[islandp]

From one of the most popular and successful to the brink of shut-down. From a mature likable OS7 to half-baked OS10. From revenue generated BIS/BES to nothing. Are they really so incompetence to manage their success? Or is there any unseen forces trying to swallow BBRY for its patent?

What's your take?

[Elite1]

Incompetent management, ftw.

Disagree with calling OS7 "likable" and BB10 "half-baked." OS7 was only likable in that it was familiar.
Most power users like myself experienced frequent (as in daily) hourglassing/freezing with OS7. Just like OS6. And OS5. "Mature" is politically correct for just plain old.

Were people calling iOS half-baked in its 3rd generation when basics like Copy & Paste were added? It's a different landscape now in the mobile world vs 4 years, but still an apt analogy.
BB10 is leagues above the legacy BBOS in terms of sophistication & capabilities.

[grumpyaeroguy]

Incompetent management, ftw.


BB10 is leagues above the legacy BBOS in terms of sophistication & capabilities.

Couldn't agree more. Only totally incompetent leadership would allow this fact to remain "hidden" via stealth marketing.

They proved you can't airdrop Qs and Zs out of C5 galaxies over major parts of the US, fly home, hide under their desks. and THEN act like they are surprised and disappointed.

As always, the good emplyees and those that actually accomplished what hey did under that dismal excuse of a "lack of leadership team" will take the punishment THE so-called leadership deserved.

To ALL BB soldiers in the trenches: You did a wonderful job DESPITE your leadership. It's hard, but be and remain proud. I love my devices and I am not alone, for sure

[route664]

conspiracy... it's like they're not even trying. you have to try really hard to fail this bad.

[Bold_until_Hybrid_Comes]

Just a product no one cares about that wasn't marketed to make people think that they should care

[BlackBerry Guy]

From one of the most popular and successful to the brink of shut-down. From a mature likable OS7 to half-baked OS10. From revenue generated BIS/BES to nothing. Are they really so incompetence to manage their success? Or is there any unseen forces trying to swallow BBRY for its patent?

What's your take?

Incompetent management is the root of the problems. They couldn't parlay their initial success from the late 2000's into continued success. Instead of evolving with the times, they put lipstick on what was become a very old and ugly pig. BBOS7 really was a reflection of the problem. The well past it's due date OS desperately trying to stay relevant in the new smartphone world.

The previous BIS/BES model had to change. And I think the current model (no BIS, multi-platform capable BES10) is the way to go going forward. As much as BIS had its advantages, it's disadvantages make for a poorer consumer experience when compared to its competitors.

BB10 wouldn't be what I call half baked. PlayBook OS at release was half baked.

I don't believe that BlackBerry's current struggles are as a result of the quality of BB10 or their devices. Their struggles are a result of being haunted by the mismanagement from the past, which has severely tarnished their brand and reputation. BB10 is good OS, and the devices while unspectacular, are solid, modern mid-range equivalent. Unfortunately, when someone says BlackBerry, most people associate it with the well past its prime QWERTY keyboard devices running BBOS 6 and 7.

[Nanker Phelge]

At BBRY the only thing Heins is interested in is his huge golden parachute for putting the final nails in the coffin. Sorry to say this, but this level of incompetence has to be driven by direction.

[Bold_until_Hybrid_Comes]

At BBRY the only thing Heins is interested in is his huge golden parachute for putting the final nails in the coffin. Sorry to say this, but this level of incompetence has to be driven by direction.

He's probably closing the deal on his new island villa and making moving arrangements which is why he wasn't at the Malaysia event.

[kfh227]

Write bbm cross platform to be bb10 like in user interface... in part to try to entice potential consumers and Ok release of bbm, announce the end of consumer hardware.

Wow

And totally botched advertising in the USA.

And from what I've read about who's promoted, hired, fired, etc internal to bbry... I think management does in fact have no clue.

PS: the public face of the company has presentation skills no greater than Seri's.

Posted via CB10

[islandp]

Incompetent management is the root of the problems. They couldn't parlay their initial success from the late 2000's into continued success. Instead of evolving with the times, they put lipstick on what was become a very old and ugly pig. BBOS7 really was a reflection of the problem. The well past it's due date OS desperately trying to stay relevant in the new smartphone world.

