[Mr4aces]

The editorial said BlackBerry is losing 15% per quarter for SAF on the BBOS7 devices.

One of the things some of us wanted last year was a new 9900 with upgraded hardware. Just replace the mother board so that it would have 2-3g of RAM and allow a bigger SD card with a nano SIM slot.

Make this a retro kit that would be sold with a complete mother board. Replace and repairing parts on the 9900 is easy this could be done in less than 30 minutes.

A OS8 would have to allow you to change both the IMEI (serial number) and PIN numbers so that it would not be a new device that isn't approved by the carriers. Add side loading and you have the cats meow. No games or browsing but a good text and work phone.

SAF would continue or maybe increase as people would continue to use existing devices as a primary and second phone. I could see used phone being revived.

Yes, classic sales would suffer but I really don't think as much as people would think.

A mother board for $100-150? Keep the price in this range and existing Bold users would be rocking.

Why not?

I'm have officially retired my 99 and moved on to the Classic and BB10.3.2.500 and it is rocking.

I still would buy a used 9900 and modify it with a new mother board. Load all my music and use it as a second phone as it fits in my front pockets very comfortably compared the Classic where I use a holster and battery pack just in case.

Voice your opinion on this thread. Please don't make unnecessary remarks about how the BB10 is better, the small screen, cost of the mother board and the OS will not handle the majority of the side loaded apps.

WHO CARES! ALREADY KNOW THIS!

BlackBerry won't do this unless they can make money so a $50 mother board is not going to happen. Please leave that out of this thread.

Keep all postings on this thread if you would entertain upgrading your 9900 and other modifications to this new mother board? Is there any reason why the carriers would not continue to pay the SAF with the same PIN and IMEI?

Posted via CB10

[raino]

The problem with SAF is that unlike generic data, it's an add-on fee carriers have to pay to BB. So you can imagine how much they like that. Now sure, if the demand for BBs (especially pre-BB10 types) was there, I'm sure they would (begrudgingly) eat it like they did in BB's heyday, but in most places, that demand is just not there. So investing in a system that props up this declining, and unpopular revenue stream doesn't make sense.

I'm not sure what a changeable PIN (IMEIs can't be changed. They are unique to each phone) would do. Either way, a newly activated device (with a new PIN) or an old device that you're already using is, in a binary system, one SAF hit to the carrier.

Re: OS8 and new devices--that would require a lot of time and resource investment. You mention side loading, which I'm going to assume means Android app side loading. That was never possible with OS7. So at the very least, they would have to modify OS7 to accommodate side loading, and that's no easy task given that there's Android runtime and everything was Java based.

Plus, hardware costs money. Smaller batches of hardware costs even more, considering the loss of volume discount.

[Mr4aces]

Raino, thanks your your in depth prospective.

Why not allow the IMEI to be set one time? After all it is a replacement part not a new phone.

If there is no way to program a the IMEI. As long as the "device" is on a pre approved white list and the IMEI is in constant with already issued number how is the carrier to know?

I don't know enough about the side loading but what about leaving the OS alone for now. I'm sure existing 99 owners aren't looking to load Candy Crush.

Volume? Last year the remade a new batch of 9900 to take the heat off. Would it be possible for BlackBerry to either sub this out or license it? How are the after market parts being handled now?



Posted via CB10

[serbanescu]

As far as I know, the old BBOS doesn't support 2 GB of RAM - adding more RAM would be useless.

And I doubt there are enough people out there who would still want to pay MORE for SLOWER internet access.

[Mr4aces]

After all is said and done there is less that 300mb of RAM on OS7 on a 9900. Why even consider any change without having more RAM

How much is 15% of SAF revenue per quarter? Wouldn't this warrant the cost to update the software.

The 99 is a antique group of users. If it isn't broke don't fix it so I think they are still happy using the 9900. But if they could improve it they would. People don't like changes. I sure didn't like spending a month learn and tuning the Classic and BB10 and after 4+ months I'm still not done. There is still a lot of 99's still out there I sold mine on eBay for $90 on a buy now in in less than 12 hours. People are paying $150 plus for this dinosaur.

With a new board that would complete the parts list to have a new 9900 for under $175. Erector kit just put it together. Where is there a better work phone used as a primary or secondary phone. Existing BES users would all upgrade the 9900's.

Look at eBay and do a search for 9900 there are hundreds of listings. There is a demand

Slow? How much speed do you need for messaging?


Posted via CB10

[raino]

Why not allow the IMEI to be set one time? After all it is a replacement part not a new phone.

