[Ment]

Make that one. Isn't every other android phone able to install the suite?

I would expect the suite to be more integrated into the OS on an Android BB. There are limitations on what can be done via apk, for example you can't use an apk and get Samsung multiwindow.

[dusanvn]

Uh, that affirmation is about the same as having yet "another" CEO mention the need to sell 10 million units........again.

10 mil. units... Why not?

Blackberry just need to improve the Passport a bit. A little longer and narrower bezel (e.g. 136x84 mm), a little taller screen, and a full keyboard. Keyboard shape and surface should be fixed to be dust-proof, durable and cost-effective, but still be tactile-shaped, force-sensitive and must provide tactile feedback. Key labels should be variable. And full Android support. Voila, we have a pocket computer. Why not?



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[Blacklatino]

10 mil. units... Why not?

Blackberry just need to improve the Passport a bit. A little longer and narrower bezel (e.g. 136x84 mm), a little taller screen, and a full keyboard. Keyboard shape and surface should be fixed to be dust-proof, durable and cost-effective, but still be tactile-shaped, force-sensitive and must provide tactile feedback. Key labels should be variable. And full Android support. Voila, we have a pocket computer. Why nott?

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LOL.. Okay, first......for clarification, I hope they sell 20 million units. The pun was based on current CEO repeating the same comment as the last CEO-10 million units(z10s). At least Thors had the damn Superbowl commercial. Maybe Android will give up some advertising to help out.

[vladi]

Sorry but in my opinion that is a big dream.

What's a big dream? That Chinese are killing it or that BBRY doesn't have a fresh factor with the slider?

[azum4u]

It's not BlackBerry 10 fault but BlackBerry management not promoting BlackBerry 10. When is the last time you see any ad about BlackBerry 10?

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So true. Marketing is Blackberry's biggest fault.

[guygardner73]

Sorry a keyboard is not that important for 99.5% of the market, in other case BB would be selling much more now, because you know they offer smartphones with keyboard now., about the BBPS do you really think is a game changer?, well we will see.

So there's a shot at half a percent of the android market! That's a lot of phones.

PassportSQW100-1/10.3.1.2576 O2 UK

[RyanGermann]

BB10 handset sales would improve if they released a full-slab device with a home button. People loves them home buttons.

[RezzaBuh]

The main problem is - BlackBerry needs Google and especially Google Play. So it's going to be just stock Android with a few additional apps from BlackBerry. Very likely no HW keyboard integration except typing but good Swype like keyboard is enough for me. And of course not very intuitive UI, what's one swipe on BB10 is... I can imagine Android as base OS with BB10 like UI. But that would mean no Google Play, same as Amazon does. I'd buy such device. It's going to hit QNX business a bit as even if BlackBerry abandons their OS for theirs product, Google wants that market, why would anyone use QNX? And then cheap Chinese phones with impressive specs and sometimes even with pretty nice design and good build quality, these days with European LTE bands... Even in price level BlackBerry is going to target I'd say new Sony's Z5 are really nice, so is LG4. And even overpriced Edge+ looks good.

We will see. At least I expect they will commit to BB10 maintenance for a few years from now and my Passport will last a few years. BB10 is the reason I discovered BlackBerry, helped with a few apps in BBW and I can move on without bad feelings ;-))).

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[sorinv]

As the G&M article pointed out, Google Play cannot be secured, so a secure android with Google Play will not fly.
In that case what is the point? The app gap continues without Google Play and you also alienate a lot of us BB10 users who want nothing to do with Google.

We are all better off with BB10, unique and efficient. All they need is to steer some internal resources to improve the productivity apps in BBW.
Android will not save BlackBerry hardware, not even in enterprise.
North American enterprises, serious ones like HP and IBM, for example, already have Iphones and Samsung galaxy. BlackBerry cannot compete with an android device against Samsung in enterprise.

BlackBerry phones will forever remain niche prosumer devices, even with Android.
Although prosumer and android do not go well together...

[ayngling]

Google Play cannot be secured, so a secure android with Google Play will not fly.

I doubt BlackBerry would even consider Android if this is the case. I believe they will partition work apps and personal apps, so even if you download malware on your personal partition it will not affect the secure work apps (the BES12 admin can whitelist apps from Google Play to ensure no malware gets into the work partition).

[audio_Rx]

Pretty much. BlackBerry doesn't need to sell billions of them.. they just need it to do better than BlackBerry 10 sales.

So... it won't be BB10

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[crackbrry fan]

We don't comment on rumours. However we are COMMITTED to BB10

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[Rustybronco]

I doubt BlackBerry would even consider Android if this is the case. I believe they will partition work apps and personal apps, so even if you download malware on your personal partition it will not affect the secure work apps (the BES12 admin can whitelist apps from Google Play to ensure no malware gets into the work partition).

