[cjcampbell]

Looks like today's strong move in gold held strong and pulled out side of the downtrend. It opened trading in Hong Kong a few hours ago and the strength seems to be legitimate. I think I know what I'm buying tomorrow morning




Posted via CB10

[BBNation]

This BBM news is very strange and worrying. I'll be honest: if Chen has decided to cancel the BBMx plans I may have to sell all my shares. That would be a highly stupid move. Any retreat from consumer phones or BBMx is going to be seen as a failure and will put BlackBerry at risk of another brutal wave of toxic rumour and chanting.

I really hope BlackBerry issue a statement clarifying this situation asap. If BlackBerry were to pull out of BBMx, can you imagine what the average person will think of BlackBerry as a company?

I really hope Chen knows what he is doing. Forget all this 'enterprise is the answer' stuff. NO ONE is going to want a phone that doesn't exist outside of enterprise, and NO ONE is going to want to bother with carrying two phones for much longer.

BBMx is the key to regaining positive sentiment towards the brand at this crucial time, and top-drawer phones are the answer to enterprise as well as the consumer market.

I have a hard time believing Chen could be so foolish as to change the course of BBMx, but we all need to watch closely and keep our fingers crossed regarding what Chen does about this. BBM 2.0 was promised ages ago, and still is not here. We need a clear statement that it's coming asap, and that nothing has changed. Hopefully we will get this tomorrow, and we can exhale and look forward to a great year.

Posted via CB10

This is where BB got it wrong for years and it is still missing the point if they drop bbmx. It thought BBs for biz and missed consumers and lost tons business. It missed the fact that consumers become prosumers and forced employers to deploy cool apple and android phones. Those days gone when IT dictated terms and conditions of your cell phone. Now attract consumers to brand who will force workers to havae same brand at work

[tatail]

They will not drop BBMx, they keeping talking about how well it was received over and over. Bragging about 40 million downloads, so why do all buzz around if they are going to change it.

Posted via CB10

[georg4BB]

Good morning,
just a wild guess, I think the latest news has more to do with John Sims than with Andrew Bocking.
Look at this interview:



from one year ago, when he was at SAP. What he is talking about sounds 100% like BBM for enterprise (start at 2:00).
And that's maybe still his vision. I think he was not lucky about the fact, that BBM was not under his direct control. He needs to build profitable enterprise services and BBM is the key.
This does not mean that XBBM is dead. Not at all. BBM needs to be crossplatform like BES10 is. And it needs a free consumer version too, to enhance the ecosystem. But to finally make money, BBM for enterprise is extremely important. Sims wanted it, now he got it.

[BBUK14]

I don't have a problem with a switch in leaders. I just don't want to have to be frustrated with BlackBerry anymore for being totally gormless when it comes to the general public, and basic cause and effect relationships in regards to their actions, plans, statements.

There simply is no world of enterprise mobile communications separated from consumers. Enterprise is a branch of general communication, and one on which BlackBerry can thrive, but everyone comes from the consumer base, because, again, businesspeople won't want devices that aren't 'cool', or that don't have the specs, features, and social cache that the top consumer devices will have. No one wants to have to carry two phones aren't for much longer.

Anyway, I think I got caught up yesterday in reading the rumours without taking the time to let the dust settle. I'm going to keep calm and assume that nothing has changed for BBMx, and hope that we finally see BBM 2.0???

On a side note, it would be great if Crackberry could contact BlackBerry and get a statement regarding BBM so that we could have an idea of what the hell is going on...

Posted via CB10

[Superfly_FR]

Thanks for this.
Can someone explain how this spin-off or separation of existing bundled services would affect current investors?
Morgan, Lagoon, CJ, SuperFly, et. al??
Thanks.

Well, we discussed it a lot when the "for sale" sign was up and I for one thought we might see something like a "BBRY holding" with several entities, partially or fully owned (partnerships, join/cross ventures, ...). I believe it can be a proper answer to the simple question "what is monetized, and will generate EPS in the near future" ?
Segmentation is sometimes a good way to expose strategy when weighted incomes can hide performance.
BBM is starting from zero and is balanced by $billion(s) hardware and services revenues (& matching profits/losses %). It's far easier to advertise it with a two digit income raise than as a crutch. Being "isolated" could bring investors interest to a particular area where they can expect amazing growth (see twitter, snapchat crazy valuations); they can separate and secure their investment from a more risky territory. Same applies to the Enterprise division ...
I believe this could raise a nice (valuation) pile of $ if introduced on public market as a new BBRY_BBM ticker ... and the whole holding would benefit of it ...

