[eshropshire]

I am being sarcastic since many here believe it is the case and that on BlackBerry phones are secure.

Sorry I responded early in the morning while working on other projects - my sarcastic meter was set at low

[makaiman]

NO ONE, for the longest time even KNEW there was a switch from the legacy IS to BB10 and thousands of posts show proof that it all goes back to marketing. Sadly, the main theme and words that linger on from former BlackBerry users are, "I used to own a BlackBerry

But..."

Chen had to do what he had to do and a lot of body bags will be with and along the way of a total EOL on BB10. AFTER, people like me who spent thousands and thousands going around the world to the BlackBerry Jam developer conferences only to be a developer casualty. Screw that. I'll be using BB10 well into the 20s...

Posted via CB10

[Chuck Finley69]

NO ONE, for the longest time even KNEW there was a switch from the legacy IS to BB10 and thousands of posts show proof that it all goes back to marketing. Sadly, the main theme and words that linger on from former BlackBerry users are, "I used to own a BlackBerry

But..."

Chen had to do what he had to do and a lot of body bags will be with and along the way of a total EOL on BB10. AFTER, people like me who spent thousands and thousands going around the world to the BlackBerry Jam developer conferences only to be a developer casualty. Screw that. I'll be using BB10 well into the 20s...

Posted via CB10

But you had fun. Sometimes a bad gamble is just a bad gamble and hindsight is 20/20.

[Troy Tiscareno]

NO ONE, for the longest time even KNEW there was a switch from the legacy IS to BB10 and thousands of posts show proof that it all goes back to marketing.

BB spent nearly $100M on marketing when BB10 was launched - more than double their previous largest marketing campaign. But when there were lots of big-name apps missing, people would go into stores, look at the phones, and then ask "can I get Instagram/Netflix/etc. on this?" and when the answer was "no", they'd buy something else. Marketing got them into the stores, but marketing couldn't fix the fundamental ecosystem problems, and that doomed the platform.

Returns on the Z10 were very high, far higher than other devices. Why? Because people who HEARD the marketing bought the phone and then discovered it didn't meet their needs. That's not marketing's fault.

Something as complex and expensive as a smartphone platform can only be successful if it enjoys MASS adoption - you NEED large numbers to pay for everything that needs to be paid for. BB10 was simply years too late to get developer support, and thus there was a big lack of apps, including many big-name apps, and so BB10 wasn't able to meet the needs of most buyers. Most buyers aren't willing to side-load or patch or hunt alternative app stores or any of that - they want to go into the platform's app store, click "install", and know the app is going to work and be full-featured, and BB10 simply couldn't offer that.

[bb10adopter111]

BB spent nearly $100M on marketing when BB10 was launched - more than double their previous largest marketing campaign. But when there were lots of big-name apps missing, people would go into stores, look at the phones, and then ask "can I get Instagram/Netflix/etc. on this?" and when the answer was "no", they'd buy something else. Marketing got them into the stores, but marketing couldn't fix the fundamental ecosystem problems, and that doomed the platform.

Returns on the Z10 were very high, far higher than other devices. Why? Because people who HEARD the marketing bought the phone and then discovered it didn't meet their needs. That's not marketing's fault.

Something as complex and expensive as a smartphone platform can only be successful if it enjoys MASS adoption - you NEED large numbers to pay for everything that needs to be paid for. BB10 was simply years too late to get developer support, and thus there was a big lack of apps, including many big-name apps, and so BB10 wasn't able to meet the needs of most buyers. Most buyers aren't willing to side-load or patch or hunt alternative app stores or any of that - they want to go into the platform's app store, click "install", and know the app is going to work and be full-featured, and BB10 simply couldn't offer that.

Nah. If they'd just spent $1B on advertising people would have decided they didn't need Netflix, Office 365, Google Apps, Spotify.

;-)

Posted with my trusty Z10

[kvndoom]

Right now I want to post an infamous clip from Full Metal Jacket here so badly, but there's no way I'd get away with it.