Which does make sense.

The way I see it is, Blackberry makes a unique Android phone and generates a lot of hype which in turn causes them to sell a secured device Sys admin's are more comfortable deploying. You may not sell a whole lot of devices, but as they have been setting themselves along the path of secured communications, you have the potential of more profit than could every be realized through hardware sales it's self.

Either it will be a brilliant move on their part, or they will languish along like they are now. At least they are trying to move forward.

Gotta give them credit.

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

What's a big dream? That Chinese are killing it or that BBRY doesn't have a fresh factor with the slider?

I've recently seen several movies with "Sliders" in them.... and they weren't BlackBerries.

[ubizmo]

I would expect the suite to be more integrated into the OS on an Android BB. There are limitations on what can be done via apk, for example you can't use an apk and get Samsung multiwindow.

I've had the same thought, but the prevailing opinion is that the slider will have "vanilla Android", which means that at most the Experience Suite will be a custom launcher. A more complete BB10 experience would entail a custom ROM, I think. And that would be more costly and more problematic for getting Android updates out the door.

This question -- apk or custom ROM -- is one of the important unanswered questions, I think.

The other issue is whether the slider will be more secure than other Android devices in some meaningful way. If so, this will get the attention of some enterprise customers, and it will help to justify the higher price that we have come to expect from BlackBerry.

Edit: I'm also surprised at how many of these new Android phones have batteries with less than 3,000 mAh. Seems to me that on a modern large-screen phone with current dpi, 3,000 mAh is a bare minimum.

[sorinv]

I doubt BlackBerry would even consider Android if this is the case. I believe they will partition work apps and personal apps, so even if you download malware on your personal partition it will not affect the secure work apps (the BES12 admin can whitelist apps from Google Play to ensure no malware gets into the work partition).

Yes, but that's something they do now with BB10 phones.
You are talking about android with no apps.
Most people here who want Android want it with apps and Google play and kid themselves that it will be secure and private for PERSONAL use.
I know people working at IT companies who have android phones and have absolutely no apps on the phone. The galaxy is used just to make calls.
In that case you are much better off with a Bb10 phone.

[Dat Gui]

Can't say how big of a success this phone will be, but I wouldn't be surprised if it does better than any other BlackBerry in their current product line up.

I think that's the biggest thing everyone is saying. It could be a hit and be the call BlackBerry has been needing, but it also might be the nail in the coffin for their handsets. The torch which was a slider put them in coffin, I wouldn't be surprised if this slider nails it

[ayngling]

Yes, but that's something they do now with BB10 phones.
You are talking about android with no apps.
Most people here who want Android want it with apps and Google play and kid themselves that it will be secure and private for PERSONAL use.
I know people working at IT companies who have android phones and have absolutely no apps on the phone. The galaxy is used just to make calls.
In that case you are much better off with a Bb10 phone.

I am not talking about android with no apps, I am talking about android with the full play store and all its apps. But, on your personal partition they will be no more secure than on any other phone.

I see what you are saying, but I don't think securing the personal partition from malware is what BlackBerry is trying to do. (In fact, I don't think it can be done without removing the Play store, which I realize was your point to begin with.)

I think BlackBerry wants to sell phones that can be secured from a business point of view, meaning that if I work for a company I can be as reckless as I want to with my personal partition, but the work data is secure.

If we want secure communications on our personal partition; use VPN. If we want to avoid malware; only download apps from known vendors, or at least do some due dilligence. Most people don't care, they just restore the phone if it starts acting weird, or get a new one. Businesses, however, care about their data on the device, and will gladly pay for BES12 to make sure our recklessness do not jeopardize their data.

[vladi]

I've followed closely Android flagships as anyone else who is mobile aficionado cause they were shoving them up our throats. I've never owned Android phone but I've used them on many occasions and I've seen them all as far as the flagships go.

This is how I experienced the timeline of flagships as they were developed and released:

Once Android got stable around ver.4 true flagships relied on the beefiest hardware internals to somehow provide smooth experience. ARM based chips were not at the full swing yet so top of the line CPUs were very few.

When hardware manufacturers realized there is a huge demand for mobile processing power they went into a production frenzy and battle front of flagships turned into "how many cores you got" . That was the main differentiating factor.

Then combination of affordable powerful CPUs with Google optimization of Android gave us mid spec and affordable devices that run as smooth as flagships so whole CPU war scaled back. Around that time whole Retina and PPI thing caught fire in the Android world once Apple ignited it.

