[BergerKing]

I would pay a one-time fee for installation, but not as a monthly service. Some of us don't have BlackBerry options that fit our needs, such as those of us using Sprint. Finding a BB10 user on Sprint in the wild is like trying to find a crimson rhinoceros riding a bike down the center of the Avenue in Harlem. They pretty well cut us off at the Q10, which doesn't give me a viable option for my usage.

Personally, I'd love to have the Hub on my S4. Or Note 4, when I take that plunge.

[Tre Lawrence]

I would pay a one-time fee for installation, but not as a monthly service. Some of us don't have BlackBerry options that fit our needs, such as those of us using Sprint. Finding a BB10 user on Sprint in the wild is like trying to find a crimson rhinoceros riding a bike down the center of the Avenue in Harlem. They pretty well cut us off at the Q10, which doesn't give me a viable option for my usage.

Personally, I'd love to have the Hub on my S4.

I'm with you. I'd happily pay a one-time premium to use the Hub off-platform.

[donnation]

This is called maneuvering to a place of power. Chen recognizes that for BlackBerry to make come back, they need to leverage their assets in compelling ways to get all over the smartphone radar screen. Now let's be real, that is NOT going to happen through handsets alone. It would take years for BlackBerry to over come the near ubiquitous iPhone and Android options. That being said, Chen recognizes that the best option is to offer to the competition the very features that make BlackBerry unique and desirable. In fact, it leaves BlackBerry in control of those features and takes the wind out of the sails of those trying to match bb's features. Not to mention, it is likely to be some how monetized and become a steady revenue stream for BlackBerry.

This is much the case with QNX. QNX is by far the most robust auto control/infotainment system available but it allows but it allows for other UI's. Meaning the end user can have the experience they desire with whatever auto they buy regardless of who that manufacturer chooses to brand the UI with. Think about the BB clone keyboard for Apple. If BlackBerry had produced it and sold it, who would complain? In fact BlackBerry would pushing it and promoting it to every iPhone user out there without diluting their handset sales at all.

Still not convinced? When's the last time you bought a gift card? Did you buy it from one of those kiosks at a mall? or go to that store and buy their card. The point is that those Gift Card Mall kiosks are a company owned by Safeway (grocery store). One line of thinking is that Safeway should have kept it to themselves forcing people to come to their stores for the convenience of one stop gift card shopping. But the truth is pushing it out into every competitor lets them collect billion of dollars of extra revenue and take their competitors out of the market trying to develop their own program.
Now that is a win. Rolling these out to iPhone and android is the same for BlackBerry.

Posted via CB10

Its only a place of power if what you have is sought after by other people. Are people pining for the hub? I would guess that 99% of the population that doesn't use a Blackberry doesn't even know or care about the hub, let alone want it.

Your gift card analogy doesn't really work. People want gift cards and go searching for them. Do people want the hub and are they actively asking for it for their phone? I don't think so. People are accustomed to doing things a certain way with their phones and that probably won't change because BB is offering an app that will allow them to see all of their notifications in their hub.

[tufcustomer]

And yet Android has 80% market share so it's not like the strategy is failing.

Posted via CB10

I'm confused, my point was to prove there was more to Android then just Google services. What was yours?

Posted via CB10

[Raestloz]

Nobody's going to pay a subscription fee for a hub. That's stupid.

Posted via CB10

The Hub is the single most powerful feature of BlackBerry 10. The second one is the keyboard. If BlackBerry brings Hub to other phones, my Galaxy Note will finally be slightly less irritating to use.

If they bring the keyboard to Android too, I can finally use Android without threatening to kill myself

Z10STL100-1/10.3.1.2243

[anon(257429)]

I'm beta testing Google Inbox and it's not even close. Very cluttered and no integration with apps. Long way to go to be clean and simple like the HUB.

If I could have BBRY HUB and keyboard on my device today for $10....without a hesitation. Sold

Posted via the CrackBerry App for Android

Google Inbox is cluttered because you have set that way. It integrates with Gmail, Youtube and Google Calendar.

[Aljean Thein]

The Hub and keyboard is the only reason why I'm using BlackBerry phones. If they ever decide to share this amazing features to the consumers, android will probably be my next phone right after.

Suffer Now & Live The Rest Of Your Life As A Champion

[Supa_Fly1]

....and BlackBerry sold out. fack man

Posted via CB10

Where on earth have you been?!

Before Heins, before Chen ... when Lazaridis and Balsillie where in their prime of heyday ...

Take GOOD note of this ...

BlackBerry HAS ALWAYS BEEN EXPERIMENTING WITH THEIR OS ON OTHER PLATFORMS!!

Windows Smartphone/Pocket PC-Phone Edition (PE) wAAAAAy back in the days had a leak right here on Crackberry.

[Raestloz]

Where on earth have you been?!

Before Heins, before Chen ... when Lazaridis and Balsillie where in their prime of heyday ...

Take GOOD note of this ...

BlackBerry HAS ALWAYS BEEN EXPERIMENTING WITH THEIR OS ON OTHER PLATFORMS!!

Windows Smartphone/Pocket PC-Phone Edition (PE) wAAAAAy back in the days had a leak right here on Crackberry.

Well, they also started as some kind of pager company, but I'm pretty sure that going back too far is not good

Z10STL100-1/10.3.1.2243

[Troy Tiscareno]

If these apps/features are available to consumers, I think the virtual keyboard has the best possibility of being a big seller. I would likely buy it, if it's priced competitively to other 3rd party keyboards.

The problem there is that BB10's virtual keyboard doesn't belong to BB. It's licensed from SwiftKey, with BB just adding the flick capability. All of the underlying logic is SwiftKey, and almost certainly their license with SwiftKey will prevent them from using their keyboard on other platforms to compete with SwiftKey.

