[mset]

So you're saying they gauged demand before they actually started selling the phone, which was two days ago? Did this ability evolve after carriers bought too many Z10s that they had difficulty selling?

The price was lowered no later than a day of the device being made available.

Hmmm, I think Telus had the device available longer that the past 48 hours, didn't they? In any case, have you ever, in your entire life seen a telco offer a brand new device and then drop the price within days of the announcement? I haven't. Why do you think they did that?

[tmb2013]

No, the price is right for the market, people will buy at this price to get their BlackBerry. BlackBerry doesn't care about the consumer that is looking for a cheap phone or keeps ******** about pricing because their target market is people that want a BlackBerry and will pay. They cut costs down on the company to make the costs match sales and turn a profit. Thats the business going forward .
Compair specs on like priced phones and tell me it's too expensive, not that it matters because BlackBerry isn't trying to sell to iPhone and Android market anymore.


Posted via CB10

If they are not trying to sell to the Android and iPhone markets they have a VERY small market they are trying to sell to, and most of those have probably already bought a phone within the last 9 months.

[Fr3lncr]

Hmmm, I think Telus had the device available longer that the past 48 hours, didn't they? In any case, have you ever, in your entire life seen a telco offer a brand new device and then drop the price within days of the announcement? I haven't. Why do you think they did that?

I think the phone was officially available to buy on the 15th and they lowered their price either late on the 15th or early on the 16th. But it was officially announced that telus would carry it, what... at least a week before if not more?

[raino]

Hmmm, I think Telus had the device available longer that the past 48 hours, didn't they?

Nope. Their website said "Coming October 15th." Hell, even on October 15th it said "Coming October 15th." Bell beat them to listing it online.

In any case, have you ever, in your entire life seen a telco offer a brand new device and then drop the price within days of the announcement? I haven't. Why do you think they did that?

Price mistake would be my guess.

[Gnomesane]

Oh, I can assure you, a week is plenty of time to assess demand under these circumstances. And no, the price was not lowered within a few hours of the initial announcement that they'd be carrying the device.

And how do you know that? I'd like to hear more, for sure.

I'm not suggesting the Z30 is selling well (in fact I doubt it), just curious to hear your rationale. I have a cousin who owns a Telus store in the Greater Toronto Area, and most of his clientele are corporate, not walk in consumers. He's been in the business since the pager days, a bit of a veteran. I'm seeing him on the weekend (a mutual uncle died and we're participating in the funeral) and I'll see what he has to say.

Anyway, be curious to hear why you think the price was lowered from a business perspective and I'll compare notes with what my cousin tells me.

[mset]

Anyway, be curious to hear why you think the price was lowered from a business perspective and I'll compare notes with what my cousin tells me.

I'd also be very interested in what you find out. I also have a contact at a Telus store, so I'll try to see what info I can get.

I deal in probabilities. To me, Occam's razor says it's way more likely that this was a business decision as opposed to a pricing mistake as was suggested above.

In terms of their rationale, you can imagine that firms like Telus have tons of experience with product rollout. The amount of preorder combined with initial sales tells them a whole lot. It would make sense that if they have inventory and are seeing weak numbers early, they're going to take steps.

Again, when have you ever seen this happen? I've never seen it.

And again, who's going to buy this phone?

[tmb2013]

I'd also be very interested in what you find out. I also have a contact at a Telus store, so I'll try to see what info I can get.

I deal in probabilities. To me, Occam's razor says it's way more likely that this was a business decision as opposed to a pricing mistake as was suggested above.

In terms of their rationale, you can imagine that firms like tons of experience with product rollout, and the amount of preorder combined with initial sales tells them a whole lot. It would make sense that if they have inventory and are seeing weak numbers early, they're going to take steps.

Again, when have you ever seen this happen? I've never seen it.

And again, who's going to buy this phone?

Well,

Given that If you want a BB and you go to the Rogers website to look at them the Z10 is currently listed at $650 off contract and the Q10 is listed at $699 off contract.

So if you can crack the reality distortion field and somehow accept that these numbers make any sense at all you could probably convince yourself that the Z30 at $700 is an absolute bargain bin price.

There are a LOT of it's in there.

[Bla1ze]

Hmmm, I think Telus had the device available longer that the past 48 hours, didn't they? In any case, have you ever, in your entire life seen a telco offer a brand new device and then drop the price within days of the announcement? I haven't. Why do you think they did that?

