google and spent the next five years floundering around and then eventually falling apart.

[aniym]

2011 was realistically the last year when BB could have taken a look at the market, and chosen a new strategic direction.

- Palm and WebOS die, due to poor app ecosystem and worse carrier support. (Sound familiar?)
- Nokia phases out Meego OS due to delays, budget overruns and poor 3rd party developer support.
- Motorola sells to Google after years of failing to make a phone even fractionally as popular as the 2004 RAZR.
- Blackberry Playbook takes $0.5 billion writedown. How much more of a sign could anyone need?

The signs were all there.

And for those still clinging to your "Apple was doomed too!" defense, please get this through your head: Apple is where it is because Steve Jobs did not sit around thinking of ways to sell more computers. He forced Apple to enter an entirely new industry, with fewer competitors and higher margins.

If Heins was in charge of Apple in the late 90s, Apple would have been completely wiped out by HP, Dell, Gateway and all the rest.

[nabil114]

It seems like Thorsten Heins had the perfect strategy on paper:

1. Release Z10 with BB10 - Stop the bleeding to other popular touch screen smartphones, show that BB can make a mainstream touch screen device, basically keep BB relevant
2. Release Q10 next - Knowing that hard core BB keyboard users will hang on longer, it made sense to release the Q10 after the Z10
3. Next launch the Q5 - After two high end devices, it was time to address the prepaid/lower end market in emerging economies in Asia with the lower speced Q5.
4. Next big launch - Z30/A10 - After about a year, it is time to show off a new phablet form factor device to round off the portfolio.

It was a great plan. What went wrong?

No, it is not the perfect strategy.

Issues:
1. Applications - major applications - ie instagram
2. Brand Image - people have the perception peek and flow is bad - store reps
3. New features - they could not wow the reviewers to recommend blackberry over apple or android

[QuantumQnx]

Because they told everyone BB7 would be amazing, Then it wasn't.. then everyone left BlackBerry.. Now everyone is stuck in "BlackBerry is S**t mode" and won't come back

Think how many people bought BB7 phones? So imagine if bb10 would of launched when BB7 did, In it's place

Posted via CB10

Couldn't agree more. BB7 was a disaster. Not only did it force devs to update all of their apps but it did not compete with the top tier devices, which reinforced the perception that BlackBerry was no longer competitive.

Posted via CB10

[BB10QNX]

If the iPhone is so terrible, can you explain why 31.7 million were sold in the last quarter? And BBRY - in their first full quarter - sold 2.7mm of their new "perfect devices"?

It can't just be apps.

Maybe the same reason a news agency can perform street interviews asking people why they voted for Obama and the answer is: they have no idea. Group mentality, unwilling to even look at anything that can possibly be better and stand uniquely against the crowd.

[BB10QNX]

You can bring a horse to water, but you can't make 'em drink it.

[QuantumQnx]

BlackBerry went wrong when they sold Kevin a bold 9900 that bricked itself. Anyone remember that?

Posted via CB10

[njblackberry]

BlackBerry went wrong when they sold Kevin a bold 9900 that bricked itself. Anyone remember that?

Posted via CB10

Was it a 9900 or a 9000. I seem to remember it was the original Bold 9000.

[samvel2001]

You can bring a horse to water, but you can't make 'em drink it.

However if you bring the sheeps to the water, you definitely can make them drink.



Posted via CB10

[BBSpring]

Bam.

I think the one thing that has made this transition especially tough is the absence of a competitive ecosystem.

This comment sums it up. It's the platform. not the phone!!! This platform/ecosystem does not support the awesome device or the needs of the new consumer. Add to that, the perception that BB's are old/dated and you have a very difficult fight.

BB had the BES/BIS before anyone else knew what to do with the cloud, and instead of making it their advantage it became the burning tire around the neck. Cloud, Apps, Commerce, Media. These are things that were introduced over the past 5 years and BB basically ignored this progress by calling them toys. I Love my Z10, but I do miss a connected ecosystem. The cloud is still missing.....where is the secure cloud?.....bad strategy to put it mildly.

Now on the flip side, it's not as bad of a strategy as Microsoft lying about the features of the Surface tablet, but it's close.

[m1a1mg]

It wouldn't be the first time that a good product didn't sell.

