[Xano]

with everything going south here (the news or lack there of) is it just me or are things getting strange here.....

Maybe tired of waiting ... Fake promises, delays, lack of support. Welcome to old RIM time!

[David Davis]

Blackberry is a corporation. It is interested in profit and not necessarily in pleasing a customer base. Mr.: Thorsten Heins has no intention of placating the BB Playbook owners. That was a Jim Balsillie initiative. All this wasted speculation will not change the fact that the BB Playbook is in EOL status. Kevin gave up talking about anything that is legacy since BB10 came out with the exception of selling accessories and peripherals. If you think you have a friend in Kevin you are sadly mistaken.

[kbz1960]

Blackberry is a corporation. It is interested in profit and not necessarily in pleasing a customer base. Mr.: Thorsten Heins has no intention of placating the BB Playbook owners. That was a Jim Balsillie initiative. All this wasted speculation will not change the fact that the BB Playbook is in EOL status. Kevin gave up talking about anything that is legacy since BB10 came out with the exception of selling accessories and peripherals. If you think you have a friend in Kevin you are sadly mistaken.

I see. So BBRY doesn't need happy customers that make repeat purchases. Thanks for clearing that up.

[CairnsRock]

I see. So BBRY doesn't need happy customers that make repeat purchases. Thanks for clearing that up.

It's only 2 million of them. They prefer to focus on the 60 million phone subscribers.

[kbz1960]

Yes I know. The company can not walk and chew gum at the same time.

[EJMORENO]

Good, I would like to know that I do with my blackberry Playbook if it is obsolete?

[Xano]

Blackberry is a corporation. It is interested in profit and not necessarily in pleasing a customer base. Mr.: Thorsten Heins has no intention of placating the BB Playbook owners. That was a Jim Balsillie initiative. All this wasted speculation will not change the fact that the BB Playbook is in EOL status. Kevin gave up talking about anything that is legacy since BB10 came out with the exception of selling accessories and peripherals. If you think you have a friend in Kevin you are sadly mistaken.

Maybe that's the reason BB continues to fall, according to IDC Windows Phone already pass BB in the 1Q13. BlackBerry continuing its slide in falling to 2.9%.

[FF22]

There is also GOOD WILL at stake. He/they/them/rim/bbry made a promise, not date certain, but said bb10 would be coming to all pb's. Deliver or get constant skewering.

[Thunderbuck]

This is giving me a headache.

There is no story here. No conspiracy, no bait-and-switch. BlackBerry has been working full-out to make the Z10/Q10 rollouts as successful as possible, because their survival as a business depends on it. They need tens of millions of sales of these devices, and they need to do everything they can to convince enterprise and government customers that they can still provide a trustworthy MDM platform. In light of this, frankly, the demands of 2.3 million PlayBook owners just don't represent the same priority, and it's ludicrous to expect that. Especially when at least some of those PB owners are still happy with OS2.1.

BlackBerry has done a remarkable job of meeting its targets in the past 18 months. The had an original launch target of Q4 calendar '12, and that only slipped a month. They've met their targets for BES functionality (and this is HUGE--possibly more important than the phones themselves both in complexity and in relevance to BlackBerry's future). They've made--and kept--huge commitments to developers and brought in tens of thousands of students and hobbyists into the app marketplace.

They've just completed a corporate event that many industry analysts didn't expect them to survive long enough to get to. Think about that for a minute.

I'm not trying to excuse BB in any way, I'm just setting some context here. I would have been very pleased to have heard some word on the PlayBook during BB Live, but I'm not extremely surprised that it wasn't mentioned. For one thing, it's one of the few targets they've publicly declared that HAS slipped (the release was originally set for "shortly after" the handset launches). For another thing, mention of the PlayBook might have sent an unintended signal that BB was still committed to the tablet market, which they may not be. Finally, for all intents and purposes the PlayBook is a dead-end product. I'm skeptical that there's any inventory left to sell, and it's a brand that has taken on an air of failure. BB10 on the PlayBook will do little to help BB's bottom line in any objective way.

