1. anon(10622733)'s Avatar
    so according to your view BBL-handset business should be done sometime this year or next or lets give it 2 yrs for good measure, ostensibly because they're not a profit center, I on the other hand disagree - so lets swap-spit next year (actually lets not do that) and compare notes in a year or two - now I'm sounding like a geologist.
    The BBL handset business has been ended for over 3 years now!
    John Albert and pdr733 like this.
    09-18-19 01:37 AM
  2. bb9900user2018's Avatar
    The BBL handset business has been ended for over 3 years now!
    Thanks for the tip

    Posted via CB10
    09-18-19 01:40 AM
  3. anon(10622733)'s Avatar
    Thanks for the tip

    Posted via CB10
    Here is another tip! RCA doesn't make TV's anymore but you can buy one for less than a bicycle. Take that as a hint, if you want a licensee to make RCA or BlackBerry popular again it would have to come in at a very low price point which unfortunately means the product becomes throwaway.
    John Albert and pdr733 like this.
    09-18-19 01:50 AM
  4. nevilleadaniels's Avatar
    Something of a small reminder is that KeyOne has only been around for 2 years and a Key2 for 1 year.

    The average smart phone contract now is 3 years in the UK.

    With some on two year contacts and even less on one year contacts.

    And it is pretty much the same all over the world where they have contracts.

    This means that it's this coming 2 years which will make or break #TCL / #Blackberry .

    It is only now that people will consider replacing PRIV and DTEK's. But for people to choose a Motion2 or a Key3 TCL/BlackberryMobile and BlackberryLimited need to open up a publicly with what their intent is.
    09-18-19 01:57 AM
  5. anon(10622733)'s Avatar
    Something before a small reminder is that KeyOne has only been around for 2 years and a key2 for 1 year.

    The average smart phone contract now is 3 years in the UK.

    With some on two year contacts and even less on one year contacts.

    And it is pretty much the same all over the world where they have contracts.

    This means that it's this coming 2 years which will make or break TCL/Blackberry.

    It is only now that people will consider replacing PRIV and DTEK's. But for people to choose a Motion2 or a Key3 TCL/BlackberryMobile and BlackberryLimited need to open up a publicly with what their intent is.
    Publicly? BBL has absolutely no intent of re-entering the handset business.
    09-18-19 02:00 AM
  6. nevilleadaniels's Avatar
    Publicly? BBL has absolutely no intent of re-entering the hand business.
    Wrong argument.
    This is not about blackberry making Handsets.
    09-18-19 02:01 AM
  7. anon(10622733)'s Avatar
    Wrong argument.
    This is not about blackberry making Handsets.
    I can appreciate your concerns and desires as I myself has never owned an Apple or other Android phone. I've come thru BBOS, the Playbook, Z10, Passport and finally the Keyone.
    BUT the marketshare of BBL, BBMo is now at less than .05%. There is no hope of making money at this point, and as such the (presumed) squabbling...
    09-18-19 02:17 AM
  8. Bbnivende's Avatar
    The I in the ROI was mainly invested years ago, Conite. They only have costs now to maintain their software . Not big costs at all but not nothing. This is called monetizing their brand and intellectual property.

    Chen:

    “Everybody needs to know: will still have handsets, but we’re going to get the handset revenue through royalties because we have licensed both some of our technologies, our operating systems, as well as our brand to a number of OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) out there,” he said. “They will be building BlackBerry phones and they will be responsible for addressing the market that way.”


    “When they sell those phones, I’ll get the royalties on that, as arranged. We expect to continue in the phone business, but not taking the hardware.”

    What we have here is TCL realizing that there is little money to be made from BlackBerry phones a decision that was probably made well before MWC. They could not sell VKB’s under the BlackBerry brand and therefore their long term smartphone strategy for BlackBerry was never going to work under the arrangement that they negotiated.

