[Tatwi]

Posted on The Register on 2 Oct 2015 at 08:04.

Five things that doomed the big and brilliant BlackBerry 10 ? The Register

Posted via CB10

[koool1]

They missed the biggest one. It was LATE. At leat 2 years late.

Posted via CrackBerry App

[BoneMatrix]

They missed the biggest one. It was LATE. At leat 2 years late.

Posted via CrackBerry App

That is extensively covered in point 5, of the article along with why RIM was doomed to be late having decided to go with a non-mobile OS, i.e. QNX, requiring entirely new middleware API etc.


Posted via CB10

[AluminiumRims]

The one and only reason that BB10 failed is that it is not a subject of Prism and other US eaves dropping rules. This in turn made the BB10 phones very difficult to obtain and were denied market exposure.

[Bbnivende]

The one and only reason that BB10 failed is that it is not a subject of Prism and other US eaves dropping rules. This in turn made the BB10 phones very difficult to obtain and were denied market exposure.

Why did BB10 fail in every other country in the world?

Posted via CB10

[Cozz4ever]

Why did BB10 fail in every other country in the world?

Posted via CB10

The rest of the world follows the US

Posted via CB10

[AluminiumRims]

Why did BB10 fail in every other country in the world?

Posted via CB10

Because they are puppets

[koool1]

That is extensively covered in point 5, of the article along with why RIM was doomed to be late having decided to go with a non-mobile OS, i.e. QNX, requiring entirely new middleware API etc.


Posted via CB10

I suppose it's in there but it should be #1 and is really the only real reason. Lots of flaws and trip ups with all the operating systems. BlackBerry had the market share and user base to move to BlackBerry 10. By the time BlackBerry 10 came the name was tarnished and user user base was already going or gone. DOA.

Posted via  BlackBerry Z30

[MmmHmm]

It should have been released in 2007 or 2008 and modeled after the iPhone. Google made exactly the right moves early on. If BB had a competitive phone/OS at the time iOS and android rose to prominence, it might have been a contender. It might be the android of today. 2013 was WAY too late to finally release a modern OS. By the time BB jumped in with BB10, it should have known it was too late and just adopted Android. Imagine if HTC decided today to create its own OS and try to establish its own ecosystem to compete with iOS and android. Most people on here would (rightly) say that's a stupid move and waste of corporate money. It's just not realistic in this market.

[pantlesspenguin]

The one and only reason that BB10 failed is that it is not a subject of Prism and other US eaves dropping rules. This in turn made the BB10 phones very difficult to obtain and were denied market exposure.

Denied market exposure? BB10 phones difficult to obtain? There was a Super Bowl commercial, the Keep Moving commercial that aired dozens of times during the 2013 NCAA tournament, a cute commercial from Verizon demonstrating bbm video chat and file transfers that showed more of what the phone could actually do than the official commercials that BlackBerry put out, short commercials that ran during media streaming (I saw them while streaming shows on the CBS website), large kiosks at Best Buy and T-Mobile (the Tmo one had a looped video playing as well), and an island with BB10 phones at Verizon (not sure about the other carriers). About a week before the rumored Tmo launch date of the Z10 I went to see if the reps had a solid date yet. They said they didn't, but their manager had just returned from a BlackBerry expo demonstrating the Z10 and the Q10. Apparently the manager was really excited about the phones. I picked up my Z10 on launch day, and when I came back when the Q10 was launched the rep I had asked about the Z10 launch showed me he was using the Q10 as his personal phone.

Most of the displays and commercials disappeared after about 6 months because the phones just didn't catch the eye of the public who were already happy with other platforms.

[BlackQtCoder]

Five reasons:

1. Apps
2. Apps
3. Apps
4. Apps
5. Apps

Posted via CB10

[koool1]

Five reasons:

1. Apps
2. Apps
3. Apps
4. Apps
5. Apps

Posted via CB10

Yep. But because they were too late late late.