The previous BIS/BES model had to change. And I think the current model (no BIS, multi-platform capable BES10) is the way to go going forward. As much as BIS had its advantages, it's disadvantages make for a poorer consumer experience when compared to its competitors.

BB10 wouldn't be what I call half baked. PlayBook OS at release was half baked.

I don't believe that BlackBerry's current struggles are as a result of the quality of BB10 or their devices. Their struggles are a result of being haunted by the mismanagement from the past, which has severely tarnished their brand and reputation. BB10 is good OS, and the devices while unspectacular, are solid, modern mid-range equivalent. Unfortunately, when someone says BlackBerry, most people associate it with the well past its prime QWERTY keyboard devices running BBOS 6 and 7.

Apology that I have to disagree except for point of the ugly pig

Assuming BBRY leaders went through education on marketing, they should know that a company should not abandon their "cash cows".

While milking the "cash cows" a good company need to develop a new system to keep updated with current trend in which OS10 comes up nicely. A new system will need time for fine tune and market acceptance therefore the old cash cows also need some evolvements together with new units

[cgk]

He's probably closing the deal on his new island villa and making moving arrangements which is why he wasn't at the Malaysia event.

My understanding is that the earnings call will consist of Heins playing Grand Theft Auto and laughing down the phone.

[BlackBerry Guy]

Apology that I have to disagree except for point of the ugly pig

Assuming BBRY leaders went through education on marketing, they should know that a company should not abandon their "cash cows".

While milking the "cash cows" a good company need to develop a new system to keep updated with current trend in which OS10 comes up nicely. A new system will need time for fine tune and market acceptance therefore the old cash cows also need some evolvements together with new units

I agree with that theory in principle. But in this case, I think they decided to continue to milk the cash cow without developing the new system. The mistake they and a few others made was not taking the iPhone seriously. Instead of retooling at that point (like what was done with Android), they tried to adapt their existing OS' to compete (Storm and Torch in BlackBerry's case). The end result for BlackBerry, Nokia, and Palm were the same - they all decided in the end they needed a new OS from the ground up. The QNX acquisition didn't take place until 2010, with BB10 not released until 2013. The iPhone had launched in 2007.

[Wiki Cydia]

Were people calling iOS half-baked in its 3rd generation when basics like Copy & Paste were added?

Yes, there were people calling it half-baked. In fact, there were people calling iOS 6 half-baked. "Half-baked" is a claim that's followed every single software release since Al Gore invented the internet, and almost certainly before that as well.

[RJB55]

I vote incompetent management. Lack of industry vision, squandered opportunities, corporate arrogance, apparent lack of an effective marketing strategy, failure to deliver on stated product goals and time lines, etc. No one to blame but management for all these cockups. Unless of course executive management conspired to the take the company to its knees.

[GadgetTravel]

I won't guess in this case. I don't have enough information. But I will share something that someone told me years ago.

Any time you have to bet on something being the result of a large conspiracy or stupidity: you won't go broke with stupid.

Posted via CB10

[David Murray1]

Disagree about OS 10 being 'miles' better than OS 7. Not in the slightest, not at all.

[islandp]

I think they decided to continue to milk the cash cow without developing the new system .

They did not milk, instead they kill the golden cow for steak. When the steak run out so is BBRY

[islandp]

Disagree about OS 10 being 'miles' better than OS 7. Not in the slightest, not at all.

OS 10 has some improvements over OS7 and some draw backs. Pretty much sums up to zero

[kevinnugent]

My understanding is that the earnings call will consist of Heins playing Grand Theft Auto and laughing down the phone.

Earnings call? What Earnings Call?? Sorry, couldn't resist.

[richardat]

Incompetent management is the root of the problems. They couldn't parlay their initial success from the late 2000's into continued success. Instead of evolving with the times, they put lipstick on what was become a very old and ugly pig. BBOS7 really was a reflection of the problem. The well past it's due date OS desperately trying to stay relevant in the new smartphone world.