Is this what the 4 areas segmentation announced ? Do we have to mix it with the "Chen is here to sell the company" theory ? yay, I'd love to picture that clearly

P.S: Of course, I believe BBRY should hold at least 51% of any spinoff if ever they'd go this way.

[Superfly_FR]

There is no way they will spin off BBM. It's the Trojan Horse for BlackBerry.
Posted with my gorgeous Z30

Sell it as a whole = no chance IMHO.
But, creating an new entity and introduce it to the market(s) (TSX only ?) with BBRY as the #1 (51%+) shareholder (see above) and maybe 1 or 2 solid partners ... I'll find it pretty sexy, I must confess

P.S: I may be wrong with my interpretation of "spin-off" though ...

[Superfly_FR]

So the way I see it is that John Chen wanted to turn BBM into a mainly Enterprise offering and Andrew Booking resisted and eventually resigned.

Play Starcraft? Join our Channel: C001242DE

I deserve royalties and I'm ok for the job !
http://forums.crackberry.com/news-ru...ng-esn-878796/

[cjcampbell]

Sell it as a whole = no chance IMHO.
But, creating an new entity and introduce it to the market(s) (TSX only ?) with BBRY as the #1 (51%+) shareholder (see above) and maybe 1 or 2 solid partners ... I'll find it pretty sexy, I must confess

P.S: I may be wrong with my interpretation of "spin-off" though ...

If.... they spin it off, it probably won't be public, just a wholly owned subsidiary.

Posted via CB10

[Superfly_FR]

If.... they spin it off, it probably won't be public, just a wholly owned subsidiary.

Posted via CB10

Heal fire with fire is pretty tempting sometimes ...

[BBUK14]

I've read a lot of theories about what BlackBerry should do: sell out, sell parts, cut this, cut that, but in my view I think that with respect to everyone many people, including analysts, take a far too 'financial' view of things. This is where Steve Jobs understood things better than the rest.

This type of business is NOT primarily financial, but CULTURAL. Culture is king. Like many of us, I started investing in BlackBerry this year because I saw a huge array of options and open plays for them to get back in the game and to thrive. The one thing that has concerned me, and continues to concern me, is BlackBerry's cultural awareness.

In my view, BlackBerry would be best served by forgetting all this chopping and slicing talk, and sticking to the four pillars set out by Chen, and working vigorously on culture-building. Fix the public relationship, and everything else is taken care of.

The stuff that went on between the spring and fall of 2013 was sheer hapless lunacy on the part of BlackBerry. Really, it was a seminar of how to 'lose friends and alienate people' - and kill a brand. Still, the answer is not to run away from the public/consumer market, but to get back in.

My main concern for the SP this year, and for BlackBerry in general, is that they may stick their heads in the sand instead of getting out and repairing the brand and culture around it. Steve Jobs is seen as a genius, but all he really did was use a whole bunch of bloody common sense: get them to love you and they will follow you anywhere.

If BlackBerry can get the public to love them - to love BBM to begin with, they will follow them anywhere. That is the answer, and all the complex mathematical equations are of distant and greatly less significant importance.

BBMx, launched properly, is six months from breaking out and dominating interpersonal communication within 18 months. BlackBerry top-shelf handsets are one year from selling like crazy, and with the brand repaired, enterprise is all BlackBerry's.

This three step approach: BBMx, consumer handsets, and enterprise focus throughout is the game plan that will put all this difficulty being us.

BlackBerry tripped and fell when the iPhone came out. Since then, many people have been arguing that BlackBerry should be focusing on better ways to slither on their belly. No way. Get up, get focused, and get running again. This recovery is a piece of cake as soon as BlackBerry realise that culture comes first, and everything else comes second.

If BlackBerry show me in the next few months that they don't get this, I'm selling, taking the profit I've made and I'm out, because clinging onto enterprise at the expense of brand culture and public perception is like clinging to the family silver while the walls are burning all around you. It just will not work.

Let's hope we now see an acceleration of BBMx, instead of the opposite, and some real brand culture building in 2014 that will make us all happy and, of course, put a whole bunch of money in our pockets.

