[EFats]

In the PC world, you can purchase an OS for your computer. You can go to the store (or online) and pick up a copy of Windows 10 and install it on your machine, even if it did come with Linux or Vista or whatever. It's a little less likely now than back in the early days of the PC era when there was much more competition.

Why shouldn't BlackBerry go back to this strategy? Sure the KEYone was released with Android on it, but maybe I should be able to purchase a copy of BB10 to install on my KEYone if I wanted to. Compared to Microsoft, BlackBerry can limit itself to a very small selection of hardware (you could count them on one hand almost) to greatly reduce the workload.

Let's say it's $50 for a new license and maybe a $50/year for ongoing maintenance (for example guaranteed 1 security/maintenance fix per quarter and 1 major feature release every 2 years). Subscription revenue is great for companies because it's a steady, predictable stream of income. It keeps BlackBerry in the "software company" model since their licensed partners are building hardware.

Even in the past few months I think there were enough sales of BB10 devices to suggest some small market of really loyal (or needy) BB10 users. I don't think it would be a stretch to sign up 100k users to start. That's a decent amount of revenue given BlackBerry's current quarterly revenue and it is going to be high profit margin revenue.

Sure, Android users don't have to pay, but Android users typically do not get long term updates on their devices (how many Android devices from the Z10 days are still getting updates?) and Google makes their money from your data. The phone makers are hardly making any profit at all (Apple takes ~80%, leaving next to nothing for all the other 'droid makers combined). iOS users also do not pay, but I don't think that is the competition at this stage. I doubt anyone contemplating a KEYone is going to be also considering an iPhone and those that are going to get an iPhone are unlikely to be considering anything else.

What has BlackBerry got to lose? It doesn't have to commit anything yet, they can always do Kickstarter-like event and see how many would be willing to sign up. If it hits their targets, then let it proceed. Look, it seems BlackBerry is on the hook for some maintenance on BB10 anyways, why don't they start charging a bit for it and keep it going? For myself, yeah, I would rather have free, but forking out something like $5/month to get continued service doesn't sound like a big sacrifice to me.

People already pay subscriptions for streaming music, TV, magazines, newspapers, software even cell service, car maintenance, ongoing maintenance on your condo. Why should it be surprising that you would have to pay for continued service on your OS/phone?

[BigBadWulf]

A - BlackBerry phones can't be rooted, so you cannot install a different OS.
B - Ignoring A, there couldn't possibly be enough customers to cover the development and support costs

[Uzi]

This topic has been discussed many many times...the answer still no , nay , tidak boleh , impossible

[BigBadWulf]

This topic has been discussed many many times...the answer still no , nay , tidak boleh , impossible

I see you received an early release of the CrackBerry Offering Rosetta Stone!

[thurask]

Subscriptions work only if the product is worth subscribing to, which this isn't.

[joeldf]

Well, if BlackBerry makes the loader for the phone, there's no rooting involved.

Real issue is, who's going to pay Qualcomm for the BB10 drivers for the SoC in the KEYone, or any other android device that comes along.

That gets back to how much would a subscription have to be to pay for that cost, and re-startup from a dead stand-still of development, and the profit margin BlackBerry would expect.

Joel

[eshropshire]

Qualcomm does not write drivers for cash, they write them to sell chips, LOTS of chips. The problem is the opportunity cost for Qualcomm, they have a development staff that is fully engaged in projects with large finacial targets. I doubt any subscription amount would provide more return than their planned projects.

[early2bed]

People seem willing to pay for something until the time comes to cough up the money. That's when you find out about the conditions: It has to be on my carrier; It has to have a keyboard; It has to be a VKB; It has to work on the Passport; It has to include WhatsApp; It has to include some new feature that Apple and Samsung are announcing this year...

Charging $50 per year is actually worse than offering it for free because if it's free then people really can't complain but for $50 people expect all sorts of things.

[Troy Tiscareno]

There's a thread where I did a bit of "napkin math" for what it would cost BB to hire, house, equip, and train a new BB10 team (the old team was let go more than 2 years ago, and most moved on to other companies) just to update the OS itself and the stock apps. It didn't include driver costs for new/different devices, nor did include updating developer tools - both of which would be necessary for it to matter. I calculated that the total cost to BB (hiring, training, wages, benefits, office space & costs, equipment, etc.) would run around $200M/year for a team the size that it would need to work on a mobile OS.

Then I halved the dollar amount, just for grins, and then I assumed that 100,000 BB owners might be willing to pay for BB10 development on an annual basis going forward. That would require a $1000/year commitment for at least 2 years before any results would come, from each and every one of those 100,000 users. Remember: that's no hardware of any kind - just updating the OS and stock apps for existing BB10 phones.

