1. qwerty4ever's Avatar
    So, $1500 for KEYᵒⁿᵉ?
    The price increase should be under USD50.00 and if located in California the governor would happily welcome hordes of illegal aliens escaping factory conditions in the next People's Republic of China. Okay on second thought leave the manufacturing to China. ;-)
    DolemiteDONS likes this.
    06-02-17 02:12 PM
  2. thurask's Avatar
    The Passport was made in Mexico and the screen only partially fell off, a big difference.
    06-02-17 02:20 PM
  3. RPCBlackberry's Avatar
    You guys are so funny. Amazon lets you preorder just about anything. I can go on there right now and preorder stuff that won't be released anywhere from next week till next year. If TCL was struggling to gauge demand, this would have been a perfect metric to go by. Preorders could have gone up in March or April, showing the estimated delivery date. With the launch so close, the bulk of preorders will be front-loaded, with a steady trickle increase afterwards. At some point TCL asks Amazon how many phones they think they need to fill preorders, then pad those numbers a little for expected additional preorders and impulse sales, then put them on the slow ship from China.

    Instead they offered "pre-registration" on their website, which apparently notified customers the day phone was available to buy, even though that news was known about a week sooner. Useless.

    This was a supply issue, not a demand issue. Nobody's going to convince me that they made and have enough to meet everyone's demand but weren't sure how many to ship to the US.
    Aahhh, refreshing ... someone who makes sense. Thank you.

    Defending this launch by saying we don't know what happened so it may not be BBMobile's fault is not a defense. There's clearly an issue with management here, and it doesn't matter if they calculated supply wrong or had something at the factory go wrong that they had no Plan B for, either way it's been mishandled to the point where forum members (who are usually pretty dialed in) had many questions that were left unanswered just days before (and even after) the launch.

    I really hesitate to call this a launch, because it really wasn't. BBMobile figured they could spin a sell-out of devices a lot easier than try to spin another delay. Proper management would not have allowed this to get to this point, they came to press to early and made too many promises and they had to keep the date of the 31st, even if that meant releasing a small number of devices just to say they "launched" the phone and kept there promise. What happened on the 31st was not a launch, it was BBMobile trying to cover-up the fact that they weren't ready yet.
    06-02-17 02:51 PM
  4. conite's Avatar

    Defending this launch by saying we don't know what happened so it may not be BBMobile's fault is not a defense.
    Personally I'm not defending the launch. I'm reserving judgement until I know enough information to make an intelligent assessment.

    I don't leap from "short supply in some channels" to "management is clearly incompetent".
    DolemiteDONS likes this.
    06-02-17 02:57 PM
  5. bb10adopter111's Avatar
    You guys are so funny. Amazon lets you preorder just about anything. I can go on there right now and preorder stuff that won't be released anywhere from next week till next year. If TCL was struggling to gauge demand, this would have been a perfect metric to go by. Preorders could have gone up in March or April, showing the estimated delivery date. With the launch so close, the bulk of preorders will be front-loaded, with a steady trickle increase afterwards. At some point TCL asks Amazon how many phones they think they need to fill preorders, then pad those numbers a little for expected additional preorders and impulse sales, then put them on the slow ship from China.

    Instead they offered "pre-registration" on their website, which apparently notified customers the day phone was available to buy, even though that news was known about a week sooner. Useless.

    This was a supply issue, not a demand issue. Nobody's going to convince me that they made and have enough to meet everyone's demand but weren't sure how many to ship to the US.
    That would make sense if selling via Amazon had been their first choice, but it wasn't. They were doing everything they could to bring carriers on board, and that means not trying to cannibalize sales via other retail channels. It's pretty obvious that they did not optimize for Amazon. If they had, they could have simply sent 100% of their inventory to Amazon in an exclusive deal. Instead, they dispersed it across multiple channels, likely trying to establish their partnership with Best Buy for future products.

    I think the scenario that most fits the evidence is that, when they failed to garner widespread US and European carrier/retail support coming out of MWC in February, they projected demand based on the direct purchase of equivalent Alcatel and other similar Android phones, which is relatively low, and failed to anticipate that many BlackBerry fans were old pros at buying direct.

    Once their demand projections were handed off to the procurement and manufacturing team, the die was cast. Purchasing agreements, line retooling, sub-assemblies, etc were all scheduled and committed.

