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Mike Lazaridies was a genius. I prefer his vision of a secure communication device over the media consumer that phones have turned in to.

Posted via CB10

From pride to depravity, lol... :-)

(edit: w.r.t. phones)

�   Forget the name, ... Priv it on! :-)   �

[Sridhara Shankara]

Lots of interesting points, yes! ...as an outsider(living in India) and unabashed admirer of BB10 os and device its hard for me to understand how the no.1 os and device is so poorly marketed. I, really suspect that the quality leadership is missing from BBRY( JC is neither a brilliant engineer or manager) and this shortcoming is showing up in the performance( marketing and other things too) .The board should take note of these facts and make amends immediately and bring in some brilliant talents into company's fold if not Co. wouldn't be able mark up in the software side too.Currently, the saving grace for the company is the number of patents it holds

[nt300]

Mike is who built BB... but Mike is also who brought BB to its knees.

Mike got tunnel-visioned, and once tunneled in, he couldn't see the rest of the world around him, and refused to accept the changes that were happening in the industry until it was WAY (YEARS!) too late - and in the ultra-fast-moving world of mobile, being DAYS late is enough to lose billions.

Mike insisted on making all the decisions, and created a corporate culture where "Mike is Right" and no one would ever tell him otherwise. In the beginning, when Mike understood the problems of the day, he did very well (he's a very smart guy), but once he got tunneled in, he lost touch and, as the Brits say, "lost the plot."

Mike should have had a new, advanced OS under way once the first rumors of Apple getting into the smartphone business started going around (2005). He absolutely should have been focusing a good portion of his workday on it when Apple gave a date for its introduction in 2007 (Apple wasn't a company that could be ignored, and that's doubly true if they're entering YOUR business). Even if those opportunities were squandered, there is absolutely ZERO excuse for Mike not having met with his staff on June 30, 2007 (the day after the iPhone official announcement) to create a new department to begin development of a new OS.

Instead, Mike had lots of excuses about how the carriers wouldn't allow it and how it would never work. Mike is the same guy that told Verizon that they shouldn't bother with LTE, and to stay with 3G! He simply couldn't change, and had convinced himself that his solutions to 2002's mobile data problems were the only way forward in 2007. Needless to say he was completely unprepared to meet Verizon's demand for a phone that was competitive with the iPhone, and when the Storm was released, it was a colossal failure that caused massive damage to BB's reputation with the carriers - and Verizon especially, who lost a billion dollars on the Storm.

It was Mike who pushed Android into Verizon's arms - prior to that, Android had been a boutique OS on the smallest US carrier at the time (T-Mobile). The Verizon relationship is what really launched Android.

And how can anyone seriously say that the Playbook was a great product at launch? The Playbook was essentially a dumb screen extender for BBOS, sold at the price of a larger, full-fledged, independent tablet (iPad). Without a BBOS device, it was completely useless. The sales numbers tell that story - they couldn't move inventory without a firesale and a $1B writedown. Again, thanks to Mike's lack of vision.

I totally appreciate Mike's focus on security and privacy (believe it or not), but in order to have any hope of success, he had to be in the game by 2009, or 2010 at the very latest, with a modern, advanced phone OS, which means he'd have had to start work on that OS in 2007. But by 2010, he was just buying an OS that was to be the foundation for his new smartphone OS - WAY too late to be relevant. When you move the 3-year development window over to 2010, you get a product launch on 2013, after the competition has had a 6-7 year head start. BB was already way out of the game when BB10 launched - thanks to Mike.

Yes, BB10 is a great OS, but a great OS with no userbase and no ecosystem is a failed product. Many people correctly predicted the outcome back in 2010 (heck, Kevin wrote a story here in 2009 saying the same thing) - and urged BB to adopt Android then. Even with the security problems it might have had at the time, BB could have, by now, had 5 years of working (with Google and/or independently) to fix those problems, and they'd have been able to sell to consumers and enterprises alike without a massive investment in a failed platform, years of lost sales, etc. BB might well still be the king of business smartphones today.

