Concerned / Confused

I have been a long time BB user, but I never truly followed the company, or competing companies, until early this year when I purchased stock. Still hoping for the best long term, but not thrilled at the moment....

I have a few questions/comments and I am hoping Kevin and crew will respond, as well as everyone else.

- While researching all the upcoming smart phones by a variety of companies, it seems they are all able to produce higher quality hardware, the newest innovations, and all around better specs than BB and still come to market at a lower cost than BB does.
I realize i-phone and galaxy are produced in such mass that they get cheaper parts, but it is not limited to them. Nokia, HTC, etc, are all producing or coming out with phones where the specs annihilate BB phones. And yes, while I agree BB10 as an OS is superior, most people don't have experience with it and never will if the price and the hardware do no compete. So why is it the price points are significantly higher in many cases, yet the hardware is not even on par with the competition? The Q5 in particular is a disaster to me. I think the phone itself is cool, but the hardware is certainly nothing special and the price point is entirely too high for emerging markets. To me, this was their big chance to hit a home run if the pricing was appropriate, and they blew it. (That remains to be seen, of course. But it seems like a big mistake at this point in time.)

- This is more for Kevin, etc. When you report back to BB with the information you get here, how do they respond? I'm sure they acknowledge it, but do they really take it seriously? Crackberry is likely their best source of feedback and I am curious how much they embrace that. The A10 for instance - The overwhelming consensus is that the design is extremely underwhelming and the specs are basically the same as the Z10 with the exception of the screen. And the Z10 was not even head of the pack when it was released. Do they realize what a mistake it would be to release a phone that is already way behind the times with regards to hardware? Do they listen to Crackberry when you give them that information? I imagine at this point they are already being produced, but man, they really need to go back to the drawing board and redesign this phone entirely.

Just felt the need to get this out there. Any feedback would be appreciated.

I bought the stock for the same reason I bought IBM stock. Like IBM, BB isn't about hardware(soon like IBM, they BB will exit that market),they will be about software,systems management and training. That's when their stock will go up, it worked for IBM. Forgot to add, price wise the Z10 is now selling for a dollar at Best Buy and Costco.

I agree about the software. I bought the stock when they broke news that BES would go cross platform and be able to secure ios and android. Hoping that will take off and be lucrative for them. Nevertheless, they should not have to get out of the hardware business. If they do it correctly there is no reason they couldn't be as successful as iphone or galaxy within a few years. But what is the explanation for coming to market at a higher price than the competitors with lower quality hardware and specs? These are not stupid people running the company. There must be a reason?

Originally Posted by Jsilver00

I agree about the software. I bought the stock when they broke news that BES would go cross platform and be able to secure ios and android. Hoping that will take off and be lucrative for them. Nevertheless, they should not have to get out of the hardware business. If they do it correctly there is no reason they couldn't be as successful as iphone or galaxy within a few years. But what is the explanation for coming to market at a higher price than the competitors with lower quality hardware and specs? These are not stupid people running the company. There must be a reason?

Nobody knows, and I disagree with it. I think BB hasn't learned much from the Playbook.