[tatail]

So, over the past few months and years we had many threads bringing up the topic of their disappointment with BlackBerry for going Enterprise only.

My idea is for BlackBerry to make a few devices running BlackBerry 10 as well as Android to take care of everyone who has a complain.

Let the crowd, the people, the consumer decide what they want.

Sony is doing so why not BlackBerry?

There are new startup companies who release great phone every couple of days and they invest $0s from their pockets, so why not BlackBerry?

The process is simple and straightforward, you build a device put it on crowd funding site and let it's faith be decided by the people who matter most, the consumers. And as John Chen said professionals are also consumers.

I have mentioned Android device because there are people who want BlackBerry device but are locked in the ecosystem.

Anyone else thinks this is a good idea?

Posted via CB10

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

Not really....

I imagine the minimum cost for development and minimum manufacturing run for a smartphone would be pretty high... and then some here would want all touch and some would want keyboard so you'd have you userbase split.

As for Android over BB10 on new devices... that is pure speculation. But my speculation is that to meet OHA guidelines that all the other OEM have had to follow..... BB10 would not be on ANY new BlackBerry devices, and BlackBerry would not be involved in any further development of the OS without first removing the Runtime.

[tatail]

The part about creating an Android device and not able to continue providing Android runtime makes sense and I agree with that.

But, for some time now BB has not released any high end all touch device and that is what I was referring to.
I don't think they will lose anything.

I actually think this will attract a lot of new users, because the user can have a say about the hardware of device and something they are willing to invest in not just something that is already produced.

[FrankUnderwood]

No one is going to stop you from getting a BlackBerry as they focus on enterprise market. You should still be able to get one from the providers who carry them.

You just won't see iJustine and the other sheep lining up for the newest rendition of the same product with an S at the end for BlackBerry products.

Outside the stickers marketing for BBM, they just won't be putting out ads saying "if it's not an iPhone, it's not an iPhone"

Posted via CB10 on the President Underwood version of the BlackBerry Classic

[1guitarguy]

That would probably be insanely expensive and probably won't pay off but it's an idea. Maybe it would be better to fund app developers to help out with bbworld cuz clearly the third party developers are the only ones who still care (for the most part)

Posted via CB10

[Prem WatsApp]

The Ubuntu Edge phone needed $20m minimum, iirc... :-)
Or was it $32m....?

That's a lot of dough, but they were going to develop the phone from scratch (not talking about the OS).

�   "BBAndr10d Armageddon: Chenisys is uploading in 5,4,3..."   �

[DonHB]

Anyone still interested in using this method to get BlackBerry to put BB10 on a partner's (e.g. TCL) device?

What premium over an existing device would you pay to cover driver R&D and QA?

Most would suggest this is unlikely to be allowed by any of the known sources of crowd funding, unless BlackBerry initiates it. However, if it would be allowed, it could put to rest any questions regarding interest because it would require people to put real money down. The possibility that contributions would be refunded even if the target is met (due to BlackBerry's intransigence) shouldn't change the accuracy of the final numbers. New devices may also encourage software developers to continue or return to supporting BB10.

So, anyone interested?

[conite]

To continually develop and maintain a full blown OS is in the hundreds of millions of dollars a year. An entirely new developer staff would have to be hired and trained, as all of the original team have moved on. BlackBerry would have to acquire new office space and developer infrastructure.

This would all amount to thousands of dollars per device per year, and you STILL have to build devices and pay for those.

And at the end of all of that, you won't be able to have an Android Runtime, and continue to enjoy almost zero native app support.

[DonHB]

You seemed to miss the following points:

• Use an existing partner device that incorporates Root of Trust.
• Existing device would be chosen as part of campaign.
• Use an existing version of OS.
• Paid in advance with crowd sourcing.

Presumably they had recent practice with QA when building 10.3.3.x, but this would be a reason to deliver the promised 10.3.4.x.