[Troy Tiscareno]

Right now I want to post an infamous clip from Full Metal Jacket here so badly, but there's no way I'd get away with it.

Too beaucoup.

[Bbnivende]

The trouble was that BlackBerry lived in the Greater Toronto Area. At the end of 2012 , BlackBerry was a significant player in Canadian Enterprise quite popular in Canada and the UK.

They had 70 million uses worldwide and they thought that was a good base.

Two significant problems.

1. They had already lost their USA base.
2. Their international base was using legacy BBOS devices running on low data BiS accounts. They were wanting cheap phones on cheap plans.

I read at the end of 2012 that only 33 % of BlackBerry owners were wanting to stay with the brand.

I think that the best that they could hoped for was approx 1/2 of 70 million divided by three.

They were doomed. They should have done the math.

[z10Jobe]

Actually, I don't see how BB will go down as a result of their abandonment of BB10. Why?
Well, BECAUSE THEY ARE NOW A SOFTWARE COMPANY, not a phone handset company.
People could stop buying BB phones completely and the corporation would still survive!

I think also that if you look around a bit you'll find other cases where customers have been "abandoned". One of my favourite examples is GM (General Motors). Have you tried to buy an Oldsmobile or Pontiac car lately? That's right, THEY NO LONGER EXIST.
GM was facing bankruptcy in 2007-ish and they cut ENTIRE CAR LINES OUT, along with may dealerships.

So, if you're a dude in a small town who liked to buy Pontiacs, then you are completely out of luck! They terminated both the Pontiac and your local dealership.

You'll notice that GM is still in operation. It didn't go bankrupt. People still buy GM vehicles. One adorns my driveway.

So, I understand your angst, to a degree. However, you won't be able to kill BB with your anger. The only person you'll kill is yourself.

The removal of Pontiac and GM dealerships was just for optics to secure government bail outs. I have a GM in my driveway currently. If they hadn't made those inane decisions, there would be 2 GM vehicles in my driveway.

Posted via CB10

[glwerry]

The removal of Pontiac and GM dealerships was just for optics to secure government bail outs. I have a GM in my driveway currently. If they hadn't made those inane decisions, there would be 2 GM vehicles in my driveway.

Posted via CB10

If it was just optics then why are those dealerships still closed?

They changed the business model.

[z10Jobe]

If it was just optics then why are those dealerships still closed?

They changed the business model.

They are still closed cuz GM closed them.

They should have just allowed all GM dealers sell any GM car. Simple. Saturn/oldsmobile/pontiac may still be around. Just my opinion.

Posted via CB10

[DonHB]

Something as complex and expensive as a smartphone platform can only be successful if it enjoys MASS adoption - you NEED large numbers to pay for everything that needs to be paid for. BB10 was simply years too late to get developer support, and thus there was a big lack of apps, including many big-name apps, and so BB10 wasn't able to meet the needs of most buyers. Most buyers aren't willing to side-load or patch or hunt alternative app stores or any of that - they want to go into the platform's app store, click "install", and know the app is going to work and be full-featured, and BB10 simply couldn't offer that.

What is interesting is that Android was considered as the SDK with Flow as the UX, but there was a bias against Java at BlackBerry by its leaders. Why force developer's to use a new API when they could use the Android SDK and deliver apps with the Flow UX? It also would likely have reduced time-to-market.

I think this was the biggest mistake BlackBerry made, because it was the only company that could create a viable alternative to Google using Android at a time when Google Services Framework was just being established. Not licensing Android would have allowed them to create a native SDK when developers demanded it and supporting both Android and the Flow UX would have reduced excuses to not support the platform.

Using Android may have interested Amazon into farming software development to BlackBerry using BB10 to produce the software for Amazon devices thereby creating an "ecosystem" while providing Amazon with a phone a year or more before the Fire Phone failed. But hindsight is 20/20.

