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So the Merc sounds like it's just going to be canned after hearing what Marty Beard had to say at the DTEK60 launch, yet Thurber kinda seemed to speak differently, and we had Merc go thru geekbench, so is it coming and it's just from a partner, or is BlackBerry doing it, or was Chen being series when he said he was undecided and now decided not to???
Is anyone as lost/feeling letdown/betrayed/confused/still slightly hopeful??
�lack�erry PASSPORT
Not dead. Just not built by BlackBerry.
Not built by BlackBerry... and so far still looking to see if anyone else will license, build, distribute and sell it.
Most likely the Mercury as it has been rumored is dead. Someone will probably pick up the "design" but they'll make changes to fit whatever their market is. I doubt the Indonesian market wants a premium PKB, a $200 or $300 design might fit best there (actually I think the average price there is $150 - but high end phones do sell there). Other markets (if any) will have other needs based on their target audience.
If BBRY are getting out of hardware by next quarter and the only partner is making low-end phones...
a) There is a partner we don't know about? (but why say yesterday there are currently no other partners - maybe contracts not signed)
b) The Indonesian licensee holder is going to make it?
c) BBRY are lying in their earning call and other conversations and aren't getting out of hardware... even though they said they are yesterday?
d) ?????????????????
So no RGB LED and BlackBerry branding on the front? :p
Z30STA100-2/10.3.2.2876
I think they mentioned talks with Chinese and/ or Indian OEMs. Maybe they are trying to establish a deal. Who knows. What a mess.
No dark hub either I bet...
Posted without the aid of AutoCorrect with my physical keyboard via CB10
There is no Qwerty phone to license, but the rumors tell us that it's a BlackBerry designed phone... So may be Foxconn? Like the passport?
Blaz1ze,
I think part of the confusion comes from how BlackBerry and it's executives are telling the message.
When they announced they are getting out of the internal hardware development game by the end of the fiscal year, I took that as all BlackBerry designed phones are done by the end of the year.
When I think of a BlackBerry phone, I take it as a device that was designed, tested by BlackBerry employees. After that phase BlackBerry would order the needed parts and have a contract manufacturer build the device. Obviously this was an expensive exercise which limited BlackBerry's ability to price their phones well.
What I suspected might have occurred with the Mercury was that BlackBerry would have designed the phone internally and then gone ahead and passed the design to a manufacturer such as Wistron, Foxconn etc and then carried the inventory or maybe not.
From all indications it appears that the Mercury was designed by BlackBerry internally. It also appears that might have been killed in favor of having another company design and manufacture the phones along with carrying the inventory.
I think people get too hung up on who's building the phone when at the end of the day, BlackBerry hasn't built phones in Waterloo for example in YEARS.
Posted via CB10
You don't need to tell me. I'm fully aware. I like Marty Beard, he's a nice guy, he's good for BlackBerry, but everything was going nicely between the comments made by John Chen and Alex Thurber. Then, Marty said what he said and now everything is twisted up in confusion again.
As for the rest of your comments, all I have to say on those are... I've been saying all along that the supposed renders of the Mercury look too good for a device supposedly built by BlackBerry. I'm not talking about Dylan's renders, just those initial ones that popped up that Dylan based his off of.
Yes. :-| to your last comment.
"Is anyone as lost/feeling letdown/betrayed/confused/still slightly hopeful??"
Time to dream:
And in the fairy-tale epic saga movie script about BlackBerry, in the world of dreams, the unplanned timing of the release of the DTEK60 after the demise of the note7 and the rumors of apple iPhone "touch disease" (look it up--it exists) and the issues with the pixel's camera (also exists according to news accounts), a strange and unprecedented phenomenon unfolded. Somehow the word got out about the Mysterious BlackBerry DTEK60 - - somehow. Maybe it was via some BlackBerry fanboys who rigged up a clandestine marketing blitz as a last ditch effort to bring BlackBerry phones back to their former glory so they could have a continued supply for their insatiable BlackBerry phone addictions. In this dream the DTEK60 started to sell and it went viral. There was a run on them and they sold faster than they could be produced, because no one expected them to be THAT popular. Then people found out about the other BlackBerry android phones, the Priv and the DTEK50. Then a demand for BB10 phones was generated and they sold out, and to make money on the windfall BlackBerry went into production again and also found numerous cell phone builders knocking at their doors. APP makers suddenly all wanted to make apps work on the BB10 phones. Because of this a Priv 2 as well as the android Mercury was brought out along with new BB10 phones.
Alarm clock...
Um. Too bad the release of the DTEK60 was such a drab announcement. Here was a great flagship quality phone being released as an afterthought to the software message which could have also been made more interesting. Beard hardly smiled. Why not make it exciting? Both the announcement about the phone and software message. Watching it I asked myself, what does this mean to me? How do I buy the security? Who are their customers? I CAN buy a phone but how about some hype? The web cast was hard to access, as well. And where was Thurber? However, Beard was much better to announce it than Chen.
Still confused, and in half-denial.
Thurber and Chen promise it's coming, device shows up on Geekbench, we see another rumor about it being from TCL :
https://www.blackberrycentral.com/ne...ur-roundup-42/
And now suddenly it's all but considered dead?
Yes. following the mercury for the past month has been a rollercoaster ride.
Started off with the renders, leaks, and Chen interview, climaxing with Thurber's interview, then all crashing down with Marty's interview.
I just don't understand how 3 different executives can share such contrasting stances on the phone in such a short period of time. Don't they have a PR person telling them what can/cannot be said? They're literally trolling the fans that want a pkb.
It reeks of internal indecision and mismanagement, doesn't it? Not encouraging in the slightest.
Posted on my Model M
BlackBerry stuck with hardware for as long as they could. It fit well with the idea that only BlackBerry can provide the best end to end secure options to "the regulated industries".
Chen, Thurber and Beard have all expressed an optimistic view as to the future of BlackBerry devices. Marty Beard has just provided us with the latest reality check: they need partners to move forward with devices, but so far no one has signed up.
Those rumours are pretty baseless. Samsung? Really?
I hope they stay far away from Samsung. Just my personal opinion.
They already have a security software partnership with Samsung,
True, but I was thinking about the current issues with Samsung Note7 phones. They will probably pull through just fine but it is not really in BlackBerry's best interest to be associated to closely with them when it comes to hardware until the dust has settled a bit. I hope BlackBerry doesn't completely abandon their identity when it concerns the appearance and build style of handsets, even if others build them. However, it looks a little tenuous at the moment.
Unfortunately, I don't think you have to worry to much about a Samsung partnership. So far the only deal on the table that we know of is from Indonesia and still nothing has been signed.
Yeap, two different things.
I understand the message Marty provided. What I don't understand is what caused the seemingly optimistic outlook to turn sour. Is it poor sales? If that was the internal metric to justify the program, I think they should have kept a tighter lip about the device until seeing concrete sales figures of dtek50.
In light of the fact that this pkb program must have been active for several years to date, the fact that Chen announced the pkb alongside dtek50/60, and the fact that the trio of phones were announced in conjunction with the possibility of hardware shutting down, why can't BB release the pkb aka. mercury and start the new licensing strategy afterwards? Surely their licensing strategy wasn't something they pulled out of their hat within the past 2 months?
Probably because their original optimism didn't match the current sales revenue trend and they simply can't afford to loose any more money on hardware.
Actually no, there will be.
Cody had mentioned its on the road map :D
Z30STA100-2/10.3.2.2876
So the geekbench marks mean????? Nothing??
�lack�erry PASSPORT