[conite]

You seemed to miss the following points:

• Use an existing partner device that incorporates Root of Trust.
• Use an existing version of OS.
• Paid in advance with crowd sourcing.

Presumably they had some practice with QA when building 10.3.3.x, but this would be an excuse to look at it again.

Still have to develop all of the hardware drivers at a cost of millions.

Would still lose the Android Runtime with any new device.

How long could you live in 2014 with OS 10.3?

[DonHB]

I don't know what their license agreement is with Google/Alphabet. Have you read it so you actually know?

[DonHB]

Can't believe drivers, which QNX likely produces for every prototype car they work on, would cost millions including QA.

[conite]

Can't believe drivers, which QNX likely produces for every prototype car they work on, would cost millions including QA.

The components on cars are as close to those on a phone as my kitchen table.

And yes, the cost is well into the millions.

[bobshine]

Bad idea. Beside the few people on crackberry, how many out there are interested in BB10? Now you take that number and... let's be generous, apply a multiplier of 10%. Those are the ones that would consider putting money in. Then maybe 10% of those will actually put money in.

Crowd financing only work with unique products with competitive advantages. Now tell me what kind of competitive advantage BB10 has?

[meilenstein]

Anyone still interested in using this method to get BlackBerry to put BB10 on a partner's (e.g. TCL) device?

What premium over an existing device would you pay to cover driver R&D and QA?

Most would suggest this is unlikely to be allowed by any of the known sources of crowd funding, unless BlackBerry initiates it. However, if it would be allowed, it could put to rest any questions regarding interest because it would require people to put real money down. The possibility that contributions would be refunded even if the target is met (due to BlackBerry's intransigence) shouldn't change the accuracy of the final numbers. New devices may also encourage software developers to continue or return to supporting BB10.

So, anyone interested?

1st answer: $0.00
2nd answer: No.

Posted via CB10

[Troy Tiscareno]

All costs of a phone, including R&D, licensing, distribution, marketing, taxes, payroll, benefits, office space costs, etc. etc., would need to be split among the phones sold. If you can sell 10M, then the cost per phone for this is relatively small. As the number of devices is reduced, each device has to bear more and more of the costs. That's a huge problem for a device that might sell 10,000 units!

The other issue is that BB10 hasn't been in active development for almost 3 years now - and many serious changes have taken place since then that would need to be dealt with to make a new device viable.

One major issue is the transition from 32-bit to 64-bit OSs, which is necessary to support the architecture of modern SoCs and memory. iOS and Android were migrated to 64-bit several years ago, but BB10 is still 32-bit. A very conservative cost for migrating BB10 to 64-bit is about half a billion dollars. More realistically, I suspect it would cost a billion and take at least 2 years with a fairly large staff to accomplish (just that migration alone).

But BB10 is also using an outdated and deprecated version of QT, is missing many key APIs, would need an updated development environment in order for developers to keep writing apps, and of course, lacks not only a ton of apps, but also any significant media support (music, movies, etc.). Virtually all of those are currently provided by the Android Runtime - which, significantly, would have to be ripped out of BB10 and all of the holes patched up. I estimate that would take at least a year and another large chuck of change.

Then you'd still have to pay for the device itself, and even if you used an existing reference design slab from someone (like the DTEKs), there's a lot of work to fine-tune the OS and drivers to work together properly - or you end up with a device that crashes all the time and has 4 hours of battery life. Mobile OSs aren't like Windows, where there are drivers written for just about any hardware.

But, let's assume you somehow managed to come up with 1.5-2B to pay for all of the work to get BB10 able to work on modern hardware and to enable developers to keep making apps for it. You'd still have to get people to buy into a platform that has almost zero developer support, and most critically, has no Android support at all (which has been a huge crutch for BB10 from the beginning, and even more so today). How many people would buy this phone even at normal prices?