The very idea that Mike was "right all along" is delusional, and completely ignores the massive harm Mike did to the company he built.

That's complete nonsense. BB10 was the best decision the company made. The issue was it was delayed. BBRY always sucked at Marketing.

BB10 is evolution, Android is De-volution. Why would ppl downgrade to Android and give up all privacy to Google? Lol Android is a complete Mess.

Rocking a Z30

[DrBoomBotz]

That's complete nonsense.

So all the positive things Troy said about BB10 are nonsense?

[prplhze2000]

He didn't read all of it. He said the problem was BB10 was delayed so long it became irrelevant regardless of how good it is.

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[Matt J]

I just seems surreal that the current Chen focus on corporate customers and security is exactly what Lazaridis was doing in the heyday of Research in Motion.

[luisoman2000]

as secure as the bb os could be, it didn't appeal to Joe consumer. The beauty of Android is that you can have your own version without google services (see amazon fire series) so the point of giving away your info to Google is moot. bb10 was a good effort, but it came too late in the game to change anything.

Sent from my ASUS_Z008D using Tapatalk

[mas_quemex]

No, Technical CEO Mike Lazaridis was wrong. Touchscreen is a productivity booster indeed.

But it's a non-issue. The bigger vulnerability of BlackBerry was it's Marketing CEO Jim Balsille. He didn't move fast enough for the Tens. Remember, the campaigns of the Noughts were different from the campaigns of the Nineties which were different from the campaigns of the Eighties.

 Curve 8520 ~> skipped OS6 ~> skipped OS7 ~>  Z3 (Airtel / STJ100-1 / 10.3.2.2639)

[trsbbs]

Mike L is the one that came up with the Storm, the email clientless Playbook. He underestimated Apple. He was a snob to his employees. No way in frozen heck was he right. He was a dinosaur that never changed. Geesh!

[trsbbs]

The PlayBook was an incredible device when released. Bridge was excellent technology. The biggest mistake was not focussing on the app side of the business right away. With all that cash in the bank, they could have paid developers to make the most important apps.

What? . No email client, bad specs and too high priced. It flopped right out of the gates. Wow,, where are these Mike lovers coming from. He put BB in the death spiral to start with!

[bandpass]

Fixed physical keyboard phones are awful, and I only care about a landscape slider.

[sigint99]

Touchscreens are productivity wasters - not boosters. A physical keyboard is still needed to produce accurate and timely data content. Do people honestly expect desktops and laptops to come without physical keyboards ? Heck, look at the number of people who get a keyboard case with their tablets to make them more productive.

Replacing physical experiences with virtual ones will make people more detached from reality and mechanical. We will lose the importance of being physically connected to our surroundings thus making us more suggestible to artificiality.

It's already happened - the younger generation have become soulless slaves to technology.

[Prem WatsApp]

Touchscreens are productivity wasters - not boosters. A physical keyboard is still needed to produce accurate and timely data content. Do people honestly expect desktops and laptops to come without physical keyboards ? Heck, look at the number of people who get a keyboard case with their tablets to make them more productive.

Replacing physical experiences with virtual ones will make people more detached from reality and mechanical. We will lose the importance of being physically connected to our surroundings thus making us more suggestible to artificiality.

It's already happened - the younger generation have become soulless slaves to technology.

:-D

Have a statement here: that iPad typing s#cks, so I'm looking into getting one of those overpriced keyboard covers... :-)



.
He would certainly agree! ^

�   Ahoy, Privateers...! :-)   �

[william_wirthtorres]

Same feeling here. I'm interested in device innovation not repeating the same boring keyboard concept that it seems only the soon-to-retire or nostalia folk are buying. Everywhere I look I see touchscreen phones in the hands of consumers that change their devices as soon as the new version comes out. BlackBerry's keyboard phones are focusing on a dying market; that is why the market share is dwindled to nothing. BlackBerry needs to focus on "sexy", "hot", "new" not "stale", "same old", "boring".