As long as the "device" is on a pre approved white list and the IMEI is in constant with already issued number how is the carrier to know?

An IMEI is a device identifier, therefore unique. Think of it (and I think you'll appreciate this) as the VIN equivalent of the cellphone industry. There are ways to assign the same IMEI# to different devices, but they are illegal.

PINs, however, is a BB-specific system, so they are free to do with it whatever they want.

Volume? Last year the remade a new batch of 9900 to take the heat off. Would it be possible for BlackBerry to either sub this out or license it? How are the after market parts being handled now?

The 9900s from last year were listed at a ridiculous price, but I hope they sold out. Subbing the manufacturing (to reduce costs) may be possible, but QC could suffer. A cheap all-touch slab? Sure, but IDK if I'd want a Bold-line phone from a Foxconn.

[howarmat]

no, just no. let bbos die already. As good as it was back in 2007-2010 it was also on its way out. They should have killed it earlier and moved on to bb10 dev but that time has passed.

[Mr4aces]

@hiwarmat

Q? Do you are do you not think losing SAP revenue is detrimental?
Q? How much do you think it take to recover from lost revenue? It's not free it cost $$
Q? SAF, cost?

I just saying that it cost money to replace that lost revenue with different revenue. After working on the Classic for 4+ months I would never go back to using as a primary phone, but there are plenty of people that do and I might use it as a second device.

[howarmat]

@hiwarmat

Q? Do you are do you not think losing SAP revenue is detrimental?
Q? How much do you think it take to recover from lost revenue? It's not free it cost $$
Q? SAF, cost?

I just saying that it cost money to replace that lost revenue with different revenue. After working on the Classic for 4+ months I would never go back to using as a primary phone, but there are plenty of people that do and I might use it as a second device.

I know loosing the BIS fees are hurting BB but I am would guess they are replacing a good bit of that money with money from BBM products, or at least they are trying to. They have quite a few subscription services with it right now. I would also say that its less costly for BB supporting the BBM features over that of the BIS infrastructure.

I am 100% certain that it will be more beneficial to look at forwarding looking revenue paths via BBM and such over sinking any money into a dead OS and BIS fees. The costs to overhaul the internals of the 9900 would be huge, then you want to add another runtime which would be another monumental task. If it was easy to do they would have done the new internals for the 9900 re release they did last year.

You want the best way to offset the loss of the SAF...sell more damn phones. They have to get more people buying BB10 phones. they are slowing starting to make more gains on the software side but a quarter selling over 3 millions phones would be fantastic in many ways

[Mr4aces]

Matt

$100m per month is a lot of money to replace with phone and other services. Right now this money is being used to fund the companies overhead with very little cost. Where does that money come from next year? Billion dollars?

I don't see BBM ever increasing in revenue. BBM is junk as BBM10. Which become a fancy messaging app. Look at what BBM7 is and remember it was built years ago before Whatsapps and other social software.

I have to admit BBM10 being c**p has forced me to find better ways to replace BBM7.

To bad BBM10 didn't "start" at the same level as BBM7. Now it has to play catch up.

Posted via CB10

[raino]

BB would love to hold on to SAF from people who have no intention of upgrading to BB10. But let's say their cut out of a $10 BIS plan is $6. For each $200 (BoM) phone they sell for $500, that's a $300 profit, i.e. 50x the revenue from an individual SAF. So it's in BB's interest to push BB10 over BBOS.

[Mr4aces]

@Matt
Yes sell more phone, but it will take 2-4 years for BlackBerry to gain a foothold back in the market.

@Raino

Point taken but a $500 retail phone does not make them $300. I would guess there is a 40% discount so that would mean BlackBerry is only getting $300 for a phone that they only make maybe $25-$50 at the most per phone. This all a guess based on what I have read and my knowledge of manufacturing.

I think the real money is software licensing, but they need the devices to "help". It's all to complicated for an outsider to speculate.

That being said, anything to slow down the lost of SAF revenue will help them keep the cash flow positive. And it's a given that this would only be a one shot production run to update an ailing devices giving them another 3 years of service and SAF dollars. More importantly it will take slow down the migration to another platform.

Isn't Legacy devices half of the BlackBerry phones out there? 47%? And the newest model 4 years old? Therefore these owners will be replacing these with mostly non BlackBerry devices.

The 15% loss is based on the last quarter look for this percentage to increase due to more phones retiring. BlackBerry knows this or at least they should.

This just my "opinion" on why they should make a mother board.


Posted via CB10

[Mr4aces]

OK Matt here is your "sell more damn phones" reply.