The previous BIS/BES model had to change. And I think the current model (no BIS, multi-platform capable BES10) is the way to go going forward. As much as BIS had its advantages, it's disadvantages make for a poorer consumer experience when compared to its competitors.

BB10 wouldn't be what I call half baked. PlayBook OS at release was half baked.

I don't believe that BlackBerry's current struggles are as a result of the quality of BB10 or their devices. Their struggles are a result of being haunted by the mismanagement from the past, which has severely tarnished their brand and reputation. BB10 is good OS, and the devices while unspectacular, are solid, modern mid-range equivalent. Unfortunately, when someone says BlackBerry, most people associate it with the well past its prime QWERTY keyboard devices running BBOS 6 and 7.

I agree with all of your post until the bolded part. Yes, their reputation was scarred horribly so they needed marketing to some overtime work (which didn't happen) - this is also why I was against rebranding to BB......good gravy...I still remember ranting about that.....why not just rebrand to "vomit".....man, they even said "it's what people know us as anyways!!" - ugh....unreal. I remember ranting about it in person, and being a being a bit reluctant to about it, because for CB'ers loved it - probably bc BB remained a great brand in their minds.

In any case though, it wasn't the brand, it WAS the product. I agree, it is a "good OS", and "solid" hardware....but a good OS with midrange hardware (at premium price) was never going to even have a chance when it also lacked ecosystem and software! If we were back in the feature phone days, BB10 (feature phone equivalent) WOULD have been enough to give them a shot! In the days of smartphones, software is critical. Lacking in apps.....you're probably hooped, even if you have the greatest OS - by far - that anyone has ever seen (and BB10 wasn't that).

OS: B+ (potential to go to an A)
hardware: B-
apps: C-
ecosystem: NA

+ high price, bad reputation, broken promises, delays, dodgy future = outcome that occurred.

[islandp]

So What Now BlackBerry?

The stunner from yesterday was the "early release" of expected quarterly results from BlackBerry, including a trading halt midday into Options Expiration.

The release led to more questions than answers, but there is good in there. Let's do that first since it's a shorter list:
•They're recognizing revenue now as sold devices (to end users.) This should have been done a long time ago as it instantly exposes reality (more on that in the "negative" part.) This leads one to wonder, however, if they intend to start directly selling devices (which would be very good) to end customers (more on that below too.)


•The firing and inventory write-down costs appear to be all of the loss they expected to report plus some. That's interesting.

Now the bad, and it's a much longer list.
•Nobody has this magnitude of a revenue miss happen in a week or even a month. It is outrageous that this situation was likely known at or near the close of last quarter and yet it remained unspoken until now. Heins should be fired immediately by the board for this stunt, they should declare the firing for cause, and then attempt to invalidate his golden parachute. Let him sue; there has to be something to take when he finally wins, if he does.


•The timing -- releasing this on OpEx in the afternoon stinks to high hell. Anyone who thinks that's a coincidence -- no, it's not. That was intentional and highly-damaging. And that goes directly to some of my questions about this, which I'll get to in a minute.


•It is obvious that the carriers don't care. Now the simplistic reason is "nobody wants the phones." The more-complex is, well, more-complex. If you've actually gone into a store where they sell phones a good percentage of them will try to "steer" you to their favored devices. Part and parcel of this are "spiffs" that manufacturers are rumored to pay to associates, but as it turns out there is another problem -- it appears that Verizon, at least, and maybe other carriers, have actual penalty clauses in their contracts with some of BlackBerry's competitors -- particularly Apple -- as regards potential sales shortfalls. If these are in fact common there's a monstrous anti-trust issue in my view (market power + restraint of trade = Sherman Act violation) but our government (and others) simply refuse to do anything about that sort of thing these days. That would also explain the slow-walk of firmware updates that appears to be US-centric while other parts of the world get them immediately. BlackBerry could get around this by selling directly, but they have refused to both do that and to make it easy for customers to get firmware updates in a timely fashion. In combination the two are deadly.