There are technical issues that are likely in play here, too. As a Dev Alpha A user, I can vouch that BB10 as it appeared on release absolutely will run on 1GB RAM, and in some ways it's much better than OS2.1 (boot time is lightning fast, for instance). There definitely are issues, though; it's not as smooth as on the Z10 and if too many apps are left running in Active Frames you see serious slowdowns and force-closes. There are ways to mitigate this, like limiting the number of open Active Frames or more aggressive memory management, but these are specific to the PlayBook, so, again, the business case for spending money on solving these issues isn't strong.

There are issues with developers, too. Will all the apps that ran on OS2.1 work on BB10? How motivated will developers be to update their apps? Will current PB owners get free app updates? How will PB Music Store and Video Store purchases transfer over to BB World? These are business issues that may even be more difficult to resolve than the technical ones. And, again, not a strong business case for spending a lot of time or money to resolve them.

I believe that the BB10 upgrade is coming for the PlayBook, and it may well come in the form that Kevin speculated on in his CB post in February. It will have a different UI, it may not include the Hub, and it might well disappoint many users in ways I can't foresee right now. I also believe that BB is committed to providing this despite the questionable business case, because they know that the PlayBook user community supported the company through the worst of its crisis. I'll admit, I wouldn't stake my life on this by any stretch, but until I hear definitive word from BB that it isn't coming, I'll try to be patient.

[Orange UK]

It's only 2 million of them. They prefer to focus on the 60 million phone subscribers.

And 55 million of them prefer highest spec mobiles, Samsung and Sony...BB major selling factors were security and and data compression and people bought lower spec BB because of these features and the market got QandZ with neither lol


Rules
1know your market.

2never **** on your core market.


3.end user of product is most IMPORTANT part of the chain, product, warranty, care.
Right product, right place, right time.

[bluenote]

This is giving me a headache.

There is no story here. No conspiracy, no bait-and-switch. BlackBerry has been working full-out to make the Z10/Q10 rollouts as successful as possible, because their survival as a business depends on it. They need tens of millions of sales of these devices, and they need to do everything they can to convince enterprise and government customers that they can still provide a trustworthy MDM platform. In light of this, frankly, the demands of 2.3 million PlayBook owners just don't represent the same priority, and it's ludicrous to expect that. Especially when at least some of those PB owners are still happy with OS2.1.

BlackBerry has done a remarkable job of meeting its targets in the past 18 months. The had an original launch target of Q4 calendar '12, and that only slipped a month. They've met their targets for BES functionality (and this is HUGE--possibly more important than the phones themselves both in complexity and in relevance to BlackBerry's future). They've made--and kept--huge commitments to developers and brought in tens of thousands of students and hobbyists into the app marketplace.

They've just completed a corporate event that many industry analysts didn't expect them to survive long enough to get to. Think about that for a minute.

I'm not trying to excuse BB in any way, I'm just setting some context here. I would have been very pleased to have heard some word on the PlayBook during BB Live, but I'm not extremely surprised that it wasn't mentioned. For one thing, it's one of the few targets they've publicly declared that HAS slipped (the release was originally set for "shortly after" the handset launches). For another thing, mention of the PlayBook might have sent an unintended signal that BB was still committed to the tablet market, which they may not be. Finally, for all intents and purposes the PlayBook is a dead-end product. I'm skeptical that there's any inventory left to sell, and it's a brand that has taken on an air of failure. BB10 on the PlayBook will do little to help BB's bottom line in any objective way.

There are technical issues that are likely in play here, too. As a Dev Alpha A user, I can vouch that BB10 as it appeared on release absolutely will run on 1GB RAM, and in some ways it's much better than OS2.1 (boot time is lightning fast, for instance). There definitely are issues, though; it's not as smooth as on the Z10 and if too many apps are left running in Active Frames you see serious slowdowns and force-closes. There are ways to mitigate this, like limiting the number of open Active Frames or more aggressive memory management, but these are specific to the PlayBook, so, again, the business case for spending money on solving these issues isn't strong.