[donnation]

The PlayBook was a half-baked, buggy device when released.

Fixed it for you.

[RyanGermann]

The current board of directors / influential investors are the ones that pushed Mike L out in the first place, brought on Thor and Chen, and have set the tone for BlackBerry's direction and philosophy.

BlackBerry's relationship with carriers was affected by the Storm: Verizon pressured BlackBerry, and instead of BlackBerry saying "No, that's not us", they cobbled together the Storm and, well, you know the rest.

Current BlackBerry management (that includes the board, key investors, executive team, etc.) are committed to remake BlackBerry into a) a subset of what it was (the software division) and b) something it's not (a competitor to much better funded consumer product handset vendors). And make no mistake: that's what the Android Slider is: it's a consumer product dressed up as a business device with some extra security features. It appeals to the "consumer" that is the decision-maker at large enterprise customers.

BlackBerry went astray when they decided that the BBOS form factor and UX was an embarrassment to be forgotten about, rather than treating it as having strengths upon which to build.

I believe if BB10 duplicated the BBOS user experience, but offered all the best of BB10 in terms of Web browser and app development and multitasking and yes, offered form factors in the "Bold" and "Torch" (both slider and full screen) then the story of BB10 would have been much different, hopefully starting with 10s of millions of BBOS users (at the time of BB10 launch) quickly switching to BB10 and (relative to BBOS) LOVING it. But... no.

So, I don't know what Mike L could do for BlackBerry at this point, but if Mike L led a leverage buyout or whatever and ditched all the board and executive team, that would be interesting.

[lnichols]

BlackBerry was trying to acquire Palm for WebOS before the QNX purchase. They lost it at the last minute to HP because they were too cheap on the bid. So the plan was to get a ready built OS ready to go. When that fell through, they acquired QNX and stupidly thought that they could develop and OS in very short amount of time because they had over 20,000 employes. Well they didn't take into account that the corporate culture at BlackBerry was completely dysfunctional, and it took them too long to get PlayBook to market based on Flash/AIR UI, then Adobe bailed on Mobile forcing them to go acquire TAT and build a completely different UI that was their own. Throw in the Android Runtime fiasco that killed all native development for the PlayBook which didn't materialize until 2.X builds of Tablet OS. Basically BlackBerry overestimated the talent and capabilities of their teams to deliver quickly in a bad corporate culture that prevented rapid development.

Heins was simply trying to get BB10 out the door, as quick as possible and hope that it would be a success. He got it out the door, but on outdated hardware and flagship pricing combined with no apps, it didn't have a chance. He actually was way more successful then Chen in Hardware sales and cut most of the workforce too.

Chen....... clearly started Android day one, put out non compelling BB10 devices, killed off the Z30 with zero effort, all to justify the move to Android. Basically if any effort was put into BB10 to get them close to the 10 Million device figure, then it would be difficult to justify the move, but killing it off with a horrific product line and associated low sales numbers allows him to justify Android. And I don't believe they are committed to Android BlackBerry devices, they are just using the Priv as the device to show BES customers you don't need a BlackBerry OS to be secure.

Had BlackBerry gotten WebOS like they wanted back before Android became a juggernaut, I think BlackBerry would have been able to survive and thrive and been early enough to get developers onboard. However the 1 year delay in PlayBook from QNX transition combined with Adobe pulling the rug out from under BlackBerry with the Flash and AIR fiasco and additional 2 years to get another OS ready was simply too much to overcome. And all the while BlackBerry's flailing and misteps have damaged the brand to beyond repair.

[william_wirthtorres]

Chen....... clearly started Android day one, put out non compelling BB10 devices, killed off the Z30 with zero effort, all to justify the move to Android. Basically if any effort was put into BB10 to get them close to the 10 Million device figure, then it would be difficult to justify the move, but killing it off with a horrific product line and associated low sales numbers allows him to justify Android. And I don't believe they are committed to Android BlackBerry devices, they are just using the Priv as the device to show BES customers you don't need a BlackBerry OS to be secure.