What's the chance you think you could find 100,000 BB10 users willing to pay $2,000 for the promise of a solid 10.4 release for their existing phones? Remember that if you can only find 50,000 users willing to pay, it means they each have to pay $4,000. Also, all of that effort and money is just for BB to break even - not to see a dime of profit from the venture. Profit means a good chunk more per user.

You have to remember that BB10 as a project not only never made a single cent in profit (which would be "break-even"), it in fact cost BB around $9-10B in losses, in cash and book value. In order for BB to have broken even, those Z10s would have had to sell for around $5000 each, and so would the Q10 and all the others. It was understood from the very beginning that BB10 was never going to be a viable OS/platform with low volume of sales - but Mike Lazaridis was predicting a minimum of 20M phones sold per year, at which point the development costs would have been spread out over enough phones that a profit was possible. Unfortunately, BB10s very best year (2013) ended with less than 6M phones sold, and less than 4M the following year, with a continuing downward trend. That wasn't survivable then, and it isn't now.

[Uzi]

There's a thread where I did a bit of "napkin math" for what it would cost BB to hire, house, equip, and train a new BB10 team (the old team was let go more than 2 years ago, and most moved on to other companies) just to update the OS itself and the stock apps. It didn't include driver costs for new/different devices, nor did include updating developer tools - both of which would be necessary for it to matter. I calculated that the total cost to BB (hiring, training, wages, benefits, office space & costs, equipment, etc.) would run around $200M/year for a team the size that it would need to work on a mobile OS.

Then I halved the dollar amount, just for grins, and then I assumed that 100,000 BB owners might be willing to pay for BB10 development on an annual basis going forward. That would require a $1000/year commitment for at least 2 years before any results would come, from each and every one of those 100,000 users. Remember: that's no hardware of any kind - just updating the OS and stock apps for existing BB10 phones.

What's the chance you think you could find 100,000 BB10 users willing to pay $2,000 for the promise of a solid 10.4 release for their existing phones? Remember that if you can only find 50,000 users willing to pay, it means they each have to pay $4,000. Also, all of that effort and money is just for BB to break even - not to see a dime of profit from the venture. Profit means a good chunk more per user.

You have to remember that BB10 as a project not only never made a single cent in profit (which would be "break-even"), it in fact cost BB around $9-10B in losses, in cash and book value. In order for BB to have broken even, those Z10s would have had to sell for around $5000 each, and so would the Q10 and all the others. It was understood from the very beginning that BB10 was never going to be a viable OS/platform with low volume of sales - but Mike Lazaridis was predicting a minimum of 20M phones sold per year, at which point the development costs would have been spread out over enough phones that a profit was possible. Unfortunately, BB10s very best year (2013) ended with less than 6M phones sold, and less than 4M the following year, with a continuing downward trend. That wasn't survivable then, and it isn't now.

Bookmarked

[Huussi]

There's a thread where I did a bit of "napkin math" for what it would cost BB to hire, house, equip, and train a new BB10 team (the old team was let go more than 2 years ago, and most moved on to other companies) just to update the OS itself and the stock apps. It didn't include driver costs for new/different devices, nor did include updating developer tools - both of which would be necessary for it to matter. I calculated that the total cost to BB (hiring, training, wages, benefits, office space & costs, equipment, etc.) would run around $200M/year for a team the size that it would need to work on a mobile OS.

Then I halved the dollar amount, just for grins, and then I assumed that 100,000 BB owners might be willing to pay for BB10 development on an annual basis going forward. That would require a $1000/year commitment for at least 2 years before any results would come, from each and every one of those 100,000 users. Remember: that's no hardware of any kind - just updating the OS and stock apps for existing BB10 phones.

What's the chance you think you could find 100,000 BB10 users willing to pay $2,000 for the promise of a solid 10.4 release for their existing phones? Remember that if you can only find 50,000 users willing to pay, it means they each have to pay $4,000. Also, all of that effort and money is just for BB to break even - not to see a dime of profit from the venture. Profit means a good chunk more per user.

You have to remember that BB10 as a project not only never made a single cent in profit (which would be "break-even"), it in fact cost BB around $9-10B in losses, in cash and book value. In order for BB to have broken even, those Z10s would have had to sell for around $5000 each, and so would the Q10 and all the others. It was understood from the very beginning that BB10 was never going to be a viable OS/platform with low volume of sales - but Mike Lazaridis was predicting a minimum of 20M phones sold per year, at which point the development costs would have been spread out over enough phones that a profit was possible. Unfortunately, BB10s very best year (2013) ended with less than 6M phones sold, and less than 4M the following year, with a continuing downward trend. That wasn't survivable then, and it isn't now.

Copied to clipboard

[early2bed]

I used to be an iOS developer of niche apps and would get emails all the time from users who were "committed" to Android and wanted me to port my apps. I reminded them that they were really only "committed" up until their next smartphone upgrade whereas I would have to learn a new platform and then support the app indefinitely going forward.

