1. SenorPistachio's Avatar
    How would you rate John Chen's 18 months 'in office' ? What do you think that
    he's done right, or that he's done wrong? I'm curious how people see him, and if
    bringing him on board has been a good thing for Blackberry or not.
    bitai lazar likes this.
    07-20-15 05:50 PM
  2. anon(8163415)'s Avatar
    Sometimes I forget you're serious.
    You miss understood my point. Shareholders only care for a return on investment. The majority though, rather see a company dissolved and sold off in pieces versus building up said company and making it profitable.
    Self interest takes over, and in the end the small investors pay the price and end up losing a lot.
  3. nuff_said's Avatar
    Liked him and his experience when he took the reigns. Enjoyed the moves be made the first few quarters especially since he stopped the bleeding. The last two quarters I'm not sure what I feel because I want another BlackBerry 10 phone for the consumer market. With everything looking as if he's moving away from consumer, focusing on enterprise, and the possibility of some sort of Android/blackberry device(s) I shake my head. I'd love to see native BlackBerry 10 apps being built but I think it's wishful thinking to believe he's going to focus on consumers in the near future.
    For the last two quarters, for the first time I can admit, I'm thinking my next phone may not be a BlackBerry device....and it hurts to admit it.

    They laugh at me because I'm different; I laugh at them because they're all the same. 
    SenorPistachio likes this.
    07-20-15 07:43 PM
  4. Doggerz's Avatar
    A nightmare. The harbinger of death who lead BlackBerry to its end.

    Z30STA100-5 / 10.3.2.2339 / T-Mobile USA
    07-20-15 08:39 PM
  5. KermEd's Avatar
    I think he would make a good used car salesman.

    He is not, however, an innovative leader.

    Posted to CB via my Passport | Lloyd Summers | FileArchiveHaven
    SenorPistachio likes this.
    07-20-15 08:45 PM
  6. acovey's Avatar
    Liked him and his experience when he took the reigns. Enjoyed the moves be made the first few quarters especially since he stopped the bleeding. The last two quarters I'm not sure what I feel because I want another BlackBerry 10 phone for the consumer market. With everything looking as if he's moving away from consumer, focusing on enterprise, and the possibility of some sort of Android/blackberry device(s) I shake my head. I'd love to see native BlackBerry 10 apps being built but I think it's wishful thinking to believe he's going to focus on consumers in the near future.
    For the last two quarters, for the first time I can admit, I'm thinking my next phone may not be a BlackBerry device....and it hurts to admit it.

    They laugh at me because I'm different; I laugh at them because they're all the same. 
    I guess we will laugh at you because YOU are the same.
    Last edited by acovey; 07-20-15 at 09:34 PM.
    07-20-15 08:53 PM
  7. BB Adict's Avatar
    I guess we will laugh at you because YOUR the same.
    I suppose you meant to say, "you are the same."




    Posted via CB10
    07-20-15 08:59 PM
  8. BB Adict's Avatar
    We can thank Chen for stopping the bleeding. Other than that, we wait and see. He was hired primarily to make the company profitable again.

    Posted via CB10
    07-20-15 09:22 PM
  9. anon(1852343)'s Avatar
    Yes! He stopped the bleeding but ii would like to see what he plans to do between now and January. Time will tell but I think the writing is almost on the wall!

    Blackberry Passport running 10.3.2.2339
    07-20-15 11:11 PM
  10. JAS0NB0URNE's Avatar
    I would rate it well so far. An 8 of 10. Without him they would have bled to death already.

    Posted via CB10
    07-20-15 11:28 PM
  11. KermEd's Avatar
    I would rate it well so far. An 8 of 10. Without him they would have bled to death already.

    Posted via CB10
    I thought that too. But then I started thinking... would any CEO have done a worse job cleaning house? I was pretty sure they brought him in to sell the company and layoff management is kind of CEO101.

    Realistically he started cleaning house a little late - heck they are still letting people go. https://n4bb.com/blackberry-cuts-job...rces-hardware/ the first rule of corporate level change management is to do your layoff firings only once as a single blow. This way employees that are 'kept' know they are safe and are much less likely to continue job searching.

    He kind of has bled the company to a slow death with his firing methodologies, his breaking down of development and poor strategies in communications and marketing. He's lost many of the wrong people in my opinion.

    When I was at SMART Technologies, we went through a very similar situation. But the CEO that came in did a good job of balancing the company back out. He did a mass firing but drew a line so people knew they were safe. He stopped a lot of the product churn and errant R+D. And re-established sales and marketing. He turned a company back around. Chen... is kind of a soggy band-aid in my opinion and interchangeable with any junior CEO.