After the Rogers hoopla, business decision. Wait and see what others are offering it for and then drop the price to make your offering look better. Rogers is the largest carrier and people ticked off at Rogers and remaining that way will be looking at that. Sure, maybe not a lot of people will pick up the Z30 but if you had the chance to undercut a competitor and take away some of those who are interested, wouldn't you?

Also, have you totally ignored the iPhone 5c pricing lately? Pricing on it was dropped by retailers almost instantly in an effort to choke each other's sales off and capture whoever they could while the hype was high.

http://m.us.wsj.com/articles/SB10001...?mg=reno64-wsj

Sent via my Banana Phone on the Chiquita Wireless Network.

[Gnomesane]

I'd also be very interested in what you find out. I also have a contact at a Telus store, so I'll try to see what info I can get.

I deal in probabilities. To me, Occam's razor says it's way more likely that this was a business decision as opposed to a pricing mistake as was suggested above.

In terms of their rationale, you can imagine that firms like Telus have tons of experience with product rollout. The amount of preorder combined with initial sales tells them a whole lot. It would make sense that if they have inventory and are seeing weak numbers early, they're going to take steps.

Again, when have you ever seen this happen? I've never seen it.

And again, who's going to buy this phone?

He does a lot of corporate, I'm curious to hear what he says about that. I like Bla1ze's point about the pricing being all over the place and relating the drop to the recent Rogers hoopla over the Z30. That makes more sense to me than the preorders, but who knows. I'll ask my cousin and duly report back what he says, regardless of whether I like his answer or not. :P

[vegetto_456]

wealthy people spend $7000 on an item not because they "need "it,but to flaunt their wealth as if it makes them better than anyone else .If wealthy individuals really believe that they have all that life has to offer because they can buy it, they really have Nothing. We came into the world with nothing and shall leave with nothing.

Talk about sweeping generalizations, you are being wholly unfair. Everyone has a different metric with which they determine the value for objects. Sneakerheads won't mind dropping hundreds of dollars on the latest and greatest baskteball shoes. Audiophiles, like me, don't mind paying premium dollar for quality stuff (I got my eye on the Grado PS1000). I buy things because they hold value for me, not to flaunt wealth. Case in point, I am a fan of watches, and I had a Tag Heur Mclaren edition at one point and it cost a pretty penny. Not because people will think I'm a baller, but because I admire the beauty of it and its craftmanship. I evaluate things like the masses as well, to me there is still a huge difference between 600 and 700 dollars. But I digress.

You jelly bro?

[mset]

Also, have you totally ignored the iPhone 5c pricing lately? Pricing on it was dropped by retailers almost instantly in an effort to choke each other's sales off and capture whoever they could while the hype was high.

Retailers Cut Apple iPhone 5C Price - WSJ.com

That link is busted for me but I'll take your word for it. In any case, this certainly wasn't a pricing error. In addition, the hoopla about Rogers' carrying the phone started well before the apparent Telus release date of Oct 15 as cited here. Why didn't they just come out of the gate with this lower pricing if the idea was to take advantage of Rogers' decision? And didn't the initial Telus offering reflect a $50 discount to Rogers' pricing after they decided to offer the phone?

[Bla1ze]

That link is busted for me but I'll take your word for it. In any case, this certainly wasn't a pricing error. In addition, the hoopla about Rogers' carrying the phone started well before the apparent Telus release date of Oct 15 as cited here. Why didn't they just come out of the gate with this lower pricing if the idea was to take advantage of Rogers' decision? And didn't the initial Telus offering reflect a $50 discount to Rogers' pricing after they decided to offer the phone?

I never said it was a pricing error, I said it was a business decision. One that has worked for me so I'm sure others as well. Once I get back to Canada, I'll be ordering mine from Telus and not Bell or Rogers. $50 +15% tax in Nova Scotia adds up.

PS: The Rogers pricing info is irrelevant because no one knows it yet.. the Z30 isn't even on their site and the Rogers reservation system doesn't say pricing info.. never has, but in general it's usually on par with Bell. Meaning, higher. So as I see it, Telus was smart to drop it.

Sent via my Banana Phone on the Chiquita Wireless Network.

[mset]

I never said it was a pricing error, I said it was a business decision.

No, someone else said it was possibly a pricing error. It wasn't.