[ThatGuyUSA]

Wanted to write these words long time ago.. but it seems that the anger wasn't yet ready to explode.. it did now..
Never seen a company leave out its' loyal customers like BlackBerry.. first the Play Book then OS 6,7 and recently the OS10 clients..
Facebook, Dropbox, LinkedIn, WhatsApp and even BBM... these are among what I use that have gone till now... don't know if there are other apps that joined the party.. how could they do that??? Even BBM : not even a notice pushed to BB10 users with their lousy migration rules???!!!!!!
And to their surprise: we customers are still clinging to our beloved OS BB10 and trying to work around this fight against us with all what we can think of... everyone is thinking of a way to still manage to operate these apps one way or another!!!! And again : to their surprise: some are succeeding and sharing their work- around ideas with others..
Not even backstreet companies have done that harm to their customers like BlackBerry did.. to these officials of the company that I once loved: YOU ARE GOING DOWN NO MATTER HOW LONG IT TAKES...HISTORY SAYS THAT...

Posted via CB10

I feel your pain. But you have to be honest, BlackBerry/Rim was destroyed from its own arrogance. When the world moved in the direction of Apps they scoffed. We are the leaders this is just a fad......yea we’ll we know how that turned out. Apple ate them for lunch. Companies that are fast on their feet survive, those who don’t get eaten.

I think in the end the same arrogance that did them in stopped them from seeing the handwriting on the wall. No matter how hard they tried the world had moved on from BlackBerry.

I love my PassPort, rock solid a great daily driver. But I also don’t kid my self the phone the T-Rex of phones is on the endangered species list; and no amount of screaming or ranting about what could have been will stop the coming extinction.

Woof.

[Mecca EL]

What is interesting is that Android was considered as the SDK with Flow as the UX, but there was a bias against Java at BlackBerry by its leaders. Why force developer's to use a new API when they could use the Android SDK and deliver apps with the Flow UX? It also would likely have reduced time-to-market.

I think this was the biggest mistake BlackBerry made, because it was the only company that could create a viable alternative to Google using Android at a time when Google Services Framework was just being established. Not licensing Android would have allowed them to create a native SDK when developers demanded it and supporting both Android and the Flow UX would have reduced excuses to not support the platform.

Using Android may have interested Amazon into farming software development to BlackBerry using BB10 to produce the software for Amazon devices thereby creating an "ecosystem" while providing Amazon with a phone a year or more before the Fire Phone failed. But hindsight is 20/20.

Thank you for saying what I've been saying, since BBX was first announced. At least there's another like mined user who paid attention.

[Chuck Finley69]

Thank you for saying what I've been saying, since BBX was first announced. At least there's another like mined user who paid attention.

The basic problem with all theories is that even BB didn't really want BB10 since it would replace monthly BIS revenues with absolutely nothing.

Adding to problems is that BB was always small economically to Apple, Google and Microsoft. Even if they'd pursued a different strategy, BB never had the significant resources to develop another mobile OS.

[DonHB]

Thank you for saying what I've been saying, since BBX was first announced. At least there's another like mined user who paid attention.

Regarding using the Android SDK, the plan was to use QNX Neutrino not Linux as they are now doing with Android. If BB decided to ultimately license GSF and the Play Store replacing Flow with the Android UI and keeping the underlying Neutrino OS would have been possible. Android does not require Linux underneath, but it does allow a lot of off-the-shelf (software) parts.

John Chen could have, in 2013, begun the transition of BB10 to the Android API before betting on a Google encumbered version of the OS.

[conite]

John Chen could have, in 2013, begun the transition of BB10 to the Android API before betting on a Google encumbered version of the OS.

No Google = no Android.

No money = no proprietary OS.