    We don’t know the details of the contract but TCL will do whats best for them . Could be a buy out or it could be to just quit making BlackBerry phones. It could mean one new model. I can’t help but think that TCL’s Licensing of the brand etc. was never going to end well.
    09-18-19 02:26 AM
  9. anon(10622733)'s Avatar
    The I in the ROI was mainly invested years ago, Conite. They have costs now to maintain their software . Not big costs at all but not nothing. This is called monetizing their brand and intellectual property.
    Everybody needs to know: BlackBerry will still have handsets, but we’re going to get the handset revenue through royalties because we have licensed both some of our technologies, our operating systems, as well as our brand to a number of OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) out there,” he said. “They will be building BlackBerry phones and they will be responsible for addressing the market that way.”
    “When they sell those phones, I’ll get the royalties on that, as arranged. We expect to continue in the phone business, but not taking the hardware.”

    What we have here is TCL realizing that there is little money to be made from BlackBerry phones a decision that was probably made well before MWC. They could not sell VKB’s under the BlackBerry brand and therefore their long term smartphone strategy for BlackBerry was never going to work under the arrangement they negotiated.

    We don’t know the details of the contract but TCL will do whats best for them . Could be a buy out or it could be to just quit making BlackBerry phones. I can’t help but think that TCL Licensing the brand was never going to end well.
    Well we are seeing what TCL is doing, introducing their own brand of phones with huge screens, 3 cameras and such. AND at half the price of a BlackBerry branded phone...
    09-18-19 02:31 AM
  10. idssteve's Avatar
    Zero risk = zero ROI. Where I come from, at least. Lol. Total risk aversion rarely affords success. Depending on definition of "success". ROI certainly tops the list for defining "success" but may not always be the lone objective. Right or wrong.

    Also... "R" is inevitably time period dependent. Finding agreeable intercept points along consumer/investor time period expectation curves can resemble an art form itself. And that's brutally simple compared with integrating various margin/volume intercepts into the balancing act. Lol.

    Volume dependent variables might inevitably prove sub optimal for virtually any niche product. By definition. Necessitating greater margins in effort to achieve sustainable ROI. Margins not likely achieved at lower price points.

    No one expects Ferrari niche volume to challenge Toyota. Ferrari niche margins still achieve ROI "success" by at least some definitions.

    Can low volume BlackBerry niche ever find success by pursuing Yugo level markets?
    09-18-19 05:19 AM
  11. thurask's Avatar
    The cost of continuing this LOB isn't zero. If they continue, they have to move to Pie. That's a nonzero cost.

    OTOH, the "cost" of ending the contract early is that they get out of the business and move on. That's not such a bad outcome for shareholders.
    I can't shake the notion that this payment spat is BB wanting out of the deal but with too much hubris to just take the L and move on; there has to be some other issue at work, and a beleaguered licensee not wanting to pay extra for BB Android fits that bill.
    09-18-19 05:24 AM
  12. Chuck Finley69's Avatar
    Yeah, I just wonder what's really going on. However you look at it, TCL is BlackBerry's last chance of staying in the smartphone market, so they either go to bat and really try to make it work, or finally just call it a day. I'm optimistically rooting for the former, but realistically expecting the latter. It's sad - I was really looking forward to a K3.
    BB10 succeeding was BB last chance at truly staying in the smartphone market when development really began.

    Even then BBOS was kept running.

    BBAndroid wasn’t really about staying in the smartphone market as much as the PRIV and DTEK, in hindsight, were about demonstrating the PKB and VKB functionality and OEM partnering under future licensing agreements.

    When BB announced exiting hardware, three years ago, they did exactly just that. Producing BBAndroid software under contract to BlackBerry licensed OEMs wasn’t and isn’t about staying in the business, it was about grabbing whatever consumer brand equity was left and getting paid for it, up front. TCL knee and understood this. BBMo wasn’t anything but transitioning into carriers with their own brands hopefully. If anything, current internal and external forces accelerated it's timeline.