Posted via CB10

[OMGitworks]

If.... they spin it off, it probably won't be public, just a wholly owned subsidiary.

Posted via CB10

Been away, glad the stock is holding in there, even in a bad general market. That is a great sign. I think we had this "discussion" last time there was talk of a "spin-off."

I think we need to see consumer BBMx actual usage numbers before we read too much into one Exec leaving. It has been a bit since the roll out and WAY TOO LONG until the full BBM has come to BBMx. If the adoption and usage rate among quality users (not freebie, low margin, Foxcomm handset buying, likely to never profit from consumers)is poor then full blown consumer BBMx may be a pipe dream and Chen may have told the Exec this, diverted time and talent to other things, and he decided to leave. If the delay in rolling it out in full version lays at his feet and he represents the "old" way BBRY did business, then the Exec may have been asked to leave. I think we can all agree (Ha ha...) that the delay killed most if not all of the momentum the initial BBMx roll-out had.

Enterprise, secure BBM is clearly a big part of the game plan and its chances for success are undeniable.

Bottom line, we (including me in this post) are all speculating. For the moment, I will chose to trust Chen and his choices as at least he has given BBRY a glimmer of hope here.

[morganplus8]

I am not sure myself. I recall that Morgan's explanation was quite positive. I cannot find the exact post.

However, I found this Seekingalpha article on the BBM spin off: BlackBerry Ltd (BBRY): BBM Spin-Off Could Create Short Exodus - Seeking Alpha

What is your take considering the current financial structure of Blackberry, Morgan?

Hi JLagoon!!

Thanks for your detailed charts.
I have to say that because you need all the credit you can for those 30-min charts man!

To answer your question, I think you provided a very good example of how BlackBerry could roll out BBM as a separate entity and increase the markets' awareness of their asset base. The example from SA article should have gone a bit further and apply the valuation to the actual cash amount that BlackBerry would have received from the offering. In that example, BBRY would has realized cash of 10% of the market value of the offering which would have been somewhere between $ 500 MM - $ 1.0 Billion. Chen has set a goal of making sure that each segment of the BlackBerry business model is accountable to itself and is transparent in its ability to be self-sustainable. I think this is a great idea but he goes even farther by examining the "contained" value of BBRY assets such as real estate, security, BBM-X and hardware. We all wanted him to deal with the huge problem of the lack of asset recognition on the part of the market, so he decided to farm out hardware, sell real estate, raise cash in the form of a bond issue and now he is likely to be looking at what craziness is going on with Facebook and Twitter and see that BBRY needs to unlock BBM-X in terms of a cross platform entity and possibly a spin-off too. BBRY would retain control of the asset, they would simply be carrying the asset value, or public share value on their books at the current market price, which is likely to be huge in itself.

What could be wrong with spinning of an asset such that is re-evaluated 10 X more? We are carrying BBM on the books at $ 500 MM - $ 1.0 B bucks and we all know that if they can generate revenues by producing a version fo Enterprise, it could be worth so much more. BlackBerry isn't giving up anything, they are simply saying that this hidden gem is on the books at a "private ownership" level, who knows what it is worth if we can't see the assets on paper? He wants the asset to stand on its own like the real estate portfolio will, so that the public can value it using street metrics.

I personally wish they would do this will all aspects of the business, it makes each business entity show us hard and fast growth prospects within their respective sectors. Look at security, you would have no trouble assigning a value to their security if they published their subs and revenue base per sub. They would look like a giant within their sector, no one has their kind of power and structure but it isn't clear as it stands melted into a multi-tasking business model. Take QNX, it is likely a $ 70 million business that is growing at a 10% rate? I'm guessing here because we don't have a clue at this time. Suppose it is operating under those metrics, as a publically traded stock, it would command a very high multiple not unliike Tesla does. Why, becasue they ARE the industry, no one can touch them in their space, they are likely profitable but we just don't know, and, they are growing. So if you think technology will extend itself to cars, buses, trains, planes and so on, you have better own some QNX shares! Chen is going to do exactly what all of us here have been talking about in fragments for a couple of years now.