The point is that the commitment of an individual user to a platform is trivial because anyone can drive to your carrier store and jump ship at any time if things don't work out. The developer is the one with the real commitment to support your hobby or desire to be different or increased productivity.

So, this "Why not give it a shot? What do you have to lose?" notion is totally invalid. After all, if things don't work out, you're just going to choose Android and call it a day.

[kvndoom]

We can put the BB10 box on the shelf at Target next to the IOS and Android boxes.

[EFats]

I'm no sure about this.
Look, right now, you can just grab the reference manuals for some Exynos chips. Anyone can get them. These contain everything you need to write drivers or tweak your OS for that particular chip. I know that even I could easily get my hands on the same for OMAP processors. If BlackBerry came knocking, I can't imagine they would refuse to release a document to them. This is standard material and IC manufacturer has available for customers. If X won't do it, you go to Y. It would not be asking for something that the vendors need work to make. That document already exists.
I understand Qualcomm & others do not release their driver code, but this is not about the software.You do not NEED Qualcomm to write any drivers for you. Yes, it sure helps and as a HW manufacturer, all else being equal, I'd pick the chipset with the drivers written already.

Blackberry already has the expertise in house. You think the CPU guys write all that stuff for every chipset that QNX supports? Look at their list and see how many have support directly from QNX.

As to the napkin calculations suggesting you need $200million/year and hundreds or thousands of employees, I think that's a bit out of whack for just porting an existing OS to a new chipset & peripherals. Says who? Well says someone who has actually done that type of work before....

Never mind that I'm suggesting you can apply the subscription / maintenance model to devices already existing in the field, already running BB10. That's just a huge profit margin to fund future work.




Posted via CB10

[Ment]

Blackberry just let 400 people go from their already stripped down skeleton crew mobility ie smartphone division so they could work at Ford. How much money do you think it would take to keep them on at BB working on the next big OS revision and its related jobs. Napkin math 400 x $150,000(conservative salary,benefits/retirement) per year = $60,000,000 just for employees. lol at subscription costs covering that.

[TheBirdDog]

OP, I share the hope that, in the future, somehow this becomes possible. Maybe not with BB10 specifically but it would be great if the market were truly open enough that you choose your manufacturer, then you choose your OS, and you have your dream device. One thing holding this back, in my opinion, is carriers. They want it as easy as possible for themselves which means as few options as possible for the consumer. Android and iOS duopoly? Great for them. Another OS they've never heard of? Get the heck out of their store! And, while consumers want to keep buying subsidized phones through their carrier so that they can walk away with a $700 device that they only had to pay $99 upfront, this is the situation we are stuck with.

What you are proposing won't have a chance at working until the trend shifts to people buying directly from the manufacturers. And this shift really isn't happening yet.

With regard to BB10, I think it's fair to say that ship has sailed. BB10's failure was not that the devices weren't any good. It's that they never got the developer support to build their own app ecosystem and they are not able to fully use Android. An updated runtime isn't an option and it still would not fix the fact that Google Play access is not officially there but a workaround that works but severely limited. What good would an updated piece of hardware running a crippled OS do? And more importantly, who would pay for that?

Don't get me wrong, I love BB10 and it's still my daily driver. The KEYone looks great but I don't "need" to leave BB10 just yet. And, aside from being drawn to shiny things, I definitely don't "need" a new device to run BB10 as all BB10's hardware still runs pretty great (excluding some Android apps). That's the advantage to using an OS that has pretty much reached its plateau - the hardware that's available isn't going to become incapable of the next version of the OS. Mainly because they next version isn't going to be pushing things much further.

Anyway... to sum up, BB10 isn't going anywhere for those of us who wish to keep using it. But we aren't going to see anything "new" related to it either.

[BigBadWulf]

One thing holding this back, in my opinion, is carriers. They want it as easy as possible for themselves which means as few options as possible for the consumer.

Being that they have to support what they sell, this is absolutely true. There are a lot of training costs involved, with every phone they decide to sell, even variants of the same manufacturer. Add a completely different OS to the mix, and their booties pucker.

[Drael646464]

Far more likely is a windows option. Qualcomm have worked with Microsoft on their ARM emulation of Windows 10.

Because android apps are easy to port to UWP, it would be trivial for blackberry to make a windows version of their phone (port software, write drivers for screen, sound, camera etc, done). Windows is also a free license 7 inch screen and under.

The ARM emu will be out this year. I expect all the major players will then play with having windows phones.

For blackberry this makes even more sense, as they have always tried to occupy the same niche as windows mobile has - power users, corporate users etc, and their are a lot of windows fans amongst BB users - more fans, than android fans. Not only that, Windows 10 would be boss with both a) a trackpad and b) a keyboard. It would enable that win32 capability of the windows emu to really fly. You'd need a decent big screen though, something like the priv or passport.