Posted via  BlackBerry Z30

[LazyEvul]

The one and only reason that BB10 failed is that it is not a subject of Prism and other US eaves dropping rules. This in turn made the BB10 phones very difficult to obtain and were denied market exposure.

Boy oh boy... the logical leaps made in this one are pretty strong.

Let's see, the US government still remains one of BlackBerry's biggest customers - surely if they wanted to kill them off, they'd start by not giving them money?

But really, the best part of this is that you seem to believe that BlackBerry would never cooperate with the NSA. The company is based in a Five Eyes country and has a history of cooperating with far less powerful governments. They talk a strong game about privacy but have done very little to defend it in practice:

• They've never publicly spoken out against mass surveillance, they've publicly refused to release a transparency report, and they have never deployed end-to-end encryption by default for regular consumers.
• They've always had the ability to decrypt BIS and BBM messages in transit, and have even made agreements with some governments to do exactly that. The only effort they've made to address this is a $38/year BBM Protected subscription that is aimed primarily at enterprise customers - in other words, something most consumers will never use.
• They don't have a bug bounty program to encourage white hat hackers to catch vulnerabilities that, inevitably, they have not - this is especially important when your userbase is so small.
• The BB10 browser still supports weak RC4 cipher suites for TLS, and will load unencrypted content on encrypted webpages even before the user accepts the "Show all" prompt.
• They have very little documentation on security practices within Password Keeper, which is especially troubling after the recent discovery of what appears to be an escrow key for Password Keeper databases.
• Most of their own websites do not support TLS, opening up the door to surveillance and MITM attacks.
• And BB10 lacks support for several popular VPN protocols, including the highly-regarded OpenVPN.

They make some great enterprise products, but for the average consumer? Their privacy practices are no better than the competition, and in some ways worse - many of the points I brought up are things Apple, Google, and Microsoft have all addressed in their own products. You don't have to show up in a PRISM slide to do the NSA a favour, you just need to be complacent about inadequate technology.

[Irish Blues]

There was a Super Bowl commercial the only thing anyone remembers about this is "THIS GIRL IS ON FIRE!" - which tells you how worthless the ad was, the Keep Moving commercial that aired dozens of times during the 2013 NCAA tournament really? Yeah, I don't remember it either - again, totally ineffective, a cute commercial from Verizon demonstrating bbm video chat and file transfers that showed more of what the phone could actually do than the official commercials that BlackBerry put out yeah, I missed that one too, short commercials that ran during media streaming (I saw them while streaming shows on the CBS website) didn't have media streaming at the time, can't speak to this, large kiosks at Best Buy not at any Best Buy I ever saw and T-Mobile (the Tmo one had a looped video playing as well) "large kiosk" is being really generous; I remember "small section out of the main area of traffic with a couple phones, and an island with BB10 phones at Verizon (not sure about the other carriers) which was again, out of the main area of traffic - but more importantly, actively ignored by salespeople who were more than willing to push customers toward an iPhone or the latest Samsung phone and who were more than willing to bash Blackberry at every chance - complete with the, "they're dying, they won't be around in another year" line.

My observations in bold. Again, most people remember Alicia Keys singing in that SB commercial; they don't recall what the product was. That's a poor ad. Bottom line: marketing was **** poor at best, and didn't do much to (A) engage prospective customers, much less (B) leave an impression in the minds of customers as to what the BB10 OS could do. Throw on the early problems of 10.0.X, and you have a recipe for disaster.

[AnimalPak200]

What doomed BB10 was the fact that Android and iOS didn't suck enough to make people look elsewhere.

Together with the fact that BBOS devices were such a widespread and known advertisement demonstrating how 'outdated' BlackBerry was.

And finished by the fact that BlackBerry refused to make a clean cut from that same BBOS.