There was a comment on this thread about "if they do this I will sell my shares". Well, it is true, if they spin off BBM to the point that they no longer hold the asset, I might consider selling my shares for $ 30.00 too because that's how much they would be worth with BBM marketed over the next year. The stock would rocket under a wholesale launch of BBM to the masses. BBM with cross platform and Video and Voice could be worth far more than the $ 10.00/shr the whole company is worth today. So let them go about their business unlocking value and enjoy the results. And yes, BBRY would survive without owning BBM, they would still make use of the platform but just not own it and life as a security vendor would go on.

[BBUK14]

I'm also holding my breath (well, not really), and hoping that Chen knows what he is doing with BBM, but I would add that I don't think the main point of BBM right now should be to make money. It's main value at the moment is in repairing brand perception. That's the bottle neck that has prevented sales, etc. as we all know.

Posted via CB10

[BBUK14]

Hi JLagoon!!

Thanks for your detailed charts.
I have to say that because you need all the credit you can for those 30-min charts man!

To answer your question, I think you provided a very good example of how BlackBerry could roll out BBM as a separate entity and increase the markets' awareness of their asset base. The example from SA article should have gone a bit further and apply the valuation to the actual cash amount that BlackBerry would have received from the offering. In that example, BBRY would has realized cash of 10% of the market value of the offering which would have been somewhere between $ 500 MM - $ 1.0 Billion. Chen has set a goal of making sure that each segment of the BlackBerry business model is accountable to itself and is transparent in its ability to be self-sustainable. I think this is a great idea but he goes even farther by examining the "contained" value of BBRY assets such as real estate, security, BBM-X and hardware. We all wanted him to deal with the huge problem of the lack of asset recognition on the part of the market, so he decided to farm out hardware, sell real estate, raise cash in the form of a bond issue and now he is likely to be looking at what craziness is going on with Facebook and Twitter and see that BBRY needs to unlock BBM-X in terms of a cross platform entity and possibly a spin-off too. BBRY would retain control of the asset, they would simply be carrying the asset value, or public share value on their books at the current market price, which is likely to be huge in itself.

What could be wrong with spinning of an asset such that is re-evaluated 10 X more? We are carrying BBM on the books at $ 500 MM - $ 1.0 B bucks and we all know that if they can generate revenues by producing a version fo Enterprise, it could be worth so much more. BlackBerry isn't giving up anything, they are simply saying that this hidden gem is on the books at a "private ownership" level, who knows what it is worth if we can't see the assets on paper? He wants the asset to stand on its own like the real estate portfolio will, so that the public can value it using street metrics.

I personally wish they would do this will all aspects of the business, it makes each business entity show us hard and fast growth prospects within their respective sectors. Look at security, you would have no trouble assigning a value to their security if they published their subs and revenue base per sub. They would look like a giant within their sector, no one has their kind of power and structure but it isn't clear as it stands melted into a multi-tasking business model. Take QNX, it is likely a $ 70 million business that is growing at a 10% rate? I'm guessing here because we don't have a clue at this time. Suppose it is operating under those metrics, as a publically traded stock, it would command a very high multiple not unliike Tesla does. Why, becasue they ARE the industry, no one can touch them in their space, they are likely profitable but we just don't know, and, they are growing. So if you think technology will extend itself to cars, buses, trains, planes and so on, you have better own some QNX shares! Chen is going to do exactly what all of us here have been talking about in fragments for a couple of years now.

There was a comment on this thread about "if they do this I will sell my shares". Well, it is true, if they spin off BBM to the point that they no longer hold the asset, I might consider selling my shares for $ 30.00 too because that's how much they would be worth with BBM marketed over the next year. The stock would rocket under a wholesale launch of BBM to the masses. BBM with cross platform and Video and Voice could be worth far more than the $ 10.00/shr the whole company is worth today. So let them go about their business unlocking value and enjoy the results. And yes, BBRY would survive without owning BBM, they would still make use of the platform but just not own it and life as a security vendor would go on.

Morgan, some very good comments in this post. What are your views on the importance of brand/culture building (regarding BBM or in general), and how confident are you in BlackBerry's ability/interest in this area?

I know that you look at things from a more technical perspective, but it's BlackBerry's 'cultural awareness' that I've seen as the biggest risk to my investment/speculation in BlackBerry, and something I am still very unsure about.

In 2013, BlackBerry surely set a record for sacking their own quarterback, and showed an absolutely shocking lack of intelligence regarding public perception, brand image, etc. I've been happy so far with Chen, but this area of the business is still the huge question mark for me, and that is why I would sell me shares if I felt I had no reason to be confident that BlackBerry has improved in this area.