Once the screen was exploited so much that every flagship now has 2K display manufacturers turned into photography and video as powerful internals and good screen got even cheaper and selected unknown manufacturers showed up with dirt cheap flagship speced phones threatening established flagship Android manufacturers.

So right now more then ever you need to differentiate your flagship Android device. Samsung did it with Note (perfect example) and S6 Edge. Sony is trying with ridiculous 4K screen and photography, HTC is relying on design and build quality while LG is the only one who got skinning right so they are fighting it from the software side as well as using the price point as weapon against Samsung's Galaxy line.

Finally we came to a point where you need something more then just a CPU, good screen and good camera cause you are going to be devoured by Huawei, Alcatel, OnePlus, ZTE and whom ever that will emerge next year and year after that. Now its a perfect time for hardware innovation in Android segment because it means survival.

[kirson]

As pre-BB10 are not marketed anymore and recently sold devices are all BB10, the current percentage of BB10 devices may be well higher than that a year ago, so there's reason not to think the current number of BB10 devices is below 10M. And it isn't necessary to distinguish active devices with active users, in sales perspective.

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Well, NO blackberry devices are really marketed at all. That's been a standing gripe on these forums. But BBOS still sells, and production was only recently discontinued. I would not be surprised if we have 8 million active BB10 users and 22 million active BBOS users. The numbers kind of triangulate that way...

[LuvULongTime]

It's not BlackBerry 10 fault but BlackBerry management not promoting BlackBerry 10. When is the last time you see any ad about BlackBerry 10?

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There were a lot of TV and print ads when the Z10 and Q10 first launched (the "Keep Moving" ad campaign). Problem is, the ads were lame. The superbowl ad was brutal as well. Blackberry needed a really smart ad campaign like the Mac vs PC ads to grab people's attention. Once the ad money ran out there was no point in investing anymore. The market had already spoken.

[36dbldz]

if they dont market it well it will fail like all the rest

[lift]

What's a big dream? That Chinese are killing it or that BBRY doesn't have a fresh factor with the slider?

Your opinion that "Slider will be a breath of fresh air". Nobody wants a slider these days. Maybe some PKB diehards but there are not too many of them anymore. VKB's (BlackBerry in particular) are great now and the slider was good back in the day.

[dusanvn]

So right now more then ever you need to differentiate your flagship Android device. Samsung did it with Note (perfect example) and S6 Edge. Sony is trying with ridiculous 4K screen and photography, HTC is relying on design and build quality while LG is the only one who got skinning right so they are fighting it from the software side as well as using the price point as weapon against Samsung's Galaxy line.

Finally we came to a point where you need something more then just a CPU, good screen and good camera cause you are going to be devoured by Huawei, Alcatel, OnePlus, ZTE and whom ever that will emerge next year and year after that. Now its a perfect time for hardware innovation in Android segment because it means survival.

I agree.

And BlackBerry, with its Passport, has proved that they know better than Samsung, Sony, Microsoft, Nokia etc why innovation in hardware is critical and what should be done within their modest technology (relatively to Apple's one). Just that they still do not know how to achieve it, which is proved by the Slider (as we know about it from leaked photos).

[BlackberryFan777]

Pretty much. BlackBerry doesn't need to sell billions of them.. they just need it to do better than BlackBerry 10 sales.

I'm not sure if that's true. In order to compete in the Android market, I'm guessing they'll have to deliver much more expensive hardware and that means lower margins, possibly razor thin ones. They won't have to move too many of them, but possibly more than BB10.

Plus, they give up future revenue from BlackBerry World and all the benefits of owning your own platform, which is where the money really is. So, they'll need to sell more devices to make up for that.

In the end, all that traffic you have going to your forums asking BB10 specific questions should start flowing to Android forums and sources like XDA. Some BlackBerry users will buy the Android Slider and stick around for another round of Android or two, but others will find that they like Android and can get better devices with better specs from companies like Sony, LG, HTC, Samsung, OnePlus, and Motorola. The Slider will be their gateway drug to Android from other vendors and away from BlackBerry in the long run -- after all, the apps will all run, why not just move from device to device when they are on the same platform.

Meanwhile, Windows 10 is starting to look really tempting. I've never been tempted by a windows phone device, but I'm running Windows 10 on my MBP and it smokes OSX and just feels like second nature. The whole idea of tight integration with my laptop or tablet, universal apps, being able to install on Android devices, etc. Well, it's tempting. And, if the cameras are great and the retina scanning **** isn't to scary. Windows 10 could be closer to what Mike L would have dreamed up than what BlackBerry will offer under Chen.

-- B.

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