Classic with OS8 thread
http://forums.crackberry.com/showthread.php?t=1015622

Posted via CB10

[howarmat]

OK Matt here is your "sell more damn phones" reply.

Classic with OS8 thread
Classic with OS8? - BlackBerry Forums at CrackBerry.com

Posted via CB10

selling more cheap phones isnt what i was meaning at all. I meant moving bb10 phones that have good margins. Ones that you don't have to sink 500 million into development into a dead OS

[Mr4aces]

selling more cheap phones isnt what i was meaning at all. I meant moving bb10 phones that have good margins. Ones that you don't have to sink 500 million into development into a dead OS

I understand what you intent was. Thank you.

Please understand this was a suggestion to slow down the revenue loss as stated in the other thread. Just don't think BlackBerry can sell that many phones today to make up for the SAF fees, which is 47% of BlackBerry revenue and shrinking.

I don't foresee this being more than a one time run to slow the migration down.

Posted via CB10

[raino]

The SAF revenue is going down because people have left/are leaving BBOS devices for other phones. BBOS-like devices (even ones with an OS8 "refresh") aren't likely to keep most of these people around. It's not the lack of choices within the BBOS arena that's causing these people to leave. So SAF (in the form of BIS) is essentially going to be non-recoverable revenue which is why the alternate strategy of device sale-based revenue was needed.

SAF was a profit/revenue maximizing solution that only an industry leader could have forced upon the end distributor of consumer-level service--in this case, the carriers. If that leverage is lost (as BB has,) the end distributor is just going to tell you to go pound sand--"you don't bring me enough revenue to warrant the cut you're asking for, plus there are alternatives that are much, much more popular (non-BIS phones) where I get to keep a larger share of that data revenue." If tomorrow, Apple's market share dries up and their user base switches away, carriers are going to stop putting up with Apple's crap too.

[Mr4aces]

Raino

I agree with you. I just don't see how BlackBerry can replace the SAF revenue which is almost 100% profit with other revenue.

It will take at least $4+ to replace that free money.

Anything to slow that lost will help.

Some people apparently don't like the transition to BB10.

The sad thing out of the millions of Legacy users only a few use CB. If they are unhappy they just move on.

If I would not have been looking to find out how to unlock a 9900 a year ago, I would have never used this website.

CB is not always newcomer friendly forum. A few people that have strong opinions and give curt answers. "Just buy a iPhone if you don't like it"

To be honest I don't know if I would have made the switch or if I did I most likely would be also one of those returning the Classic after 2 days. I sure wouldn't have stuck it out a month.

All said and done it was a good move, but what about the millions that are to busy?

If you are one of these busy people with a 9900 and get fed up with having to rebooth because you run out of RAM. You buy another BlackBerry if can't adapt you move on.

Posted via CB10

[keithhackneysmullet]

selling more cheap phones isnt what i was meaning at all. I meant moving bb10 phones that have good margins. Ones that you don't have to sink 500 million into development into a dead OS

Wow where did that 500 million dollars number come from ? BTW BB10 phone with good margins is a oxymoron. A lightly warmed over 9900 with a user BIS subscription. I would pay $5 a month for BIS and I bet a majority of of the 30 million CURRENT bbos users would. That would be 75 million in revenue per month if just half of the current users subscribed. The dead os as you call it has more than 4 times the users of bb10

Posted via CB10

[idssteve]

no, just no. let bbos die already. As good as it was back in 2007-2010 it was also on its way out. They should have killed it earlier and moved on to bb10 dev but that time has passed.

Killing BBOS earlier, before BB10 was ready, would have only killed BB earlier, IMO. BB10 needed to be ready WAY earlier. It NEEDed to be so good that BBOS would die a natural death. It wasn't. It's finally, painfully, getting there, tho. About 5 yrs too late, IMO. Bright possibilities into the future, tho. LOVE my Classic. Still carry 99 backup, tho.

[idssteve]

Realistically, I'd expect that nearly the only folks with capabilities to design a new BB10 9900 motherboard would be some harmonious marriage of the BBRY/QNX guys and some of the old RIM crew. I have NO inside info but indications around the margins point to very little coordination between those groups, historically. Unlikely that would change for the sake of what they (foolishly, IMO) view as an obsolete device.

My company, in desperation, has considered several options for improving 9900 usefulness. Custom modded motherboard being one of them. The challenges of design, fab and implementation of such a motherboard are overwhelmingly prohibitive for my organization. Modding the OS itself would be economically prohibitive for us. Unfortunately.