PS: The Rogers pricing info is irrelevant because no one knows it yet.. the Z30 isn't even on their site and the Rogers reservation system doesn't say pricing info

If (and only if) this statement was in response to my assertion that the 'hoopla' you mentioned was not likely a factor in Telus' decision, it wasn't pricing information that was the cause of the 'hoopla' you described, it was simply the hoopla surrounding their decision not to carry the phone. You mentioned that the Telus price drop was 'after the Rogers hoopla, a business decision'. But again, since the Rogers hoopla was information known to Telus before they released their own initial pricing, why would they not just come right in at $600, if as you say it formed the basis of their (business) decision? The timing there doesn't seem to me to make sense.

In any case, we'll know soon enough if Z30 sales are strong or weak, and when we find out, we will have better information with which to try to interpret Telus' pricing decisions. I agree that the price drop was a business decision, I just think it might have been for different business reasons.

[Gnomesane]

No, someone else said it was possibly a pricing error. It wasn't.


If (and only if) this statement was in response to my assertion that the 'hoopla' you mentioned was not likely a factor in Telus' decision, it wasn't pricing information that was the cause of the 'hoopla' you described, it was simply the hoopla surrounding their decision not to carry the phone. You mentioned that the Telus price drop was 'after the Rogers hoopla, a business decision'. But again, since the Rogers hoopla was information known to Telus before they released their own initial pricing, why would they not just come right in at $600, if as you say it formed the basis of their (business) decision? The timing there doesn't seem to me to make sense.

In any case, we'll know soon enough if Z30 sales are strong or weak, and when we find out, we will have better information with which to try to interpret Telus' pricing decisions. I agree that the price drop was a business decision, I just think it might have been for different business reasons.

So I talked to my cousin about BlackBerry et al and didn't have any real insight on the price drop on the Z30 beyond what's already been speculated. He's a franchisee so not privy to inner Telus corporate dealings. But he had a few interesting insights.

He runs a shop in the GTA, deals mainly with corporate, just to bear in mind....

In terms of dealing with the various reps from the different platforms he says his dealings with Samsung are the best. Their rep is excellent apparently. He said Apple is "arrogant" and hates dealing with them. He didn't have much to say on Microsoft, and said their sales of WP in enterprise are weak. BlackBerry fell in the upper middle, he has good relations and no real issues with how they deal with him (he kept referring to them as RIM, old habits die hard I guess). In terms of sales, he has a mix of legacy BBOS upgrades along with the new BlackBerry 10. The lion's share of hardware is the Q10 out of the new handsets. While business is still good in terms of BlackBerry sales with his clients, he's finding growth in Android, specifically Samsung.

He has a Q10, likes it enough (as he says he just uses his phone to text, email, voice chat and browse the web occasionally). Like everyone else, he thinks BlackBerry is in trouble at the moment and would like to see them do well. But as a business owner, he'll go with what his customers are asking for, and largely that's shifting to Samsung at the moment.

Saw a few other cousins and one is a long term BlackBerry user that loves her legacy phone, but is holding off on upgrading at the moment to wait and see what happens in the next few months before deciding. She doesn't want to switch, and will likely upgrade to the new platform if she's confident that the company will be around long term. Otherwise, she's weighing her options and not sure if she'd look at Android or Apple.

Talked to yet another cousin who's a partner at an Accounting firm. Their head of IT recently departed. He was the more pro BlackBerry voice of the group and since his mysterious departure (he didn't know the details), the arena has opened up to include iPhone as an alternative to BlackBerry for new handset upgrades.

Anyway, just an insight for those interested.

[mset]

So I talked to my cousin about BlackBerry et al and didn't have any real insight on the price drop on the Z30 beyond what's already been speculated.

He runs a shop in the GTA, deals mainly with corporate, just to bear in mind....

He said Apple is "arrogant" and hates dealing with them. The lion's share of hardware is the Q10 out of the new handsets. While business is still good in terms of BlackBerry sales with his clients, he's finding growth in Android, specifically Samsung.

Thanks for the report. It's no surprise that AAPL reps are arrogant. Also no surprise that your guy sells mostly Q10. Almost all the BB10 devices I've seen in the wild have been Q10, mostly in the hands of my clients who are business people.

I too spoke to two people. The first is a person with a connection at a Telus store dealing mostly with retail trade. She says that earlier this year, people would come in and ask about the new phones. She's a BBRY fan so she promoted them, and says she sold several Z10s, then when the Q came out she had 'older people' coming in for them. However, in the past month people are leading off with 'Ummm, I heard they're in trouble?' She says they have not sold a Z30, but again, this is a small store dealing to a middle income neighbourhood.