    Posted to CB via my Passport | Lloyd Summers | FileArchiveHaven
    07-20-15 11:59 PM
  12. kenzo_44's Avatar
    Plays defensively!

    Posted from NeverLand
    07-21-15 01:48 AM
  13. Tamashek's Avatar
    John Chen is the wrong person for this job. Even when he is being interviewed he is not clear and leave people more confused than they are. Too many good people left and I don't see much going on with BlackBerry. Other companies are putting out good phone but at BlackBerry you don't see much of improvement. If he was smart in the business he would have made the passport also in full touch even in limited number and when sell out, bring more to sell. There are too much that is saying he is the wrong person for the job and should be fired

    Posted via CB30
    07-21-15 03:13 AM
  14. JAS0NB0URNE's Avatar
    John Chen is the wrong person for this job. Even when he is being interviewed he is not clear and leave people more confused than they are. Too many good people left and I don't see much going on with BlackBerry. Other companies are putting out good phone but at BlackBerry you don't see much of improvement. If he was smart in the business he would have made the passport also in full touch even in limited number and when sell out, bring more to sell. There are too much that is saying he is the wrong person for the job and should be fired

    Posted via CB30
    Passport didn't sell/hasnt sold well. Classic outsells it two to one.

    Chen is actually pretty clear and open, which is why the investors like him.

    He is returning BlackBerry to being a profitable company.

    Posted via CB10
    07-21-15 03:55 AM
  15. nuff_said's Avatar
    I guess we will laugh at you because YOU are the same.
    I see what you did there; Quite clever!

    If you must know why I said that, since everyone on this board must defend their posts tooth and nail, my workplace builds in-house apps, but does not for BlackBerry phones. I have to bring my own phone to work - I'm sure most of us are familiar with BYOD - and won't have access to apps to complete my responsibilities with a BlackBerry device. When my contract is up I'll have some hard choices to make - one phone or two. So it's pretty much get a phone to work, get paid to feed my family, or buy a BlackBerry phone and tell my job, "I can't get a non BlackBerry device...are you nuts! I have to defend my Kurt Cobain quote on CB!"

    If JC and co, or the previous regimes, focused more on increasing market share on the consumer side we may have seen a different BlackBerry. Instead of one cutting more jobs today, eliminating all possibilities of increasing market share for the foreseeable future, and focusing specifically on software my previous post would have been different.

    Maybe I should change my quote to the one of the following (not verbatim):

    "Nobody wants an iPod with a phone"
    "Amateur hour is over"
    "We're going to sell tens of millions of devices"

    They laugh at me because I'm different; I laugh at them because they're all the same. 
    07-21-15 05:45 AM
  16. johannes 2016's Avatar
    It is crazy that he wants to get out of the hardware business because he has made so many mistakes in the area. Going Android is crazy, surely the best system in the world would be BB10 plus play store. Why cant this be done. Also the Passport was a real game changer but since then he has made so many mistakes with the Priv and now with the cheapie phone. Bring someone that believes in Blackberry, that can really create a top tear phone that can make a flagship that all can be proud. He keeps saying Blackberry is now a software company. Isnt BB10 software why doesnt he then develop BB10 and license it to other makers. How can we be stuck with Android or IOS its cazy. BB10 has and will be the best software for ease of use forever but we need a CEO that believes in it and not just trying to look for short cuts. Seems to me he is trying this trying that and dont have a clear strategy as to what exactly he wants to do.
    acovey likes this.
    08-09-16 08:07 AM
  17. DrBoomBotz's Avatar
    Why cant this be done.
    Because their membership in the OHA prevents it. There is a sticky on this subject in the BB10 forum. Welcome to BlackBerry.
    08-10-16 01:08 PM
  18. Dunt Dunt Dunt's Avatar
    It is crazy that he wants to get out of the hardware business because he has made so many mistakes in the area. Going Android is crazy, surely the best system in the world would be BB10 plus play store. Why cant this be done. Also the Passport was a real game changer but since then he has made so many mistakes with the Priv and now with the cheapie phone. Bring someone that believes in Blackberry, that can really create a top tear phone that can make a flagship that all can be proud. He keeps saying Blackberry is now a software company. Isnt BB10 software why doesnt he then develop BB10 and license it to other makers. How can we be stuck with Android or IOS its cazy. BB10 has and will be the best software for ease of use forever but we need a CEO that believes in it and not just trying to look for short cuts. Seems to me he is trying this trying that and dont have a clear strategy as to what exactly he wants to do.
    Without apps, BB10 is useless as an operating system... LINUX has more support than BB10 does. And 3rd party support is simply out of Chen's control.

