[oneinfiniteloop]

I for one would gladly subscribe (and pay) for both those services!

What other services do you think BlackBerry could provide to the consumers?

[Skatophilia]

Would be cool for sure!

Posted via CB10

[thurask]

Could? Few, if any.

Their consumer offerings have been shuttered or outsourced for some time now, so it would take quite a bit of scotch for BlackBerry to suddenly turn around and provide consumer email/cloud storage.

[mathking606]

Cloud would be cool but with android/ Google having so many native offerings what would be the point. At this point in time blackberry will only invest in things that will make them money

Posted via CB10

[hoonigan99]

Yeah but if BlackBerry released a secure/private cloud with demonstrated better protection it could be advantageous.

The issue with this though, is that it would have to be a free, native service, with at least reasonable amounts of storage, they could upsell larger storage capabilities but what else? Security would have to be top notch for free users too

BB for Life

[Aman Darred]

Everyone with a BlackBerry device should have a BlackBerry email address like in years past. And cloud storage would be awesome.

Posted via CB10

[donmateo]

I'm sure Hillary would like that.

I think that'd be cool to have access to for folks who don't need full-fledged Enteprise offerings.

[Troy Tiscareno]

Does BB have $1B+ laying around to build a couple of data centers for this? You can't have "security" and "reliability" without multiple locations each housing the data (if something happens to one location, the other takes over the traffic). And how long would it take BB to turn a profit? 10 years? 20 years?

It's really easy to say "BB should do this" but there has to be a business case to make, and I'm pretty sure there isn't one, or BB would have done it for the BB10 launch, when it might have mattered. Today, BB10 is effectively EOL (at least as far as future development and future BB10 devices), and they're launching an Android phone, which will have access to Google Drive as well as dozens of other cloud alternatives - including the ones BB is already using (Box and Dropbox). So, no, I really don't see the business case.

[Aman Darred]

Does BB have $1B+ laying around to build a couple of data centers for this? You can't have "security" and "reliability" without multiple locations each housing the data (if something happens to one location, the other takes over the traffic). And how long would it take BB to turn a profit? 10 years? 20 years?

It's really easy to say "BB should do this" but there has to be a business case to make, and I'm pretty sure there isn't one, or BB would have done it for the BB10 launch, when it might have mattered. Today, BB10 is effectively EOL (at least as far as future development and future BB10 devices), and they're launching an Android phone, which will have access to Google Drive as well as dozens of other cloud alternatives - including the ones BB is already using (Box and Dropbox). So, no, I really don't see the business case.

Are you talking about email or cloud storage? One would assume BlackBerry already has the infrastructure in place for secure email. Maybe even for cloud storage but probably not enough capacity.

Posted via CB10

[Troy Tiscareno]

Are you talking about email or cloud storage? One would assume BlackBerry already has the infrastructure in place for secure email. Maybe even for cloud storage but probably not enough capacity.

BB had bought a cloud company in 2011, but ended up selling it off, along with most of their email infrastructure, back in 2012. It seems pretty clear that they realized that cloud email/storage wasn't part of their core competencies, and/or that they couldn't make a business case to keep and expand it, so they got out of that business. Not much reason to think that anything has changed today.

One Year After Buying NewBay, RIM Sells The Mobile Cloud Software Developer To Synchronoss Technologies For $55.5M In Cash | TechCrunch

[imz]

Well if your willing to pay, start with buying the domain www.blackmail.com

Build it up small, show potential, get bought out by BlackBerry.
Retire.

Posted via CB10

[yyz321]

No they won't and they shouldn't until at least they have the financial resources to do so.

[rthonpm]

This isn't a consumer based company. Email and cloud services take a lot of data centres as Troy said and need to be maintained. That's a lot of infrastructure to have to put in place with a fairly small reserve.

There are plenty of email providers offering hosted Exchange or even IMAP services, what can BlackBerry offer that they can't?

Posted via CB10

[Cozz4ever]

Does BB have $1B+ laying around to build a couple of data centers for this? You can't have "security" and "reliability" without multiple locations each housing the data (if something happens to one location, the other takes over the traffic). And how long would it take BB to turn a profit? 10 years? 20 years?

It's really easy to say "BB should do this" but there has to be a business case to make, and I'm pretty sure there isn't one, or BB would have done it for the BB10 launch, when it might have mattered. Today, BB10 is effectively EOL (at least as far as future development and future BB10 devices), and they're launching an Android phone, which will have access to Google Drive as well as dozens of other cloud alternatives - including the ones BB is already using (Box and Dropbox). So, no, I really don't see the business case.

I think you're way off. Apple has been making more money than ever by changing for extra cloud storage. Blackberry wants to go to this "Secure" Android, and are going advertise it as such and nothing more. It would make sense focusing on "Secure" cloud storage as well. Those that will choose the Priv over other Android alternatives are the same ones that don't trust Box and Dropbox.

There's a big market for secure cloud and it's only going to get bigger.

[Cozz4ever]

BB had bought a cloud company in 2011, but ended up selling it off, along with most of their email infrastructure, back in 2012. It seems pretty clear that they realized that cloud email/storage wasn't part of their core competencies, and/or that they couldn't make a business case to keep and expand it, so they got out of that business. Not much reason to think that anything has changed today.

One Year After Buying NewBay, RIM Sells The Mobile Cloud Software Developer To Synchronoss Technologies For $55.5M In Cash | TechCrunch

And here I thought Blackberry tried to break even with that purchase to get it's patent portfolio. Synchronous had cash on hand and there were profits while owning them for the time being.