[makaiman]

BB10 "could" offer those apps at the time and our kernel supported it. There wasn't even a need to side load. I saw all the possibilities at the Jams. 100 million wasn't even close where all of us developers knew we need a 2 billion dollar advertising commitment, getting into the homes of consumers during prime-time for at least a half year before launch. This was possible, with ads such as this, which stirred the hearts of the BlackBerry faithful as well as peaking the interest of new and fresh acquisitions . In all honesty, BB10 is crafted within a lot of our new software and SaaS products, so BB10 will never be a total jettison. Good points about the aged-old app-gap, as usual, but it was also the CSRs who had little or no knowledge, let alone appropriate training on BB10 where our hand sets would most always be placed in the back of the store when you'd walk in. BB10 most assuredly will return, in a new form, but never be completely EOL'd

[conite]

BB10 most assuredly will return, in a new form, but never be completely EOL'd

Do tell.

[Troy Tiscareno]

BB10 most assuredly will return, in a new form, but never be completely EOL'd

[Troy Tiscareno]

BB10 "could" offer those apps at the time and our kernel supported it. There wasn't even a need to side load. I saw all the possibilities at the Jams.

Sure, but that would have required developer support from all the major companies - something BB10 definitely lacked. Even some of the companies whose names were on the launch backgrounds never launched their apps.

100 million wasn't even close where all of us developers knew we need a 2 billion dollar advertising commitment, getting into the homes of consumers during prime-time for at least a half year before launch. This was possible, with ads such as this, which stirred the hearts of the BlackBerry faithful as well as peaking the interest of new and fresh acquisitions.

BB absolutely did not have 2B to spend on marketing, or anything close. They were virtually bankrupt by the fall of 2013, and had to borrow 1.25B from Fairfax just to remain solvent.

You're also forgetting what BB10 1.0 was like in March 2013. The existing marketing reached a lot of people, who went to the stores and bought phones - and promptly returned them in droves because they couldn't run the apps those people needed because those apps didn't exist, because major third-party developers had already decided they weren't going to support a 4th-place player (WinPhone was 3rd). More marketing would have only meant more returns and a faster path towards bankruptcy.

Good points about the aged-old app-gap, as usual, but it was also the CSRs who had little or no knowledge, let alone appropriate training on BB10 where our hand sets would most always be placed in the back of the store when you'd walk in.

That's part of marketing expenses, but BB did in fact have a contract with support companies to train CSRs about BB10, and did pay for premium placement of BB10 phones in the first half of 2013 - but with low sales and high returns, they canceled those contracts and let those trainers go. No amount of training solved the app problem - customers would ask "is [insert app name] available for this phone?" and if the answer was "no", as was often the case, then the customer would buy something else.

The real issue is that the launch of the iPhone in 2007 changed everything - it was the start of "Smartphone v2.0", with phones like BBOS and Symbian and WinMobile 5-6 being part of the first generation of smartphones. As soon as the iPhone was released, the clock was running to see who the OTHER player was going to be, because ultimately, there were only going to be 2 major players, just as with desktop platforms. Google responded quickly and had the resources to do everything necessary, and developers got behind them, and by 2009, the window had closed. BB lost the race by underestimating Apple and by having built their business on a business model that both carriers and competitors had a strong desire to disrupt. They never really made money on their phones - selling phones was a pretext for getting SAFs (Subscriber Access Fees - aka money from BIS and BES). 3G networking made BIS obsolete and unnecessary, and BB had nothing to fall back on, and once behind the curve, could never catch up.

[JSmith422]

Sure, but that would have required developer support from all the major companies - something BB10 definitely lacked. Even some of the companies whose names were on the launch backgrounds never launched their apps.



BB absolutely did not have 2B to spend on marketing, or anything close. They were virtually bankrupt by the fall of 2013, and had to borrow 1.25B from Fairfax just to remain solvent.

You're also forgetting what BB10 1.0 was like in March 2013. The existing marketing reached a lot of people, who went to the stores and bought phones - and promptly returned them in droves because they couldn't run the apps those people needed because those apps didn't exist, because major third-party developers had already decided they weren't going to support a 4th-place player (WinPhone was 3rd). More marketing would have only meant more returns and a faster path towards bankruptcy.