Just in the last month, Microsoft announced a partnership with Samsung to release a Microsoft edition of the S8 (Android OS, but running Office, Cortana, Wunderlist etc). Samsung and Microsoft are closer than people realise. They co-own the patent for the flexible graphene OLED screen. Samsung will definitely make a windows 10 phone when the emu is released.

Blackberry is reasonable close with Microsoft too. They could do the same.

bb10 is dying. However, because you can run android apps, and their are phones with decent hardware (the priv, the passport - heck even my q5 still does alright), people can easily hand onto their phones for quite awhile longer.

[eshropshire]

Being that they have to support what they sell, this is absolutely true. There are a lot of training costs involved, with every phone they decide to sell, even variants of the same manufacturer. Add a completely different OS to the mix, and their booties pucker.

Considering BlackBerry let all of their carrier reps go in October of 2013 their is no one to train and support retailers. Carriers expect a lot of support from the phone manufacturer.

[eshropshire]

Far more likely is a windows option. Qualcomm have worked with Microsoft on their ARM emulation of Windows 10.

Because android apps are easy to port to UWP, it would be trivial for blackberry to make a windows version of their phone (port software, write drivers for screen, sound, camera etc, done). Windows is also a free license 7 inch screen and under.

The ARM emu will be out this year. I expect all the major players will then play with having windows phones.

For blackberry this makes even more sense, as they have always tried to occupy the same niche as windows mobile has - power users, corporate users etc, and their are a lot of windows fans amongst BB users - more fans, than android fans. Not only that, Windows 10 would be boss with both a) a trackpad and b) a keyboard. It would enable that win32 capability of the windows emu to really fly. You'd need a decent big screen though, something like the priv or passport.

Just in the last month, Microsoft announced a partnership with Samsung to release a Microsoft edition of the S8 (Android OS, but running Office, Cortana, Wunderlist etc). Samsung and Microsoft are closer than people realise. They co-own the patent for the flexible graphene OLED screen. Samsung will definitely make a windows 10 phone when the emu is released.

Blackberry is reasonable close with Microsoft too. They could do the same.

bb10 is dying. However, because you can run android apps, and their are phones with decent hardware (the priv, the passport - heck even my q5 still does alright), people can easily hand onto their phones for quite awhile longer.

The only thing the Samsung Android / Microsoft deal represents is the death of Windows 10 mobile. Maybe MS will release a next Gen phone in late 2018 or rumors now say 2019, but the OS will not be based on the current Win mobile OS.

Microsoft's CEO has said his key mobile strategy is to have Microsoft's apps and services running on iOS and Android. Not only are they now on both platforms, but generally run much better than on Win 10 Mobile.

[menshawy]

anyway BlackBerry stopped listening to ideas related to BlackBerry 10

Posted via CB10

[IggyBlue]

To take this idea a step further, what if BB10 was also available for purchase to install on a PC?

Posted via CB10

[Drael646464]

Firstly windows is a software company.

They are not a hardware manufacturer. They essentially demo hardware concepts in the market, for their partners when they release hardware. The surface for example - its not supposed to be a market winning tablet hybrid. Its supposed to show the actual OEMs, 'this is what can be done'.

This is what microsofts ceo says "we take the risks for our hardware partners".

So, that established, they are not a phone company, but a software company, moving on....

Windows 10 as a concept is perhaps a little abstract for people to understand at this point. Its essentially a beta, with ongoing development. The goal is to make a single OS, that is hardware independent. The driver for the IoT. The same software on your desktop, your mainframe, your refrigeration, your smart watch, your robot vacuum cleaner etc.

As a product, its nowhere near that yet. It has scalable apps, but its the UI and software needs updating on small screens, and on no screens. It needs A LOT more coding, before it becomes the vision.

When windows 10 runs as smoothly on a mobile, as a smart watch, as a desktop, as your refrigeration, as your smart ot plant holder - then it will be the finished product. That could be a decade off. Until then the notion of smartphones really is just a tiny part of that overall aim.

Redmond 3, and the arm emu, will both bring important updates however this year to windows mobile. Vital UI changes and the unique ability to run full win32 desktop software . And no doubt the ease of producing windows phones (just writing drivers), under the emu, will attract a lot of people to produce quite low cost windows phones
(license is free under seven inches of screen), snapdragon is a cheap chip.

I see Samsung would most likely be one of those people. They have repeatedly stated they don't want to be tied to android, are strong, and open allies of Microsoft, and have recently released a windows hybrid.

Its a baby step, for a young windows 10, walking a path long before anyone else is considering it.


Honestly I applaude that sort of thinking. It's long term thinking. I doubt touch screen portable computing will be considered any kind of big deal in ten or twenty years. And there is literally no chance at all the premium smartphone market will have anything like the profits it does now, in five years let alone ten years.