Even if I *generously* said you could find 50,000 people willing to buy this device (IMO, a huge stretch), you're still looking at $1.5B (using the low number) divided by 50,000, which is $30,000 per phone sold in development costs, NOT including the cost of the hardware, marketing, or distribution.

Even at 1M phones sold, you're looking at $1500 per device in development costs, plus hardware and other costs.

Why do you think BB lost so much money? Owning your own platform and having to maintain and evolve it is ruinously expensive unless you can sell 30M+ devices per year. Even with costs cut to the bone, Chen estimated he'd need to sell 10M per year just to break even - a number BB never got close to (the best year, 2013, sold about 6M BB10 devices - many of them at firesale prices). Mike Lazaridis assumed he could sell at least 40M per year, so he wasn't overly concerned, but it was well understood even in 2011 that below a certain unit volume, the development costs would eat the platform alive - just as they ultimately did.

The reason other crowdfunded devices have been possible (though, note that very few actually delivered anything, and of the few that did, many didn't deliver a product that pleased the buyers) is because they were either using Android or something based on Linux (as Android is), where drivers are provided for free (because nearly all customers need Linux drivers) and were most of the development is actually done by large companies for other reasons. And, still, how many were successful?

You might also find this interesting:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...nding_projects

In particular, read the details of the projects in this list, and how many of them ultimately failed to deliver or delivered poorly - or have yet to deliver anything at all.

[DonHB]

The components on cars are as close to those on a phone as my kitchen table.

And yes, the cost is well into the millions.

https://www.qualcomm.com/news/snapdr...debut-ces-2016

[conite]

https://www.qualcomm.com/news/snapdr...debut-ces-2016

So? It's still a different processor.

Plus, the SoC is one of many hardware components requiring drivers.

[DonHB]

All costs of a phone, including R&D, licensing, distribution, marketing, taxes, payroll, benefits, office space costs, etc. etc., would need to be split among the phones sold. If you can sell 10M, then the cost per phone for this is relatively small. As the number of devices is reduced, each device has to bear more and more of the costs. That's a huge problem for a device that might sell 10,000 units!
...

What all the naysayers here have ignored is that idea is to partner with existing partners like TCL and perhaps use the KEYone.

And 64-bit devices can run 32-bit OSes using 32-bit drivers.

[DonHB]

So? It's still a different processor.

Plus, the SoC is one of many hardware components requiring drivers.

And QNX may already have drivers for this SOC which can be a basis for the drivers for the KEYone.

[Elephant_Canyon]

What all the naysayers here have ignored is that idea is to partner with existing partners like TCL and perhaps use the KEYone.

And 64-bit devices can run 32-bit OSes using 32-bit drivers.

Just out of curiosity, what is your software development background?

[Troy Tiscareno]

Please, feel free to approach BB with your crowd-funding idea. I'm sure they'll be on-board!

[DonHB]

Please, feel free to approach BB with your crowd-funding idea. I'm sure they'll be on-board!

Not to be sarcastic or anything, but they probably would think it would complicate the marketplace further about BlackBerry and Android.

Better it done by others even if it means BlackBerry is tying their hands.

[conite]

Not to be sarcastic or anything, but they probably would think it would complicate the marketplace further about BlackBerry and Android.

Better it done by others even if it means BlackBerry is tying their hands.

The very fact that no business on the planet wants to touch BB10 with a 10' pole (including BlackBerry), should tell you something.

[DonHB]

BlackBerry did produce 10.3.3.x and this would be an opportunity to follow through on delivering 10.3.4.x and provide good will to existing customers.

I am not suggesting anything on the scale that Tiscareno thinks would be required.

I don't even expect the partner to make any changes to the hardware. It should not be necessary because the devices should already support Root of Trust.

I also expect the hardware with BB10 to be identical to the partner's model with Google Android installed with no cosmetic changes whatsoever, because it would only be available to order from Shop Blackberry (or Digital River).

Only new development would be drivers and the necessary QA on the partner device.