    What happens next is simply whatever is the least expensive route negotiated. As we saw with BBM Emtek, BB counsel writes some very good contracts. TCL has the mobile industry here in the West seeing how it conducts itself contractually. It doesn’t want to damage it’s brand or reputation.
    09-18-19 06:21 AM
  13. Emaderton3's Avatar
    The entire focus of the company and how they will make money has shifted. Phone OS is easily a very small part. I don't think it would matter to them if it disappeared. They have plenty of technology to secure IoT connected devices for businesses and industries.
    09-18-19 06:34 AM
  14. rarsen's Avatar
    Just curious if one of the reasons that BB cannot remove itself completely from participation in hardware, is its influence on litigation for the value of its long standing IP ??
    09-18-19 06:43 AM
  15. bb9900user2018's Avatar
    The entire focus of the company and how they will make money has shifted. Phone OS is easily a very small part. I don't think it would matter to them if it disappeared. They have plenty of technology to secure IoT connected devices for businesses and industries.
    Android is actually free (OS is not how Google makes its money) and Apple makes its own hardware and software, so therein lies the problem with a BB OS, BBL had to follow the Apple model and that didn't work out. The hardware side of the business is too crowded. Just like any business there are 2-3 major players so saying your 3rd isn't necessarily a good thing. What follows next is consolidation of the hardware business.

    Posted via CB10
    09-18-19 09:40 AM
  16. Gene Fells's Avatar
    so lets swap-spit next year (actually lets not do that) and compare notes in a year or two - now I'm sounding like a geologist.
    Swapping spit means something very different in my culture and it has nothing to do with geology.....
    bb9900user2018 likes this.
    09-18-19 10:12 AM
  17. nevilleadaniels's Avatar
    Just curious if one of the reasons that BB cannot remove itself completely from participation in hardware, is its influence on litigation for the value of its long standing IP ??
    Ip is only your ip if you maintain it. If you found to maintain what is yours by developing on it all by using it or at least by continuing in the same field; then you would have no further legitimate interesting that i p and those that have worked with it before can continue to work with it. Especially the parts that they developed.
    rarsen likes this.
    09-18-19 10:19 AM
  18. Troy Tiscareno's Avatar
    Ip is only your ip if you maintain it. If you found to maintain what is yours by developing on it all by using it or at least by continuing in the same field; then you would have no further legitimate interesting that i p and those that have worked with it before can continue to work with it. Especially the parts that they developed.
    Their smartphone-based patents grow older and closer to expiration every day. When they're no longer in the business, and no one wants to pay what you deem is a reasonable price for them, then none of that matters. It's sunk costs, and you move forward with new lines of business.

    None of that changes the issue that TCL signed a contract that stipulates they pay BB a certain amount of money, and now TCL doesn't want to pay. That's not BB being greedy, it's TCL making a poor prediction and not wanting to take responsibility for it.

    If the product at issue was, say, enterprise software, BB fans would be talking about how terrible TCL is for not paying up, but because the product is smartphones that people here own, suddenly they're on TCL's side - only because they want their updates, and don't really care who is right.
    rarsen, ppeters914 and John Albert like this.
    09-18-19 10:44 AM
  19. bb9900user2018's Avatar
    Swapping spit means something very different in my culture and it has nothing to do with geology.....
    lol the geology part comes from waiting (1-2yrs) - I live in Oil country. There's a long standing joke in the Oil & Gas industry that geoglist's predictions don't matter because the time they're proven wrong they're long gone (7-10yrs). Of course the best geologists (the 1%) go on to run/startup their own O&G companies and become fabulously rich.
    rarsen and Gene Fells like this.
    09-18-19 10:46 AM
  20. Bbnivende's Avatar
    Their smartphone-based patents grow older and closer to expiration every day. When they're no longer in the business, and no one wants to pay what you deem is a reasonable price for them, then none of that matters. It's sunk costs, and you move forward with new lines of business.