[BBSpring]

oh..and I love the person who summarized that Heinz would have sunk Apple and lost to Dell, etc. Revisionist history is great huh. Jobs did move Apple Computers because he had LOST in the pc game, and were it not for some luck and a loan there would be no Apple. It worked out wonderfully but only because someone took pity on him and his dying company. Once the iMAC became healthy and they got into MP3's + itunes they were viable/relevant again. Itunes is a fantastic strategy, App store even better. But please do not act like luck and mercy played no role.

[samvel2001]

IMac became healthy, because they started to use intel processors. Not because of the iTunes or any other I****.

Posted via CB10

[QuantumQnx]

Was it a 9900 or a 9000. I seem to remember it was the original Bold 9000.

It was definitely 9900. I remember he ran a poll right after which asked which would you use if there was no BlackBerry. You could tell he was frustrated.

Posted via CB10

[BBSpring]

two different issues: iMac was cute, colorful and sold some units, but prior to Intel. Ipods and Itunes were the big bang for the Apple brand. Intel chip made PC's viable to more consumers but the reason they wanted the computers was because they all had Ipods and were tied to itunes for music, updates etc. The Apple store concept ( which followed the ipod) was were the mass consumer was introduced to the rest of the Apple lineup.

[bunny410]

With hindsight it all seems so obvious. Even though BB10 came to the game ay too late, there is no reason why, if launched properly, it could not have worked. The OS itself is really pretty good in look and feel. Better even than Android and iOS. But it needed to be more stable, no crashes and reboots. It should also have had the top 100 apps from Google play and iTunes right off the bat, not 70,000 shoddy apps to make up numbers. TH said the delay was to ensure it was "perfect". Lie number 1. It wasn't and thereafter everyone took what they said with a pinch of salt. So the rot starts. 2, Alicia Keyes. Desperate measure number 1. People lost respect. Also there was nothing spectacular. The Hub, Swipe, Peek. All novelties but not revolutionary. Then the delays in launch. Why not follow Apple's model. Just launch the phone. Why all this carrier dependency that left them so delayed in the US? Software updates on BB10 are the most disorganised, unprofessional mess I have ever seen. What a farce! And all these leaks just devalue the whole platform.

But is this really the end?

Don't forget that Apple was equally screwed when Jobs returned for the second time. And thereafter it just went up. But I think the problem is the sheer lack of worldliness and creativity on offer in BB's workforce. The place needs a complete enema and a very rapid injection of some real creativity if it is to have any hope of survival now. The vultures are circling and the midday heat is coming up fast. Action this month!!!

[RubberChicken76]

IMac became healthy, because they started to use intel processors. Not because of the iTunes or any other I****.

Jobs did a multi-staged approach to organizing your digital life with products people could relate to. Less nerdy and more fun.

He started with the iMac
Then iPod
Then iPhone
Then iPad

One of his major skills was driving a very lean, very focused company over a long-term plan.

[RubberChicken76]

In my opinion, Alec Saunders is the biggest FAIL in Waterloo.

Sorry, but I completely do not agree in any way shape or form on this. Given the hand he was dealt, I thought he was one of the absolute stars of the team. Especially considering his predecessors managed to launch App World with under 1000 apps and PlayBook with about 3000. The fact that went out the gate and brought in 70,000 at launch and another 50,000 within six months says something. Ditto for the fact that he jam sessions all over the globe and traveled tirelessly to support developers to get to that number. Very different from the "once a year" devcon that his predecessors had. Especially for a platform with negative sentiment and unproven prospects.

I thought this article (from a site normally extremely critical of BlackBerry) summed up the situation well.

Meet the man who would make BlackBerry apps cool | Mobile - CNET News

[saintforlife]

The fact that went out the gate and brought in 70,000 at launch and another 50,000 within six months says something. Ditto for the fact that he jam sessions all over the globe and traveled tirelessly to support developers to get to that number. Very different from the "once a year" devcon that his predecessors had. Especially for a platform with negative sentiment and unproven prospects.

BB10 needed to launch with every, I mean every Top 10 app in every category from the Apple App Store and Google Play store. No excuses. If they had all the top 100-200 apps, you wouldn't need the other crappy 70,000. BB's efforts and money shoulders be been focussed in getting these top apps by launch time, not on the Jam sessions. By all accounts the Jam sessions have been nothing but a huge flop. The efforts would have been better directed if they had focused only on the important apps that people do use. Once you have the top apps that people want, the phone would have taken care of the rest. That way people wouldn't be complaining so much about apps.

[howarmat]

http://forums.crackberry.com/bbry-f3...t-here-839013/

Please keep the discussion going on in this thread