There are issues with developers, too. Will all the apps that ran on OS2.1 work on BB10? How motivated will developers be to update their apps? Will current PB owners get free app updates? How will PB Music Store and Video Store purchases transfer over to BB World? These are business issues that may even be more difficult to resolve than the technical ones. And, again, not a strong business case for spending a lot of time or money to resolve them.

I believe that the BB10 upgrade is coming for the PlayBook, and it may well come in the form that Kevin speculated on in his CB post in February. It will have a different UI, it may not include the Hub, and it might well disappoint many users in ways I can't foresee right now. I also believe that BB is committed to providing this despite the questionable business case, because they know that the PlayBook user community supported the company through the worst of its crisis. I'll admit, I wouldn't stake my life on this by any stretch, but until I hear definitive word from BB that it isn't coming, I'll try to be patient.

I hear you. They sold 370K Playbooks as late as last quarter. They confused the market by saying (in Jan? in Feb?) that they would bring BB10 to the Playbook and I believe it was re-iterated as late as March. Then the other day, when given the opportunity to re-iterate their promise, they don't say its coming but we can't give a date. They don't say its coming and we have teams working on it (like they said a few months ago). They don't say its coming but we have engineering issues in figuring out how to scale it down to the Playbook. Rather they say they want to focus their dollars on the future. So to my mind, they changed their focus and no longer are spending dollars or having teams dedicated to getting BB10 on the Playbook

They are to be commended for doing an impossible job. At the same time there is this nagging bad taste in my mouth from the way they've shrugged off their promises to a portion of their user base. And not even did it forthrightly.

I hope they make it right by leaking some version that will work and that will let people have a faster browser and use the BB10 apps on their Playbook. Losing a playbook owner could mean losing the 3 or 4 other Apple/Android people the Playbook owner knows and could have told them about Blackberry.

[Xano]

The problem of BB is not PlayBook, calls iPhone 5S and iPhone mini arriving next quarter. They will sell like Cup cakes with people like Alicia Keys running to buy it. Probably they will sell in one week what BB will sell in is entire year. I start to see a lack of vision on BB line and his CEO speech scars me. "Tablets market will be dead soon" the size of a screen phone still limited to multiple tasks. Apple has no vision? Z10 Is a iPhone evolution. Many people is already declaring Apple's obit. Personally I believe they will revolutionary the market again and iOS 7 will be another game change.

[Thunderbuck]

I hear you. They sold 370K Playbooks last quarter. They confused the market by saying (in Jan? in Feb?) that they would bring BB10 to the Playbook and I believe it was re-iterated as late as March. Then the other day, when given the opportunity to re-iterate their promise, they don't say its coming but we can't give a date. They don't say its coming and we have teams working on it (like they said a few months ago). They don't say its coming but we have engineering issues in figuring out how to scale it down to the Playbook. Rather they say they want to focus their dollars on the future. So to my mind, they changed their focus and no longer are spending dollars or having teams dedicated to getting BB10 on the Playbook

They are to be commended for doing an impossible job. At the same time there is this nagging bad taste in my mouth from the way they've shrugged off their promises to a portion of their user base. And not even did it forthrightly.

I hope they make it right by leaking some version that will work and that will let people have a faster browser and use the BB10 apps on their Playbook. Losing a playbook owner could mean losing the 3 or 4 other Apple/Android people the Playbook owner knows and could have told them about Blackberry.

They didn't "confuse the market" over anything. The commitment to providing BB10 for the PlayBook has been consistent and clear. The release date has slipped, sure, but that actually happens in tech, amazingly enough.

I have to admit, I see some possibility in the "leaked unofficial OS" scenario, since it would allow BB to avoid some of the business issues I noted above, and that's pretty much what happened with OS7 Theme Builder. Maybe I'm being too accommodating, but I'd actually even consider that to be "promise kept".

[tphp]

Didn't read through this thread. I just came out of a meeting with a BlackBerry rep, and I asked her about OS10 on PlayBook.

Basically she said she doesn't know, there's been no time line communicated from upper management. She also said one problem is that OS10 requires 2 gigs of RAM. There seemed to be a good possibility that OS10 would arrive on the LTE PlayBooks, but that they were considering a light version of the OS for the rest of the 1 GB PlayBooks.