    None of that changes the issue that TCL signed a contract that stipulates they pay BB a certain amount of money, and now TCL doesn't want to pay. That's not BB being greedy, it's TCL making a poor prediction and not wanting to take responsibility for it.

    If the product at issue was, say, enterprise software, BB fans would be talking about how terrible TCL is for not paying up, but because the product is smartphones that people here own, suddenly they're on TCL's side - only because they want their updates, and don't really care who is right.
    Next time when Conite talks about BlackBerry’s ROI for the TCL agreements could you please comment. As you have stated, most of the IP and branding costs are sunk costs.

    How do we know who is not paying what ? Perhaps BB Ltd has overstated their royalties due. Maybe TCL is owed money over all. Could be opposite of the type Qualcomm refund BlackBerry received in the past.
    Paulelmar18 likes this.
    09-18-19 12:11 PM
  21. conite's Avatar
    Next time when Conite talks about BlackBerry’s ROI for the TCL agreements could you please comment. As you have stated, most of the IP and branding costs are sunk costs.

    How do we know who is not paying what ? Perhaps BB Ltd has overstated their royalties due. Maybe TCL is owed money over all. Could be opposite of the type Qualcomm refund BlackBerry received in the past.
    They still have developers working on the OS, along with whatever management and infrastructure it takes to support them. They also have to have an operations team to deal with the licencee(s).

    Most of the IP itself is of course sunk, but it has an expiry date as the industry moves forward, and the window of it having value is closing.

    Given the very low sales volumes, it's quite possible BlackBerry isn't even breaking even on its current costs alone. The current ROI discussions are likely around that.
    Last edited by conite; 09-18-19 at 12:50 PM.
    09-18-19 12:21 PM
  22. Tim Heard's Avatar
    You didn't actually answer my question though.
    Maybe they need to rethink their expectations.
    This is basically free money. Another company making and selling a product and giving them a cut. If they have an option between the amount they want and zero, it would seem like there's a middle ground that should be acceptable.
    09-18-19 01:13 PM
  23. Bbnivende's Avatar
    They still have developers working on the OS, along with whatever management and infrastructure it takes to support them. They also have to have an operations team to deal with the licencee(s).

    Most of the IP itself is of course sunk, but it has an expiry date as the industry moves forward, and the window of it having value is closing.

    Given the very low sales volumes, it's quite possible BlackBerry isn't even breaking even on the current costs alone. The current ROI discussions are likely around that.
    If the problem with Optiemus is:
    (Per Dunt,Dunt,Dunt)

    “The Company had entered into agreement with Blackberry Limited for providing licensing and software services w.e.f. July 1, 2017. Under the said agreement, the Company is required to pay a minimum guarantee royalty fee against which the company has received a demand of USD 4.29 million till 31st March 2019 out of which only USD 1.5 million paid. However, the management has disputed the payment of royalty on account of delay in launch of Blackberry handsets due to the fault on part of Blackberry and out of USD 4.29 million, USD 0.72 million has recognized royalty expense till 31st March 2019. The balance amount is under dispute and has not been recognized as expense during the period.”

    Perhaps the dispute with BBmo is much larger than the cost of developers ( that might be partially reimbursed from apk sales).
    09-18-19 01:20 PM
  24. conite's Avatar
    Maybe they need to rethink their expectations.
    This is basically free money. Another company making and selling a product and giving them a cut. If they have an option between the amount they want and zero, it would seem like there's a middle ground that should be acceptable.
    Read the post immediately prior to yours.

    I doubt BlackBerry is even breaking even on their actual, real, current expenditures.
    09-18-19 01:23 PM
  25. conite's Avatar
    Perhaps the dispute with BBmo is much larger than the cost of developers ( that might be partially reimbursed from apk sales).
    The BlackBerry Suite is a completely separate team and business unit.

    But at then end of the day, BlackBerry isn't going to throw money away if they can get it.
    09-18-19 01:24 PM
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