•There are a handful of relatively-low-cost (or even zero cost) things the company could have done but has refused to do and which would have (and still might) materially impact the outcome of sales. One of them is enabling "split-use" (e.g. Balance) for those who are not on BES. This would allow you to split apart work and play sections for your personal phone, it would allow you to lock off your "secure" stuff yet let your kid (or someone else) play with the device, etc. That's zero cost. They could enable S/MIME for non-BES users, which is also zero cost, and they'd have the only phone in the market with an internal end-to-end secure email system. They could certify that there is no back door in their code and sell the hell out of their security while at the same time highlighting products in the marketplace such as this that for $120 will allow anyone with physical access to an Android device to grab its contents (there's one for IOS devices too, incidentally.) That would have a marketing cost but no operational cost. They could point out that they have the only device that allows you to automatically associate VPN profiles to various networks, which means you now can use "open" WiFi hotspots safely without having to remember to manually engage same -- a capability that has been in all BB10 firmware releases and is one of the differentiating markers between them and others. There are many more but here's four, all going after the security aspect of the devices.


•They could have backported BB7 management into BES10. One complaint I have heard is that because that was not done corporations who want to support both legacy devices and the new ones must run two sets of parallel infrastructure. If that was a move born of arrogance to try to force companies to upgrade it was stupid and wrong. I've never heard an explanation from the company as to why that wasn't done, and the board needs to examine that because if they fail to penetrate into the device management business this will wind up being a big part of why.

Now for the speculation.

I suspect that the reason this news was released yesterday is that the board has in its hand some sort of indication of interest for the firm but it was well below where I had expected it to come from Prem and Fairfax -- probably around $12/share, or $6 below where I had previously expected. That means it's not from Fairfax, incidentally, or if it is then he got dressed down by the pension funds and others who basically told him "yeah, ok, but not at this price -- we don't buy your valuation so we'll cut it in half."

That bid would fail at the board level with the stock price in the mid $10s to $11s and the shareholders would likely tell them to screw off as well. But with the stock under $9 it's a 30%+ premium and suddenly the deal looks like Nokia's.

The biggest issue right now is that management has utterly destroyed any hint at credibility they possessed. This doesn't mean they can't be a viable operating company but it does mean that you can't believe anything you read or hear including official announcements. It's not a matter of the company being a scam or doing scammy things (which is a great reason to short something on the fundamentals) and the revenue recognition changes are in fact good, but failing to address that which was known at the carrier and sell-through level months ago with aggressive tactics means you can't trust current management at all, and that makes any sort of attempt to value anything nearly impossible.

This problem is similar to that which I have with bank stocks outside the US. If I can't believe what I read then whatever I read is worth zero. It is for this reason that I refuse to short something like Deutsche Bank; I simply cannot get my arms around a valuation because I can't decipher their balance sheet at a sufficient level of confidence. Many people will tell you this means that you should immediately short the company into the dirt; I disagree. Zero information content means zero; it is neither negative or positive. I prefer to identify things that I believe are directional rather than directionless, as this is.

Let me underline this in bold type for you: Being angry with management is not a reason to short a company, just like being happy with them is not a reason to buy a company. Both are emotions and while sometimes (or even many times) both work that doesn't validate them as anything other than herd behavior.

I can't make an argument for being short the company at the current price. Those who have been and were in the $12-15 level have little reason (other than raw greed) to try to press the bet into this and every reason to take the money and get out of it with a highly-successful trade. The OS and patent portfolio does have value, and BES10 doesn't appear to be dying on the vine (assuming management is not lying) -- it may well "go" as a very viable long-term device management strategy and that's not in the valuation model right now at all.

Likewise, who knows about BBM which is going cross-platform now (literally today) -- I don't know how you monetize that and I've personally had a zero value on it all along but this much I do know -- of the various "chat and communication" systems I've used for mobile devices it is definitely the nicest, and opening it up across-the-board might lead it to catch on and thus turn into a big value source. That remains to be seen but unlike text and MMS it shares all sorts of content without problems, it confirms not only delivery but also whether someone READ your message and it is fast and clean. The issue is of course userbase as it's always been limited to BlackBerry devices.