This goes to everyone actually: do you think culture-building is on the agenda at BlackBerry HQ, and do you think the recent changes have brought in people competent in this area?

This may seem OT to some, but I see this as directly relevant to the SP. SAP may be a good company, but most people have never heard of it, and I'm not simply assuming that they've gone and grabbed themselves a bunch of Guy Kawasakis who will address what I see as their biggest challenge.

Posted via CB10

[Superfly_FR]

This may seem OT to some, but I see this as directly relevant to the SP. SAP may be a good company, but most people have never heard of it, and I'm not simply assuming that they've gone and grabbed themselves a bunch of Guy Kawasakis who will address what I see as their biggest challenge.

It's very telling. SAP is worldwide known as a major actor in the enterprise ...

Adding my question to Morgan: I'm quite puzzled with stock movements in low volumes and its apparent weakness under such conditions. Is there a strategy to counter that ? I mean it seems that any peak in day %volume can drag the stock down ... Wondering what we can learn from that besides my current perception "low volume variations doesn't mean much" ...

[morganplus8]

Morgan, some very good comments in this post. What are your views on the importance of brand/culture building (regarding BBM or in general), and how confident are you in BlackBerry's ability/interest in this area?

I know that you look at things from a more technical perspective, but it's BlackBerry's 'cultural awareness' that I've seen as the biggest risk to my investment/speculation in BlackBerry, and something I am still very unsure about.

In 2013, BlackBerry surely set a record for sacking their own quarterback, and showed an absolutely shocking lack of intelligence regarding public perception, brand image, etc. I've been happy so far with Chen, but this area of the business is still the huge question mark for me, and that is why I would sell me shares if I felt I had no reason to be confident that BlackBerry has improved in this area.

This goes to everyone actually: do you think culture-building is on the agenda at BlackBerry HQ, and do you think the recent changes have brought in people competent in this area?

This may seem OT to some, but I see this as directly relevant to the SP. SAP may be a good company, but most people have never heard of it, and I'm not simply assuming that they've gone and grabbed themselves a bunch of Guy Kawasakis who will address what I see as their biggest challenge.

Posted via CB10

I was quick to "like" your previous post for this very reason. I too think they need to build the brand in every possible way and that will take time. There is no denying that the "culture" that surrounds any product is of utmost importance. Take Apple, they are long in the tooth in terms of an investment vehicle, I couldn't possibly consider buying their stock because I no longer own any of their products. But you can't deny the impact of the Apple culture on sales. Long after they stop bringin' it to the market, Apple will continue to enjoy the rewards of the cultural stigma of owning their products.

BlackBerry needs to do everything it can to promote the positives and take the attention away from their weaknesses. At this time, it is not a positive to say you own a BlackBerry phone, and so they have a perception there that needs to be broken down over time. I guess we have to look at all of this change as taking place in different arenas and over a different time span. The investing sector wants to see BBRY go bankrupt or show some signs of coming back from the dead. And so there is plenty that Chen can do now to assure the market that BBRY isn't going anywhere any time soon. Then there is the re-launching of their product base, they need to get their product back in the hands of those who will support them. This will take time and they have to be careful how they spend their limited resources developing a consumer base. By going ahead with high volume, cost centric Enterprise first, they can build from that experience and benefit from those who will become curious of the BlackBerry brand again because Enterprise is giving it a second look.

And so Chen, now has to juggle his priorities between getting Enterprise to back BB and consumer/media fall-out of a dying brand. At some point you will see a turn, where Enterprise is willing to back BlackBerry again because they are unique in terms of security and performance in terms of the hardware product. He has done a wonderful job of stopping the bleeding and we are rewarded with a $ 10.00/shr stock. Now we need to build on all of this by reaching out to the consumer with BBM-X cross platform with universal voice and video. My recent experience with BBM on iPhones taught me that the product itself is way cool, it is a powerful product that is exclusive to BlackBerry without Enterprise/Consumers actually giving credit for that value. It will take time before everyone equates BBM with BlackBerry, much to my surprise. We are so myopic on this board, we know too much to ever have a clear picture of what's it like to see/be a BB product in the real world!

There will be a day when your friend will come up to you and say something correct about BlackBerry and their prducts and when that day comes, buy all the shares that you can!