Posted via CB10

The Dev Alpha devices have 1GB RAM, they run BB10 fine.

[blueberrymerry]

I think BBRY just took a dump on their core market, the people who stuck with the Playbook's constant stream of broken promises. That core market will then tell people who are considering Z10's and Q10's to stay the hell away from a company that can and will dump a product without a thought to existing customers. Those potential new customers will be steered to Android, iOS and WinPhone while BBRY sticks to an ever-shrinking loyal base.

Been screwed by BBRY once, twice, not any more.

[kevinnugent]

They didn't "confuse the market" over anything. The commitment to providing BB10 for the PlayBook has been consistent and clear. The release date has slipped, sure, but that actually happens in tech, amazingly enough.

I have to admit, I see some possibility in the "leaked unofficial OS" scenario, since it would allow BB to avoid some of the business issues I noted above, and that's pretty much what happened with OS7 Theme Builder. Maybe I'm being too accommodating, but I'd actually even consider that to be "promise kept".

You're a very lenient score keeper, TB. Are you sure you're not Rick from Pawn Stars??

[easydoesit99]

While an intangible, GOOD WILL is also part of parcel of running a profitable company. So while there is possibly no direct profit benefit (see below), good will could earn them additional profit.

There also might be profit - indirect - from selling bb10 apps (Blackberry World) to an estimated one million (higher/lower) pb owners who might want a few of those new apps.

I am sure that there are a few economists out there that can estimate the returns. Maybe they have and that's why we've seen nothing but I suspect that there is money to be made.

Hmm. Germans and good will. Nope sorry, never heard of it.

Posted via CB10

[easydoesit99]

Good, I would like to know that I do with my blackberry Playbook if it is obsolete?

Put it on Kijiji. But start high, say $50. You MIGHT get a an offer. Take $20 if you can get it.

Posted via CB10

[kevinnugent]

Put it on Kijiji. But start high, say $50. You MIGHT get a an offer. Take $20 if you can get it.

Posted via CB10

You can still get $100 or so on eBay for a near new one.

[easydoesit99]

This is giving me a headache.

There is no story here. No conspiracy, no bait-and-switch. BlackBerry has been working full-out to make the Z10/Q10 rollouts as successful as possible, because their survival as a business depends on it. They need tens of millions of sales of these devices, and they need to do everything they can to convince enterprise and government customers that they can still provide a trustworthy MDM platform. In light of this, frankly, the demands of 2.3 million PlayBook owners just don't represent the same priority, and it's ludicrous to expect that. Especially when at least some of those PB owners are still happy with OS2.1.

BlackBerry has done a remarkable job of meeting its targets in the past 18 months. The had an original launch target of Q4 calendar '12, and that only slipped a month. They've met their targets for BES functionality (and this is HUGE--possibly more important than the phones themselves both in complexity and in relevance to BlackBerry's future). They've made--and kept--huge commitments to developers and brought in tens of thousands of students and hobbyists into the app marketplace.

They've just completed a corporate event that many industry analysts didn't expect them to survive long enough to get to. Think about that for a minute.

I'm not trying to excuse BB in any way, I'm just setting some context here. I would have been very pleased to have heard some word on the PlayBook during BB Live, but I'm not extremely surprised that it wasn't mentioned. For one thing, it's one of the few targets they've publicly declared that HAS slipped (the release was originally set for "shortly after" the handset launches). For another thing, mention of the PlayBook might have sent an unintended signal that BB was still committed to the tablet market, which they may not be. Finally, for all intents and purposes the PlayBook is a dead-end product. I'm skeptical that there's any inventory left to sell, and it's a brand that has taken on an air of failure. BB10 on the PlayBook will do little to help BB's bottom line in any objective way.

There are technical issues that are likely in play here, too. As a Dev Alpha A user, I can vouch that BB10 as it appeared on release absolutely will run on 1GB RAM, and in some ways it's much better than OS2.1 (boot time is lightning fast, for instance). There definitely are issues, though; it's not as smooth as on the Z10 and if too many apps are left running in Active Frames you see serious slowdowns and force-closes. There are ways to mitigate this, like limiting the number of open Active Frames or more aggressive memory management, but these are specific to the PlayBook, so, again, the business case for spending money on solving these issues isn't strong.