    Chen has always had a very clear strategy... most FANS just don't like what the strategy is - so they choose to ignore it for some reason.
    zephyr613 likes this.
    08-10-16 01:39 PM
  19. togarika's Avatar
    Chen has done a great job at turning the company around. The smartphone business has more or less peaked and profit levels have tanked. His focus on software which has a larger profit margin than that of the hardware business, will eventually pay off in the near future (BlackBerry hopes to be profitable by the end of this financial year). He has already got revenue of the software and services part of the business rising and I think they are targeting at least a billion in revenues by the end of this financial year.

    Chen has managed to refocus the company on its strengths. BlackBerry was never really a consumer focused company, it was more of government, restricted sector and enterprise focussed. They make good products when they focus on that and this might make their attractive in the consumer market.

    If I was to rate him out of 10, I think I would give him a 8.

    Long Live BB10!
    Sairos likes this.
    08-10-16 02:07 PM
  20. Zeeshan Ali7's Avatar
    Chen rocks let him have enough funds for the company by way of softwares and android then he will address bb10 personally. He knows the potential of bb10 and the fan base but without financial backup he cant revive bb10 to its glory or better he will give you bb12 and take the market by the swamp as of now hes busy fixing the leak in the titanic thats the need of the hour once afloat bb12-bb15-bb20 are on their way....i am doing a u turn for my small self owned enterprise and thats what u turns smell like....hang on we bb10 fanatics have been beaten by some toys but we yet haven't given up....didnt the bbpin rule the planet once and it will be back to glory....

    Red passport
    08-10-16 02:34 PM
  21. DrBoomBotz's Avatar
    Chen rocks let him have enough funds for the company by way of softwares and android then he will address bb10 personally. He knows the potential of bb10 and the fan base but without financial backup he cant revive bb10 to its glory or better he will give you bb12 and take the market by the swamp as of now hes busy fixing the leak in the titanic thats the need of the hour once afloat bb12-bb15-bb20 are on their way....i am doing a u turn for my small self owned enterprise and thats what u turns smell like....hang on we bb10 fanatics have been beaten by some toys but we yet haven't given up....didnt the bbpin rule the planet once and it will be back to glory....

    Red passport
    BlackBerry may survive but BB10 is done.
    andy957 likes this.
    08-10-16 05:06 PM
  22. Carrtman's Avatar
    he has done well in the eyes of the investors and with that come a lot of hard decisions, that's why this guy is paid the big bucks

    Doesn't matter what some hardcore BB10 fans think his job is to make the company financially stable again nothing else.

    Blackberry future is Android and having other companies do the building.
    DrBoomBotz likes this.
    08-10-16 05:43 PM
  23. app_Developer's Avatar
    He's doing the job he was hired to do and he saved the company. 8 out of 10 there.

    On communication, he's maybe a 3 out of 10. That's the only unfortunate part.
    andy957 likes this.
    08-10-16 07:24 PM
  24. nohope4me's Avatar
    Typical CEO nowadays. No passion just clean the balance sheet and take off 2 years down the road. Horrible at inspiring others.
    I mean the guy didn't even move to the hq in Can.
    Growth by acquisition and not innovation.
    Mediocre at best
    08-11-16 04:38 AM
  25. wilber1's Avatar
    Although I do not agree with everything he does it was disaster when he came in like bases loaded nobody out in bottom of the 9th score BB-0 everybody else-3
    08-11-16 07:00 AM
  26. Dunt Dunt Dunt's Avatar
    He's doing the job he was hired to do and he saved the company. 8 out of 10 there.

    On communication, he's maybe a 3 out of 10. That's the only unfortunate part.
    On communication... he did kinda tell everyone that hardware wasn't his focus. It's just that many didn't want to belive it. Everytime Chen pushed out one of those already baked products, many put way too much expectation into those devcies possible turning things around, or that they were part of Chen's overall plans to save BlackBerry.

    I guess if he had come out and said "I'm going to release this phone, don't have much hope of it selling more than the last phone.... but I've got to keep the revenues flowing till software is at a better place". That would have helped some here to understand.... But would have killed any hope of him actually keeping those revenues flowing.

    Same as the move away from BB10. Saying we are "committed to BB10, and we will push out two more updates" just works better for sales, than "BB10 is as far as we can afford to take it and we will not be developing it any futher other than a couple of security patches, and will not be releasing any new devices that use it.".

    And I really don't know what he could have told anyone about software... at least not until he bought GOOD. BlackBerry got VERY LUCKY with that purchase!
    08-11-16 07:27 AM
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