I then called Telus, as I still have an account there (my Dad's). I told the sales rep that I was interested in getting a new phone, and asked her about the Z30. She says she has had a few calls, but again, people seem to be aware that there's an issue with the company and are reluctant to commit. She says she has never personally set a customer up with a Z30. She is an iPhone user but was surprised by how many people are going with Android. She also seemed to know that the Nexus 4 represents the best value in terms of cost/ hardware ratio.

All anecdotal, of course.

[Gnomesane]

Thanks for the report. It's no surprise that AAPL reps are arrogant. Also no surprise that your guy sells mostly Q10. Almost all the BB10 devices I've seen in the wild have been Q10, mostly in the hands of my clients who are business people.

I too spoke to two people. The first is a person with a connection at a Telus store dealing mostly with retail trade. She says that earlier this year, people would come in and ask about the new phones. She's a BBRY fan so she promoted them, and says she sold several Z10s, then when the Q came out she had 'older people' coming in for them. However, in the past month people are leading off with 'Ummm, I heard they're in trouble?' She says they have not sold a Z30, but again, this is a small store dealing to a middle income neighbourhood.

I then called Telus, as I still have an account there (my Dad's). I told the sales rep that I was interested in getting a new phone, and asked her about the Z30. She says she has had a few calls, but again, people seem to be aware that there's an issue with the company and are reluctant to commit. She says she has never personally set a customer up with a Z30. She is an iPhone user but was surprised by how many people are going with Android. She also seemed to know that the Nexus 4 represents the best value in terms of cost/ hardware ratio.

All anecdotal, of course.

Cheers. In terms of moving devices, my cousin is seeing the most growth with Samsung. And he was quite impressed with the Samsung rep, he went on at length about how professional the guy was. I was more surprised that he was basically happy with his relationship with BlackBerry. I was expecting something else.

I think BlackBerry screwed up with the new platform by not including ALL of the messaging features of legacy BBOS. I think their loyal base was confused by the reduced messaging functionality in BB10. I come from iPhone so I considered it a step up, but I've come to realize that it wasn't the case for the loyal BlackBerry crowd that upgraded.

Now that BB is refocusing back to enterprise, I can only hope they put top priority on restoring full messaging functionality to the OS. If it's not too late already, that is key to their future if they want to see BB10 get any decent traction. Even in a niche market. As someone who enjoys the platform, I hope that will be the case.

Thanks for your report as well.

[mset]

I think BlackBerry screwed up with the new platform by not including ALL of the messaging features of legacy BBOS.

I see. Yes, there was some mention in the long Globe and Mail article about how the BB10 programmers were physically separated from the legacy teams, and how this may have caused some of the problems we're seeing.

I'm going to grab a Z30 just to play with it and see what it's all about. After hammering what I affectionately call the head-in-the-sand crowd around here pretty hard, I'm going to be on the spot if it turns out that I absolutely love it and that it functions perfectly : )

[Gnomesane]

I see. Yes, there was some mention in the long Globe and Mail article about how the BB10 programmers were physically separated from the legacy teams, and how this may have caused some of the problems we're seeing.

I'm going to grab a Z30 just to play with it and see what it's all about. After hammering what I affectionately call the head-in-the-sand crowd around here pretty hard, I'm going to be on the spot if it turns out that I absolutely love it and that it functions perfectly : )

Be curious to hear your thoughts if you pick it up. The three features that tempt me: Natural Sound, Paratek Antenna and 5" screen. I know a 5" screen is hardly revolutionary in mobile, but I'm curious to try the BB10 keyboard on a slightly bigger form factor than Z10.

[aha]

After hammering what I affectionately call the head-in-the-sand crowd around here pretty hard, I'm going to be on the spot if it turns out that I absolutely love it and that it functions perfectly : )

You mean after "being hammered by"? Lol

[mset]

You mean after "being hammered by"? Lol

Haha... no, no. I mean hammering them until they skulk away, which is what usually happens when the facts are brought to light.

I'm not even the best at it. I just do it when I have some spare time, because the truth should always win. It's hard to keep up.

[Sheaner19]

Just purchased a z30 had a z10 previously I am amazed at this phone!

IROC-Z10 But Mostly She Rocks Me!