The release of this on the PlayStore for Android, amusingly, is late this morning and it appears the reason why is that some two dozen fakes were posted to the PlayStore by other than BlackBerry! That ought to be quite telling for those who say that BBM is a "zero" and "nobody wants it" when a bunch of people go to the trouble to post fraudulent pieces of software under that name -- probably thinking they can steal contact information or spam you. There may be a sleeper in here but until we get a handle on how many people actually download and use BBM for Android and IOS in the coming days and weeks we won't know. What we do know from that little fiasco is that Google does a crap job of policing their app store (that's not news though.)

Finally, the devices. A blockbuster move would be for Samsung to buy that part of the deal plus the OS, then monkey-hammer Google by certifying the Android emulator as compliant, putting PlayStore on it and working a deal where they get something for BES10 licensees. I know they've put a lot of effort into Knox but IMHO it's a dead letter single-manufacturer "answer" that will wind up being a failed effort. BES10 and the BB10 OS running on Samsung hardware would be something they could offer as an option on handsets (e.g. for another $25 you can have your SGS-IV with this OS sort of thing) yet lose no capability with regard to Android software you want to run.

I can't assign a probability to this, of course, but with the device side of the business now seen by virtually everyone as worth nothing it would probably be reasonably cheap for Samsung to do this, and it would certainly make lots of sense from their side of the table as there is zero or near-zero cost to them associated with it.

There's no good way to spin what was announced yesterday folks but the task for anyone in the marketplace is to look at the situation that exists today, not the one that existed yesterday. Risk management and your own personal tolerance for risk is the key thing to keep in mind, and one must always look at the situation in the context of price today, not what could of or "should have" been.

The sad part of this is that I see no indication that the board at BlackBerry, which as both the ability and obligation to step in front of these sorts of things and stop them, firing the responsible people, has the balls to step up and do it. As such the information value from the firm has -- unfortunately -- gone to zero.

If the firm ultimately is sold off in bits and pieces for salvage that, along with Heins, will be what's written in the margins of the pink slips being handed out now and potentially into the future.

Update: This is interesting...


Prior to launching BBM for Android, an unreleased version of the BBM for Android app was posted online. The interest and enthusiasm we have seen already – more than 1.1 million active users in the first 8 hours without even launching the official Android app – is incredible. Consequently, this unreleased version caused issues, which we have attempted to address throughout the day.

And they say people won't sideload things eh? Well, 1.1 million people apparently did exactly that in 8 hours, even though the unreleased version in question was pirated. This makes me wonder -- is BBM the real value proposition that BlackBerry has? If it is then all of the valuation estimates for the firm are dramatically too low -- mine included.

More updates: The fakes that were on the PlayStore were taken down. Then, this evening, two new ones appeared with a couple of thousand comments (each), most complaints that the app didn't work and forced 5 star ratings before it could be run. Now those are gone as well, but for a couple of hours they were there. It appears that not only is there a crapload of demand for this there are scammers lined up stuffing the PlayStore with fake applications for it and one must assume those fake apps were hacks of some sort and likely stole the user's contact database (at least.) This is a most-interesting bit of cat-and-mouse, but at least at first blush it looks rather real..... and so does the user demand for BBM.

from: So What Now BlackBerry? in [Market-Ticker]

[BBThemes]

Incompetent management, ftw.

Disagree with calling OS7 "likable" and BB10 "half-baked." OS7 was only likable in that it was familiar.

BB10 is leagues above the legacy BBOS in terms of sophistication & capabilities.

yet when I plug my charger in, my Z10 isn't sophisticated enough to turn bedside mode on. I think that's what the OP means by likeable for BBOS, the featureset, not necessarily the implementation.

[JasW]

Disagree with calling OS7 "likable" and BB10 "half-baked." OS7 was only likable in that it was familiar.

Yes, and one criticism I have of BB10 is that they threw out the baby with the bathwater. That likability/familiarity factor in OS 7 that you speak of is what I refer to as "the BlackBerry Experience." There's very little of it in BB10.

[Raestloz]

Yes, and one criticism I have of BB10 is that they threw out the baby with the bathwater. That likability/familiarity factor in OS 7 that you speak of is what I refer to as "the BlackBerry Experience." There's very little of it in BB10.

Well, the BlackBerry experience also included the spinning hourglass, so i'd say that it evens out and more score in BlackBerry 10's positivity :lol:

Z10 STL100-1/10.1.0.4633