The reason they didn't market BB10 was because they were afraid to step off the BBOS ledge (it would have made BBOS look bad). So they took a step forward with one foot onto BB10, but were too scared to lift the other foot from BBOS.

So they ended stuck, standing with their legs open, looking like fools, and very much vulnerable to getting kicked in the b***ls.

This could happen again with the transition onto the Priv. Luckily, however... the BB10 ledge is made out of quicksand and so they're probably much more eager (or at least less hesitant) to step off of it.

Posted via CB10

[pantlesspenguin]

My observations in bold. Again, most people remember Alicia Keys singing in that SB commercial; they don't recall what the product was. That's a poor ad. Bottom line: marketing was **** poor at best, and didn't do much to (A) engage prospective customers, much less (B) leave an impression in the minds of customers as to what the BB10 OS could do. Throw on the early problems of 10.0.X, and you have a recipe for disaster.

Super Bowl commercial



Keep moving commercial



Verizon BB10 commercial



Kiosk at Best Buy at the entrance to the mobile department



I'm not claiming any of this was effective, because it wasn't. I was countering the poster who said that BB10 phones were difficult to explain and were denied market exposure.

[Kurdis Blough]

Am I the only one who went in to best buy to see the new BlackBerry only to be underwhelmed by the midrange at best Z10?

!

[AnimalPak200]

Super Bowl commercial



Keep moving commercial



Verizon BB10 commercial



Kiosk at Best Buy at the entrance to the mobile department

http://i.imgur.com/lzdEnLk.jpg

I'm not claiming any of this was effective, because it wasn't. I was countering the poster who said that BB10 phones were difficult to explain and were denied market exposure.

Yeah, I even bought a Z10 at Costco. Good ole times.

Posted via CB10

[koool1]

Am I the only one who went in to best buy to see the new BlackBerry only to be underwhelmed by the midrange at best Z10?

!

Again. Phone and OS were 1-2 years late. You are right though, a higher spec phone or even the Z30 should have been the first handset.

Posted via  BlackBerry Z30

[lui22]

Five reasons:

1. Apps
2. Apps
3. Apps
4. Apps
5. Apps

Posted via CB10

Uh the last one was supposed to be marketing

[veritas_vincit]

You see what is coming to you for the way it moves. The way BBY company has behaved for years and even after 2007, demonstrates that they want to stay in the Enterprise ecosystem business. You'd seen it by what companies they've been acquiring from time to time and for what they tend to promote and focus more which is security in the enterprise.

[MC_A_DOT]

Five reasons:

1. Apps
2. Apps
3. Apps
4. Apps
5. Apps

Posted via CB10

Could you explain number 1 and 3 for me please?

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

BlackBerry doomed BB10..... A corporate structure that didn't understand the smartphone market and what consumers wanted. It didn't recognize the usefulness of the iPhone and the flexibility of Android until they were already loosing customers at an alarming rate. It didn't understand what drove sales of BlackBerry's to begin with and how ActiveSync took that advantage away. Clearly didn't understand the complexity and time it would take to fashion QNX into an OS. Or what drove Developers to one platform and not another. Or how important the hardware and features of a device along with pricing had to be balance to make a "competitive" device. Or how the business world has no problems using consumer grade devices if they meet their needs.

BlackBerry just didn't understand the market that they helped to create. And sadly I don't think John Chen's experiences have given him any great insight into what makes a hardware company successful.

Can you imagine Steve Jobs saying he was't emotional about hardware......

[nomi1978]

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if BB was actually successful in acquiring Palm/WebOS.

Would things have been different? Was WebOS destined to fail as well or did HP just kill it.

[Tatwi]

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if BB was actually successful in acquiring Palm/WebOS.

Would things have been different? Was WebOS destined to fail as well or did HP just kill it.

WebOS was ahead of its time and a lot like what we use in modern mobile devices. If BlackBerry had used it and launched it at the same time as the iPhone, history would be a little different for sure.

Posted via CB10