That's part of marketing expenses, but BB did in fact have a contract with support companies to train CSRs about BB10, and did pay for premium placement of BB10 phones in the first half of 2013 - but with low sales and high returns, they canceled those contracts and let those trainers go. No amount of training solved the app problem - customers would ask "is [insert app name] available for this phone?" and if the answer was "no", as was often the case, then the customer would buy something else.

The real issue is that the launch of the iPhone in 2007 changed everything - it was the start of "Smartphone v2.0", with phones like BBOS and Symbian and WinMobile 5-6 being part of the first generation of smartphones. As soon as the iPhone was released, the clock was running to see who the OTHER player was going to be, because ultimately, there were only going to be 2 major players, just as with desktop platforms. Google responded quickly and had the resources to do everything necessary, and developers got behind them, and by 2009, the window had closed. BB lost the race by underestimating Apple and by having built their business on a business model that both carriers and competitors had a strong desire to disrupt. They never really made money on their phones - selling phones was a pretext for getting SAFs (Subscriber Access Fees - aka money from BIS and BES). 3G networking made BIS obsolete and unnecessary, and BB had nothing to fall back on, and once behind the curve, could never catch up.

Disruption is the inevitability, not the exception. So what do you see as smartphone 3.0? If history tells us anything, it won't come from Apple or Google, so what do you foresee that market looking like?

[Troy Tiscareno]

I don't see smartphones changing a whole lot from their current form. Sure, they'll evolve a bit, but the current form factor is extremely useful and convenient.

But we're already seeing "digital assistants" in the form of "smart speakers" (Alexa and Google Home) and increasingly "smart displays" eat into smartphone usage. I don't expect a major disruption in smartphones, but I do think that more and more you're going to see people using those devices alongside their phones. They'll get integrated into more and more components in the home (it's happening quite fast right now) and it's going to get very "Star Trek: The Next Generation" where talking to a "digital assistant" for information is going to be so common as to be unremarkable.

[kvndoom]

I don't see smartphones changing a whole lot from their current form. Sure, they'll evolve a bit, but the current form factor is extremely useful and convenient.

But we're already seeing "digital assistants" in the form of "smart speakers" (Alexa and Google Home) and increasingly "smart displays" eat into smartphone usage. I don't expect a major disruption in smartphones, but I do think that more and more you're going to see people using those devices alongside their phones. They'll get integrated into more and more components in the home (it's happening quite fast right now) and it's going to get very "Star Trek: The Next Generation" where talking to a "digital assistant" for information is going to be so common as to be unremarkable.

While out to dinner we just saw a commercial for a Motorola phone that came with a snap-on Alexa attachment. Granted, I was thinking an app on the phone should be adequate, but maybe there was more to it.

[bb10adopter111]

I don't see smartphones changing a whole lot from their current form. Sure, they'll evolve a bit, but the current form factor is extremely useful and convenient.

But we're already seeing "digital assistants" in the form of "smart speakers" (Alexa and Google Home) and increasingly "smart displays" eat into smartphone usage. I don't expect a major disruption in smartphones, but I do think that more and more you're going to see people using those devices alongside their phones. They'll get integrated into more and more components in the home (it's happening quite fast right now) and it's going to get very "Star Trek: The Next Generation" where talking to a "digital assistant" for information is going to be so common as to be unremarkable.

I agree that this is the most likely path. In an environment where we use our voice (and gestures) more, and where AI assistants can make increasingly good inferences about our intentions and thoughts, the main value of an individual handheld device will be privacy and as a factor in authentication. Once unbreakable, foldable screens replace glass, we'll see a new set of innovations in form factors.

In 5-10 years, I wouldn't be surprised to see power-efficient foldable screens on very thin devices that are more like a paper notebook than a current smartphone. With AI, the device will be better at presenting information you want in different contexts with less input required. Hopefully, we'll see less of a one size fits all interface.

Posted with my trusty Z10