While I agree that the current BB10 product lineup is lackluster at best, I do not think Chen released the devices purposefully to kill BB10 and move to Android. I think the BB10 devices are

1. an attempt to get people on BBOS to upgrade
2. secure keyboard patents
3. support legal battles on patent infringement like with Typo

I think the Priv is a strategic move to increase BB market share in the premium device space (CAD 900) while satisfying the claim that "BB has no apps". The Priv is not meant to compete with the average Android device. I do not believe that Chen or BB are expecting the Priv to blow away the competition. The price point says it all.
If BB can get Android developers to build apps that work with/on Priv specifically, those developers will be building apps that will work with BB10 through the Android compatibility already in BB10. The long view then will increase the available apps on BB10 devices. Now if BB wants to truly take advantage of that, they need to find a way to expose Android apps through BlackBerry World.

[wesker]

Mike is who built BB... but Mike is also who brought BB to its knees.

Mike got tunnel-visioned, and once tunneled in, he couldn't see the rest of the world around him, and refused to accept the changes that were happening in the industry until it was WAY (YEARS!) too late - and in the ultra-fast-moving world of mobile, being DAYS late is enough to lose billions.

Mike insisted on making all the decisions, and created a corporate culture where "Mike is Right" and no one would ever tell him otherwise. In the beginning, when Mike understood the problems of the day, he did very well (he's a very smart guy), but once he got tunneled in, he lost touch and, as the Brits say, "lost the plot."

Mike should have had a new, advanced OS under way once the first rumors of Apple getting into the smartphone business started going around (2005). He absolutely should have been focusing a good portion of his workday on it when Apple gave a date for its introduction in 2007 (Apple wasn't a company that could be ignored, and that's doubly true if they're entering YOUR business). Even if those opportunities were squandered, there is absolutely ZERO excuse for Mike not having met with his staff on June 30, 2007 (the day after the iPhone official announcement) to create a new department to begin development of a new OS.

Instead, Mike had lots of excuses about how the carriers wouldn't allow it and how it would never work. Mike is the same guy that told Verizon that they shouldn't bother with LTE, and to stay with 3G! He simply couldn't change, and had convinced himself that his solutions to 2002's mobile data problems were the only way forward in 2007. Needless to say he was completely unprepared to meet Verizon's demand for a phone that was competitive with the iPhone, and when the Storm was released, it was a colossal failure that caused massive damage to BB's reputation with the carriers - and Verizon especially, who lost a billion dollars on the Storm.

It was Mike who pushed Android into Verizon's arms - prior to that, Android had been a boutique OS on the smallest US carrier at the time (T-Mobile). The Verizon relationship is what really launched Android.

And how can anyone seriously say that the Playbook was a great product at launch? The Playbook was essentially a dumb screen extender for BBOS, sold at the price of a larger, full-fledged, independent tablet (iPad). Without a BBOS device, it was completely useless. The sales numbers tell that story - they couldn't move inventory without a firesale and a $1B writedown. Again, thanks to Mike's lack of vision.

I totally appreciate Mike's focus on security and privacy (believe it or not), but in order to have any hope of success, he had to be in the game by 2009, or 2010 at the very latest, with a modern, advanced phone OS, which means he'd have had to start work on that OS in 2007. But by 2010, he was just buying an OS that was to be the foundation for his new smartphone OS - WAY too late to be relevant. When you move the 3-year development window over to 2010, you get a product launch on 2013, after the competition has had a 6-7 year head start. BB was already way out of the game when BB10 launched - thanks to Mike.

Yes, BB10 is a great OS, but a great OS with no userbase and no ecosystem is a failed product. Many people correctly predicted the outcome back in 2010 (heck, Kevin wrote a story here in 2009 saying the same thing) - and urged BB to adopt Android then. Even with the security problems it might have had at the time, BB could have, by now, had 5 years of working (with Google and/or independently) to fix those problems, and they'd have been able to sell to consumers and enterprises alike without a massive investment in a failed platform, years of lost sales, etc. BB might well still be the king of business smartphones today.