There are issues with developers, too. Will all the apps that ran on OS2.1 work on BB10? How motivated will developers be to update their apps? Will current PB owners get free app updates? How will PB Music Store and Video Store purchases transfer over to BB World? These are business issues that may even be more difficult to resolve than the technical ones. And, again, not a strong business case for spending a lot of time or money to resolve them.

I believe that the BB10 upgrade is coming for the PlayBook, and it may well come in the form that Kevin speculated on in his CB post in February. It will have a different UI, it may not include the Hub, and it might well disappoint many users in ways I can't foresee right now. I also believe that BB is committed to providing this despite the questionable business case, because they know that the PlayBook user community supported the company through the worst of its crisis. I'll admit, I wouldn't stake my life on this by any stretch, but until I hear definitive word from BB that it isn't coming, I'll try to be patient.

Hmmph. Sorry, I wasn't patient enough to read your novel, et, I meant, reply. But what I did read made me feel syrupy and gross.

Posted via CB10

[Thunderbuck]

I think BBRY just took a dump on their core market, the people who stuck with the Playbook's constant stream of broken promises. That core market will then tell people who are considering Z10's and Q10's to stay the hell away from a company that can and will dump a product without a thought to existing customers. Those potential new customers will be steered to Android, iOS and WinPhone while BBRY sticks to an ever-shrinking loyal base.

Been screwed by BBRY once, twice, not any more.

Who's "been screwed" here? All anybody has to go on is that there was no mention of the PlayBook at BB Live. Big deal; there are sound reasons why they wouldn't. Doesn't mean the project is dead, just means they didn't want to discuss a dead-end product at an event that's (rightly) focused on the future.

If they announce that they have to withdraw the planned upgrade, I'll be the first to express my extreme disapproval, but I'll wait until they officially announce it, ok?

[Orange UK]

Must be rather fun to know your waiting about on a MSoft buy out, and your dropping your core product to damage BB and the Z10/Q10 approved by MS handsets as no competition to the market really. Must be plenty of sore wrists and jaws in Canada HO...certainly not much else.

[Xano]

Who's "been screwed" here? All anybody has to go on is that there was no mention of the PlayBook at BB Live. Big deal; there are sound reasons why they wouldn't. Doesn't mean the project is dead, just means they didn't want to discuss a dead-end product at an event that's (rightly) focused on the future.

If they announce that they have to withdraw the planned upgrade, I'll be the first to express my extreme disapproval, but I'll wait until they officially announce it, ok?

Future? Dumping products, tablets are dead! Open BBM to the world, what future? I heard desperate measures and bulk ideas like a low end devices to increase sales because the blast on Z10 never happens. Even Alicia Keys was a tremendous flop, epic if her iPhone 5 was accidentally drop in the middle of the presentation.

[Thunderbuck]

Future? Dumping products, tablets are dead! Open BBM to the world, what future? I heard desperate measures and bulk ideas like a low end devices to increase sales because the blast on Z10 never happens. Even Alicia Keys was a tremendous flop, epic if her iPhone 5 was accidentally drop in the middle of the presentation.

You're quite the piece of work, aren't you? I could argue all of those points, easily. Cross-platform BBM suggests that BlackBerry is confident that their handsets will continue to sell without maintaining an exclusive. Let?s see Apple do that with FaceTime.

And given how important emerging markets are for BlackBerry, it seems foolish for them not to offer their latest platform in a more affordable handset.




From the awesome virtual keyboard of my Z10

[Xano]

Just a guy with my feat on the ground.
Except Canada, U.K and USA BB sales are dead, even WinPhone already take the lead over BB. Next quarter all the heavy weights will release new sets. All the attentions to iPhone 5S and his redesign iOS. If Apple goes to a cheaper iPhone like all rumors indicate, WinPhone and BB will suffer big loses. BB needs to improve rapidly the crap costumer service. I know developers already quitting BB platform do week implementation due to iOS and Droids.