Other options, however, do harbor promise. Possibly the most promising strategy my "smart guys" are pursuing is to free up RAM the 9900 carves out for touch interface. We don't use the touch interface on our 9900s and have modified a lock app to lock it out anyway. The 9900's track UI is brilliantly effective, on its own. For my firm's relatively unique mission, 9900's touch actually degrades user performance, precision and efficiency, for the tasks we perform. Since we have touch locked out anyway, finding a way to utilize RAM wasted on touch in the OS should free up several hundred+ MB of additional free space, according to my "smart guys". They're working on it.

Implications do reach beyond my firm's limited mission. My 82 yr old parents are VERY tech literate but their hands and fingers are pretty "shaky". Most folks in the community they reside are pretty "shaky". Too shaky for efficient touch interaction. Too shaky to reliably prevent accidental screen touches. I've set up and donated at least a dozen 9900's for them with locked out touch interface. Also a few non-touch 9650s. Those elderly folks LOVE their track only devices! I'm a "local hero"... lol A possible niche market for BB??

[Mr4aces]

Realistically, I'd expect that nearly the only folks with capabilities to design a new BB10 9900 motherboard would be some harmonious marriage of the BBRY/QNX guys and some of the old RIM crew. I have NO inside info but indications around the margins point to very little coordination between those groups, historically. Unlikely that would change for the sake of what they (foolishly, IMO) view as an obsolete device.

My company, in desperation, has considered several options for improving 9900 usefulness. Custom modded motherboard being one of them. The challenges of design, fab and implementation of such a motherboard are overwhelmingly prohibitive for my organization. Modding the OS itself would be economically prohibitive for us. Unfortunately.

Other options, however, do harbor promise. Possibly the most promising strategy my "smart guys" are pursuing is to free up RAM the 9900 carves out for touch interface. We don't use the touch interface on our 9900s and have modified a lock app to lock it out anyway. The 9900's track UI is brilliantly effective, on its own. For my firm's relatively unique mission, 9900's touch actually degrades user performance, precision and efficiency, for the tasks we perform. Since we have touch locked out anyway, finding a way to utilize RAM wasted on touch in the OS should free up several hundred+ MB of additional free space, according to my "smart guys". They're working on it.

Implications do reach beyond my firm's limited mission. My 82 yr old parents are VERY tech literate but their hands and fingers are pretty "shaky". Most folks in the community they reside are pretty "shaky". Too shaky for efficient touch interaction. Too shaky to reliably prevent accidental screen touches. I've set up and donated at least a dozen 9900's for them with locked out touch interface. Also a few non-touch 9650s. Those elderly folks LOVE their track only devices! I'm a "local hero"... lol A possible niche market for BB??

What an enlightening post. By molding the mother board do you mean printed circuit? My ex's husband owned an North American franchise for a company that manufactured prototype circuit boards. Low production so you can to test mother boards. If that is what you mean just let me know.
If there is anything I can help you with just PM, besides it alll for the good of BB.

I would love to carry a 99 as a pocket device. Perfect size.

Never though of the shaky people not doing touch.
Nor though I would type faster with 2 thumbs vs 9 fingers.

[Mr4aces]

Is it possible to partition the memory on a BlackBerry 99? I know I had a server (Dell Power Edge?) that was a dual write that I had some memory freed up. He moved a partition on the hard drive.

Here is a link I found about free up RAM on an Android, but you most likely already know this. Just in case,

How to Increase RAM in Android Phones

[kbz1960]

Mr4, why are you so hell bent on this old OS and BIS stuff? Losing too much on your stock?

I know you want them to survive but going back to all that was and is a dead end. Think of another way for them to get revenue.

[Mr4aces]

Mr4, why are you so hell bent on this old OS and BIS stuff? Losing too much on your stock?

I know you want them to survive but going back to all that was and is a dead end. Think of another way for them to get revenue.

Only food for thought. Seems stupid to throw SAF money away. Yes, I'm with Steve the 99 is still one good device and I love the Classic.

[barbarianthemadserb]

Hey, whatever the pro/con for the BBos up grade, I am all for an upgrade. My BB9900 is still my go-to device as I prefer it over my Z10,Z30,Q10, Nexus 5, Lumia 830, Droid Turbo. But alas, at this point, it does not seem that Blackberry is interested at all in upgrading the BB9900. Soon, as more LTE conversions (TMO) are increasing, I feel that there will no longer be any 2/3/4g available for my BB9900 to work. SO, I will be forced to make a choice for my go-to device (probably the Lumia 830 or its successor). Just my opinion.