    After that, the only options were reactionary ones, such as postponing the North American launch. They did not have time to increase manufacturing capacity. So they stopped unnecessary promotions and advertising in hope of tamping down demand at launch. Then they decided to a try to capture as many ses as they could by allowing people to order for later delivery on Amazon.

    I have no idea if this is what actually happened, but it is the most likely scenario I could come up with. It only requires a single, reasonable mistake (underestimating demand), and then everything else becomes more or less inevitable.

    Posted with my trusty Z10
    06-02-17 03:01 PM
  6. stlabrat's Avatar
    If it made sense, TCL, and many others, would do it in a heartbeat. The fact is, it's not even close.

    DTEK60 / Z30
    You forgot it is China. Gov got vast interest to keep job at home. Not just financial.
    06-02-17 03:04 PM
  7. conite's Avatar
    You forgot it is China. Gov got vast interest to keep job at home. Not just financial.
    If companies here could even come close to competing, the jobs wouldn't have gone there in the first place.
    06-02-17 03:06 PM
  8. stlabrat's Avatar
    If companies here could even come close to competing, the jobs wouldn't have gone there in the first place.
    There are plenty heading home now with automation. Robot is much cheaper nowadays. (besides, design got everything to do with it, if you made it for robot, not labour intensive, the advantage of Chinese is minimized. It all in the design... however, one of the downside of NA is lack of designer with MFG know how, that made automation difficult)..
    06-02-17 03:11 PM
  9. Frenzytom's Avatar
    So far, we have:
    - Lack of supply
    - Just-In-Time (JIT) Manufacturing - Build what is needed
    - Too much demand
    - Carrier Interference
    - Last minute manufacturing defect
    - Management incompetence
    - Delivery delays
    - Anything else?
    bluesqueen23 likes this.
    06-02-17 03:20 PM
  10. BeautyEh's Avatar
    Yes, only the GSM model.... none of the stores close to me had any, but Culver City, Glendale, West Hollywood and Chino all had them to buy and pick up at the store. I actually had one for Glendale in my cart, but I decided to just wait until I can get it more locally... Downey or Puente Hills would be would have been okay for me... maybe Cerritios.
    I tried here in Long Beach and they were sold out.

    Posted via CB10
    06-02-17 03:24 PM
  11. howarmat's Avatar
    So far, we have:
    - Lack of supply
    - Just-In-Time (JIT) Manufacturing - Build what is needed
    - Too much demand
    - Carrier Interference
    - Last minute manufacturing defect
    - Management incompetence
    - Delivery delays
    - Anything else?
    kevin bought them all
    06-02-17 03:24 PM
  12. bb10adopter111's Avatar
    There are plenty heading home now with automation. Robot is much cheaper nowadays. (besides, design got everything to do with it, if you made it for robot, not labour intensive, the advantage of Chinese is minimized. It all in the design... however, one of the downside of NA is lack of designer with MFG know how, that made automation difficult)..
    Except that the US is falling behind China and Europe in the design and manufacture of robots, and the US is not becoming energy efficient as fast as they are, either, which becomes more and more critical as energy costs become a larger component if manufacturing spend.

    Manufacturing may come back to the US, but it will be in automated factories owned by international companies with a few jobs for technicians and people with advanced degrees to optimize production, and the robots will be manufactured elsewhere.

    As the US continues to surrender leadership in science, technology, and sustainability, the main strategic reason to manufacture in the US is to be closer to customers. But will that still be true when Americans can't afford to buy the best stuff anymore?

    Posted with my trusty Z10
    Bbnivende likes this.
    06-02-17 03:28 PM
  13. OrlandoAlex's Avatar
    I really hesitate to call this a launch, because it really wasn't. BBMobile figured they could spin a sell-out of devices a lot easier than try to spin another delay.
    This is the best analysis I've read on the KEYone launch failure. They made a call a month, or perhaps just a couple of weeks ago, that they were pressing forward with the May 31 "launch" date regardless of available stock. From a PR standpoint it's a no-brainer, an absolute no-contest decision. You would much rather say their most optimistic projections were too low, implying demand is incredibly high, than say "we still haven't worked out our production line, so we have to delay it again."