The very idea that Mike was "right all along" is delusional, and completely ignores the massive harm Mike did to the company he built.

Exactly.

You nailed it.

If you want to see what Blackberry's future could have been if Lazaridis and Balsillie had pivoted to the new normal, just look to Android.

Google 'Started Over' on Android the Day the iPhone Launched
The Day Google Had to 'Start Over' on Android - The Atlantic

Google was modelling Android after the Blackberry until the day Steve Jobs announced the iPhone. Promptly; the head of Android, Andy Rubin realized how disruptive the iPhone was going to be and started over. The rest, as they say, is history.

Now to give credit, Balsillie was right on the money with his SMS 2.0 plan. Especially when you consider the news of Facebook buying WhatsApp for $19 billion.

[prplhze2000]

It wasn't the IPhone that killed BlackBerry. It was Android.

Posted via CB10

[lnichols]

It wasn't the IPhone that killed BlackBerry. It was Android.

Posted via CB10

The iPhone killed BlackBerry in the developed markets and BlackBerry focused on emerging markets with horrible phone networks where BIS could still provide value, and completely ignored the developed markets. Android then killed them in those emerging markets when you could buy $100 to $200 highly capable Android devices. BB10 could only run on higher spec'd devices when launched, preventing them from keeping any momentum in those emerging markets, and they still couldn't compete with iPhone or high end Android in developed market due to apps because they were too late to respond.

[Soulstream]

It wasn't the IPhone that killed BlackBerry. It was Android.

Posted via CB10

I said this before and I will say it again. The success of Android is/was very very bad for BB, but it was the best thing that could happen for the consumer market. Android lowered the price-point of devices and now people can buy good phones for very good prices. I wouldn't want to live (as a consumer) in a world where Apple and BB ruled the market with their overpriced hardware.

It is only my opinion, but if not for Android, iPhone would now be priced over 1000$ for base models.

[prplhze2000]

Iphone was still exclusive to AT&T. BlackBerry had Verizon, Sprint, and Tmobile in the USA. Then Android came along and suddenly, BlackBerry was irrelevant.

Posted via CB10

[the1]

Iphone was still exclusive to AT&T. BlackBerry had Verizon, Sprint, and Tmobile in the USA. Then Android came along and suddenly, BlackBerry was irrelevant.

Posted via CB10

Actually, no.

Android was still a niche market for a good while. It took them flooding the emerging market with cheap phones while pushing high end phones in developed. While the breakthrough was Verizon finally getting on board and OEMs putting out dirt cheap phones (albeit, at the expense of performance), development was still far behind, and the way people are talking about the app gap with BB10 and all other Mobile OS's, the same was said about Android around 2-3 years ago and a lot of the apps we did have was horrible iPhone ports.

Blackberry is in the position that it is in because of their failure to adjust and I'm not even talking about the so called "half baked" OS mess that many on here like to spew (how many versions of Android and iOS did it take to get where it is today? Both of them lacked sorely when they first came out. Matter of fact, I'll say that BB10 was better than both iOS and Android on release, and a few revisions). But they didn't see where the market was going. If they would have saw the buzz that Apple made and then went to get the market then, it would have been totally different.

[Soulstream]

Blackberry is in the position that it is in because of their failure to adjust and I'm not even talking about the so called "half baked" OS mess that many on here like to spew (how many versions of Android and iOS did it take to get where it is today? Both of them lacked sorely when they first came out. Matter of fact, I'll say that BB10 was better than both iOS and Android on release, and a few revisions). But they didn't see where the market was going. If they would have saw the buzz that Apple made and then went to get the market then, it would have been totally different.

yes, BB10 at launch was better than Android or iOS at launch. but that is a red herring. When you launch a product it will be compared to products from the current market, not the past one. So they compared launch BB10 with 2013 iOS/Android.

Although it's a bad comparisson, it like someone releasing a bad car today and saying it's good just because it's better than the first Audi/BMW/Mercedes.