[BBUK14]

It's very telling. SAP is worldwide known as a major actor in the enterprise ...

Adding my question to Morgan: I'm quite puzzled with stock movements in low volumes and its apparent weakness under such conditions. Is there a strategy to counter that ? I mean it seems that any peak in day %volume can drag the stock down ... Wondering what we can learn from that besides my current perception "low volume variations doesn't mean much" ...

It's very telling of what? With genuine respect, my statement stands: most people have never heard of SAP. Most people have never heard of enterprise either. If you were to asking the average person what enterprise meant to them, they would mention Patrick Stewart and not SAP or BlackBerry. Without going on and on, I think we lose the forest for the trees when we don't consider some of the areas I've mentioned. Apple gets this, and over the last few years BlackBerry has not. We can bring in all kinds of charts and numbers (and these no doubt have their place and their value), but we aren't selling services and products to robots; we are selling them to people. Aristotle understood this, Edward Bernays understood this, and Steve Jobs understood this. Culture matters. I really hope that the 'new BlackBerry' understands this.

Posted via CB10

[kfh227]

Wife agreed to DROID Maxx or the Z30. Sadly might get her the Droid.

Posted via CB10

[morganplus8]

It's very telling. SAP is worldwide known as a major actor in the enterprise ...

Adding my question to Morgan: I'm quite puzzled with stock movements in low volumes and its apparent weakness under such conditions. Is there a strategy to counter that ? I mean it seems that any peak in day %volume can drag the stock down ... Wondering what we can learn from that besides my current perception "low volume variations doesn't mean much" ...

Superfly!!

What you are witnessing is pure TA trading. It is the result of a lack of current news that is game changing as far of the re-evaluation of BBRY goes. And so we are playing this game or a dance where boundaries are being set with the support levels of BBRY and its inability to break above resistance. If you ask JLagoon for a 30-minute chart, you will see just how well defined this range has become. Last week we broke down in a very methodical way, to close a gap in the $ 9.10/shr area, now we don't have to go back there and do that again and so the range is getting tighter as we await game changing news. We clearly can't get above the 200-dma, it is currently at $ 9.85/shr and falling a couple of pennies every day. Hence we are falling a couple of pennies every day! The volume has dried up simply because the % change in highs/lows in the price of the stock is getting narrower too. There is little chance to make money day trading this stock and so many are moving on. There is little reason to target short covering either, the best thing to have done was to sell some Call Options against your position when the stock was flying high. In that way, you are making money while we wait. We need to wait because we haven't formed an uptrend line just yet.

Have a look at this chart:



This is a basic chart that tells us that we rallied too fast and too hard and needed to back and fill our position and get rid of weak hands. We are finally at a point where we have made contact today with our first uptrend line. This is the line that I have been mentioning about for weeks. We needed to slide sideways until we worked off some downward pressure and now we are at our first important hurdle. We need to hold this line and challenge that $ 10.16/shr mark. We haven't been able to stay above the 200-dma for more than a day and we fail the very next day. I think part of the problem is the Bond issue,there are 125 MM share looming at $ 10.00/shr there and we need to hear something positive from the company in order to justify taking on those additional shares. Watch the stock in the next couple of days to see if we can rally from here. So far, if we pop above the 200-dma it will have to be done on no news which is a tough sell here. You can see my horizontal line there, it is a major point of resistance that we need to make support. I think we'll need some news. In the meantime, on a purely TA basis, the stock rallies first thing in the morning and gets rejected on light volume, it then has to retract to the lows to confirm the lows for the day. This will take place until there is a reason to choose sides. Our low this morning is likely the low for today, so is our high unless volume can pickup and we can challenge that 200-dma. Tomorrow is a different story as we are so close to giving up on the battle to close above the 200-dma. GL

[Superfly_FR]

It's very telling of what? With genuine respect, my statement stands: most people have never heard of SAP. Most people have never heard of enterprise either. If you were to asking the average person what enterprise meant to them, they would mention Patrick Stewart and not SAP or BlackBerry. Without going on and on, I think we lose the forest for the trees when we don't consider some of the areas I've mentioned. Apple gets this, and over the last few years BlackBerry has not. We can bring in all kinds of charts and numbers (and these no doubt have their place and their value), but we aren't selling services and products to robots; we are selling them to people. Aristotle understood this, Edward Bernays understood this, and Steve Jobs understood this. Culture matters. I really hope that the 'new BlackBerry' understands this.