    Still, this fails to account for the absence of CDMA units. Just a few hours before "launch day," BlackBerry Mobile reassured customers that Amazon would be selling CDMA units on May 31, and it's almost certain that wasn't true, given that not a single one of them has surfaced, either in the hands of a fan on CB or Reddit, or on the second-hand market. The CDMA KEYone does not exist and production delays don't explain that alone, given that literally hours before it was supposed to be for sale TCL believed they had units in stock.
    brunibruni likes this.
    06-02-17 04:11 PM
  14. RPCBlackberry's Avatar
    There's also the fact that US pre-registration only got you an email to buy the K1 after inventory was depleted. We could go on, but there's too many flaws with the launch to list out without a single post getting long-winded. And even after all of the hiccups and a fake launch, apparently to some I'm making an unintelligent assessment of the launch by calling the management team incompetent.
    06-02-17 04:18 PM
  15. bb10adopter111's Avatar
    There's also the fact that US pre-registration only got you an email to buy the K1 after inventory was depleted. We could go on, but there's too many flaws with the launch to list out without a single post getting long-winded. And even after all of the hiccups and a fake launch, apparently to some I'm making an unintelligent assessment of the launch by calling the management team incompetent.
    Except bad outcomes don't require incompetence. That's the thinking of people like malpractice lawyers who want to blame doctors when someone has a bad medical outcome, even if the doctors made reasonable decisions at every point.

    There are two main risks involved in manufacturing products: making too many and not making enough. In general companies don't go broke making too few, but they can easily go broke making too many.

    Underestimating demand doesn't require incompetence, and if that's what happened, everything else we see would naturally follow.

    Posted with my trusty Z10
    06-02-17 04:46 PM
  16. ltoncb's Avatar
    That would make sense if selling via Amazon had been their first choice, but it wasn't. They were doing everything they could to bring carriers on board, ....

    I think the scenario that most fits the evidence is that, when they failed to garner widespread US and European carrier/retail support coming out of MWC in February,
    Technically BlackBerryMobile had only existed for what 2-4 months before MWC in February. Should they have been surprised that there was limited carrier buy in? Yes, this is TCL with another branding label out in front, but the carriers knew just as well as BBMobile what the sales of Blackberry branded phones had been over the last 2-3 years and what the general trend line was.


    they projected demand based on the direct purchase of equivalent Alcatel and other similar Android phones, which is relatively low, and failed to anticipate that many BlackBerry fans were old pros at buying direct.
    I think this is way off. What you are sweeping under the rug here is the general trend that BlackBerry branded phones have been on over the last 2-3 years. Yes the KeyOne is a different "blend" of features that will have somewhat different traction in the market, but the market forecast complete absent of Blackberry and solely based on Alcatel (or Alcatel + Dtek phones ) would be more than puzzling myopic on TCL's part.

    The hardware business was sold off because it didn't work. TCL wouldn't have it in the first place is it was a "no brainer" phone for the carriers to sign up for.


    BBMobile probably estimated low because low has been the trend for BB phones for the last 2-3 years. Throw on top the "Hey we're new, but you should believe our projections way more than your own" sales pitch to the carriers and ....... landing in the unlocked distribution mode should not have been surprising at all. In fact that should have been "Plan A" from the very start. Trying to get the phones prudently quickly qualified on carriers also should have been be "Plan A". "Plan B" would be the carriers buying in. It worked in Canada and didn't other places ... that shouldn't be a shocker.

    There is little to no evidence that buying direct wasn't on the primary track. That doesn't mean putting in a half-baked effort at the carriers.

    Once their demand projections were handed off to the procurement and manufacturing team, the die was cast. Purchasing agreements, line retooling, sub-assemblies, etc were all scheduled and committed.
    This part and most of the rest ... yes.

    After that, the only options were reactionary ones, such as postponing the North American launch.
    I think they also over estimated how effective segmented launches would be. I think a substantive number of phones 'leaked' out of the UK and Germany into other EU markets and a lower number to USA and Canada. The effectiveness of the "segment release" triage probably wasn't as good as they hoped.

    Once they got into an extended shortage more they only attracted more speculators. It is like send up the "come get me" bat signal. Speculators are just going to come in and make it worse because they make more money in that market.

    They probably had stepped increases in production capacity. ( make 2K/week phones well. check quality . increment higher . rinse-and-repeat). I suspect the hope was that the incremental adds would allow them to build up some inventory to enter the new countries they were adding. The problem appears to be that much of incremental build was still doing "back fill" into the places they already launched into.

    There was only so long they could delay selling at Amazon/Best Buy also. Those to were probably set at initial limits months ago and then they could only move the dial only so much.
    06-02-17 04:51 PM
  17. Shintocam's Avatar
    I like to think they made more, but the screens fell off.