Posted via CB10

It is telling that BlackBerry is targeting enterprises back as its core business.
This is the egg/chicken story.
First they thought BB10 will rave general audience and therefore enter the enterprises market, driven by the BYOD trend.
... but they didn't reach this audience and the BYOD trend is dying (long story short).
This was the device centric approach.

Now they believe they can offer services and collect revenues from a MDM solution (BES10) and that it will allow to address a larger number of consumers (employees) because of BB10/BES10 integration [usage side] and bundles [commercial side].
This is the services centric approach implying supply chain flexibility, thus Foxcon's deal.

I'm not sure - sorry if I'm wrong - we address the same topic here. What I understand is that you're still evaluating the mass market as the #1 goal. I do pretend the best (current) possible way to restore the brand is to add some goodness to the - still alive - "reliable but boring" sticker.
You don't need tens of millions users to do that; "force" devices into 10% corporate users hands and collect CALs from others is a great mix IMHO.

Then, and only then they will be able to address a mass market, starting with selected locations.

[Superfly_FR]

@Morgan thanks for this, and all the technical decryption you (and a bunch of contributors) provide to all.
I'm still amazed by the amount of knowledge capitalized here.

[BBUK14]

It is telling that BlackBerry is targeting enterprises back as its core business.
This is the egg/chicken story.
First they thought BB10 will rave general audience and therefore enter the enterprises market, driven by the BYOD trend.
... but they didn't reach this audience and the BYOD trend is dying (long story short).
This was the device centric approach.

Now they believe they can offer services an collect revenues from a MDM solution (BES10) and that it will allow to address a larger number of consumers (employees) because of BB10/BES10 integration [usage side] and bundles [commercial side].
This is the services centric approach implying supply chain flexibility, thus Foxcon's deal.

I'm not sure - sorry if I'm wrong - we address the same topic here. What I understand is that you're still evaluating the mass market as the #1 goal. I do pretend the best (current) possible way to restore the brand is to add some goodness to the - still alive - "reliable but boring" sticker.
You don't need tens of millions users to do that; "force" devices into 10% corporate users hands and collect CALs from others is a great mix IMHO.

Then, and only then they will be able to address a mass market, starting with selected locations.

Ah, right. I've gotcha. I thought you were subtly calling me an ***** lol. I do agree with you that it is a chicken and egg thing to an extent, but at the moment I think BlackBerry are in a pretty good position to both build a positive brand culture, and secure enterprise. Part of the reason I think culture is actually vital to enterprise is because I haven't read any articles claiming that companies want to leave BlackBerry because BlackBerry are rubbish; it's been about concerns over whether the company/brand will be around.

No sense repeating what I've already posted today - i would only repeat that the 'known unknown' remains for me whether BlackBerry accept how hugely important it is for them to repair their image in the consumer/everyday world. Whereas you think they need to secure enterprise first, I think they need to push BBM and BlackBerry 10 phones just as much as. Alas, as we all agree that we want BlackBerry to thrive, we needed get too caught up on our differences other than using them to improve our understanding of the whole.

Posted via CB10

[Superfly_FR]

@BBUK14 I believe the inclusion of BBM under the Enterprise division is part of the answer.
[pure speculation zone]
My guess is that they measured operational costs of a wide diffusion of BBMx and they evaluated it as ... a cost. I'm not sure monetization of BBMx for general audience can be considered in the short while (< 1 year) as a positive operational revenue.
On the other side, (with)in enterprises (you may hit the link I posted a few posts ago about ESN) all is (quite) set and ready for a CAL based monetization.
My feeling is that they rationalized this launch (thus what we measure as a delay) and want to take advantage of BBMx and create a whole horizontal launch both for mass market and enterprise ... (Did I mention MSFT and WP lately ?)
[/pure speculation zone]

[greggebhardt]

I'm also holding my breath (well, not really), and hoping that Chen knows what he is doing with BBM, but I would add that I don't think the main point of BBM right now should be to make money. It's main value at the moment is in repairing brand perception. That's the bottle neck that has prevented sales, etc. as we all know.

Posted via CB10

Hard to repair brand perception when you have less than a half percent of penetration in the USA market. Most would not even notice!