    Posted via CB10
    06-02-17 04:52 PM
  18. RPCBlackberry's Avatar
    Except bad outcomes don't require incompetence. That's the thinking of people like malpractice lawyers who want to blame doctors when someone has a bad medical outcome, even if the doctors made reasonable decisions at every point.

    There are two main risks involved in manufacturing products: making too many and not making enough. In general companies don't go broke making too few, but they can easily go broke making too many.

    Underestimating demand doesn't require incompetence, and if that's what happened, everything else we see would naturally follow.

    Posted with my trusty Z10
    There wasn't an underestimation of demand, that's not what happened, don't kid yourself. There was a miscalculation of production vs the launch date. This happened not once, but twice, despite the fact that they only committed to an entire month vs a single day to launch.

    Steve himself made the claim that they pushed back the launch to increase time for more production because of demand exceeding predictions. I never believed that and I'm glad it came back to haunt him, because you shouldn't try to BS consumers these days (really hard to do now that we're all connected). You also can't delay the initial launch because demand was underestimated and then not meet demand (in spectacular fashion) when the product is finally launched without there being some level of incompetence within the management team.

    An underestimation of demand did not cause all of this, there's too many other things that have gone wrong. Finding out that CDMA was not available after the fact has nothing to do with demand. Getting an email sent to me long after the phone had sold out is not a demand problem. It's bad management, no matter which way you cut it.
    06-02-17 05:02 PM
  19. u4ria's Avatar
    Not even. Probably 1000-2000 were in Amazon's warehouses.
    Probably that. But why do you guys care? Remember, this is a niche product aimed at Enterprise, business and prosumers. None of which label fits people here, right?

    Besides, they probably maxed out production to keep up with all those Enterprise clients who are tripping over each other to replace their fleet of iPhones and Galaxy X devices with something labelled BlackBerry.

    You guys aren't looking at the amazing results. Like MOST EVER PRE ORDERS on Rogers!!!!! They're popping champagne over there at BlackBerry Mobile HQ.
    06-02-17 05:28 PM
  20. stlabrat's Avatar
    http://utbblogs.com/category/utbblackberry/
    It postpone his interview, I guess he is in warehouse packing K1. :-)

    Posted via CB10
    06-02-17 05:57 PM
  21. u4ria's Avatar
    http://utbblogs.com/category/utbblackberry/
    It postpone his interview, I guess he is in warehouse packing K1. :-)

    Posted via CB10
    Doubt it. He's working on his twitter updates instead. This time it may be a 6 part message though. Stay tuned!
    06-02-17 06:28 PM
  22. stlabrat's Avatar
    144x6? That is very hard to quench the fan's fire... better have news for all the chaps running around best buy store to chase the illusive K1.
    06-02-17 06:52 PM
  23. RPCBlackberry's Avatar
    http://utbblogs.com/category/utbblackberry/
    It postpone his interview, I guess he is in warehouse packing K1. :-)

    Posted via CB10
    I wouldn't want to have to answer questions if I were him either. Much easier to make vague statements via Twitter.
    06-02-17 07:05 PM
  24. mister2d's Avatar
    Probably that. But why do you guys care? Remember, this is a niche product aimed at Enterprise, business and prosumers. None of which label fits people here, right?

    Besides, they probably maxed out production to keep up with all those Enterprise clients who are tripping over each other to replace their fleet of iPhones and Galaxy X devices with something labelled BlackBerry.

    You guys aren't looking at the amazing results. Like MOST EVER PRE ORDERS on Rogers!!!!! They're popping champagne over there at BlackBerry Mobile HQ.
    If they're popping champagne over potentially 2000 phones, I don't know what to say. Sounds incredibly idiotic. You can be a eBay seller and do that much. No need to fork a company.

    Further, no one is tripping over themselves to dump a Samsung or iPhone for a Keyone.

    And lastly, how do you know what label fits people here that read, post, or lurk to make such as sweeping statement?
    06-02-17 07:30 PM
  25. u4ria's Avatar
    If they're popping champagne over potentially 2000 phones, I don't know what to say. Sounds incredibly idiotic. You can be a eBay seller and do that much. No need to fork a company.

    Further, no one is tripping over themselves to dump a Samsung or iPhone for a Keyone.

    And lastly, how do you know what label fits people here that read, post, or lurk to make such as sweeping statement?
    I should have used green font or ended that with /s.
    mister2d likes this.
    06-02-17 07:40 PM
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