The Hub is a unique-to-BB product that they absolutely can bring cross-platform, which I'm sure is why it was specifically mentioned.

[Bbnivende]

All I know is that I do not have any Android or Apple consumers who are interested in adding BlackBerry software.

[Kurdis Blough]

All I know is that I do not have any Android or Apple consumers who are interested in adding BlackBerry software.

I am an Android user 6 years who will pay for a BlackBerry suite of software. Specifically if it allows me to separate out my Buisness communications. BlackBerry as a corporation is uniquely suited to that specific task. I don't want the keyboard. Don't want the OS. Don't want BBM. I want flexible enough to allow effective management of Buisness use text call email accounts on my personal device.

If it can do this I will buy the software.

Offer integrated fax and voip and I'll subscribe.

!

[yokogeri374]

I'm not getting to carried away with this at the moment, wait and see what happens!

Posted via CB10

[MrGlenn]

Like I commented on their blog, I don't even begin to see how this would work.
A Contacts and Calendar app separate from the built in ones on other platforms? When Contacts/Calendars are actually two of the most complained about apps on BB10? Good luck with that one! Will it "access and merge" all your on-device Contacts, or will it require some cloud sync and attached subscription (like through BES)?

The Hub: will it intercept all your separate app notifications, or will it simply be an aggregate of notifications that you can open if you feel like it, while actually replying still goes through each individual app? Or will it only work for stuff like email/txt which might be done right from the Hub app?
Or will it be a cloud sync type of Hub where it only displays accounts connected through a subscription, and not actually all ON device notifications?

Universal search? What? How does that even work on OSs with such a different structure? What would be the benefits if it doesn't offer stuff like instant actions? What exactly would it even search through?

Docs to Go? What the hell? Why would these other platforms even want a software package that is maybe 10% as functional as other official office suites they already have? Or is this meant to support an expansion of D2G, with more features incoming if it becomes widely used?

The virtual Keyboard: well hey, this might work actually! Let's hope it means BlackBerry will also be open to BB10 getting some alternative keyboards (emoji?). (But of course it doesn't.)

And how would it be bundled, will it be a bunch of separate apps installed after purchasing a subscription (One way to keep it free from piracy)? Or will it be one BlackBerry App that acts like a launcher to all the bundled services?
This announcement is so vague, I can't believe these features will actually make the other OSs more usable. More likely they will just end up with some confusing/conflicting interfaces...
_____
The only area I see this working is for Enterprises that already use BB10 that don't want to rely on their hardware anymore and want to offer BYOD to their employees (cost reduction), while still having access to certain BB10/BES elements at a reasonable price.
And if that is true, a cloud based setup kind of makes sense. But that means it will not actually manage any ON device stuff, but just the stuff that is sync'ed...

BlackBerry Passport signed @ Nintendo Social BBM Channel @ C001221B2

[JeepBB]

Worth keeping in mind though that Windows Phone seems to be treated as an afterthought by BlackBerry - BBM hasn't seen an update in months on Windows Phone, and is still sorely lacking many of the features available on other platforms.

WinPhone is treated as an afterthought by *everybody* ... LOL

Yeah, I'm under no illusions as to WinPhone's place in the pecking order... And Chen didn't have to mention it at all, but did.

Really looking forward to Chen's WMC speech now. I'd previously thought it would be "hello... Mumble... Leap... Mumble... Vague promises about future models ("coming soon" )... Thanks for listening" - but, after this bombshell, I can't wait to hear what he says next!

[Komoto]

great idea, i was posting about this over 2 years ago. If they don't do it, someone else will.

How to monetise it is another question.

Just by keeping the brand relevant it should translate to some sort of value alone.

Well done Chen, great strategic mind. Playing all the right cards.

[unical]

All there left to wait for is BB keyboard

Posted via CB10

[TeaBoy]

What next is blackberry going to start selling Keyboard attachments for IOS/Andriod phones?

[velkod]

If android and IOS put there own touch and style on the hub to fit there phones, probably make em look cool too. Multi color theme hub. Blue green, pink yellow BLACK finally. They'd do it right away too and not just talk about it for a year then not come through.

[KingOfQwerty]

Worth keeping in mind though that Windows Phone seems to be treated as an afterthought by BlackBerry - BBM hasn't seen an update in months on Windows Phone, and is still sorely lacking many of the features available on other platforms.

....like exactly how Netflix is refusing to build a BB10 native app. Less marketshare = no body cares

[vladi]

In order for The Hub to succeed on iOS it has to act like an iOS counterpart, that is crucial. BlackBerry learned the hardway that you cant have an app acting like BB10, no iOS user would touch it cause it doesn't make sense.

In other words Hub has to act like a email/imessage hybrid and it has to look exactly like it.

[apizkamal]

This truly defeat the purpose of having a BlackBerry ! Can't brag to other OS user anymore...lol

Flying full colours with my  Z30

[Witmen]

As someone who mostly uses Android these days, I'd like to thank each and every BlackBerry 10 user. Your willingness to pay for the privilege of testing BlackBerry 10's exclusive features before they are made available to users of iOS, Windows phone and Android was very helpful. I'm sure Chen appreciates each and every one of you as well.

Please be sure to let them know if there is anything else you like about BB10 that Chen hasn't thought of making cross platform yet. Thanks again!

[Hendri Hendri]

I will pay for hub as long as the subscription fee is make sense. And please don't exclusively for BES ;(

and let's hope the hub will be as powerful as the native blackberry handset (kinda traumatic for bbm performance in ios)

[MmmHmm]

I like the idea in general, but if BBM subscription pricing is any indication (2 dollars every month just to remove ads and get a custom PIN), then this will be a way overpriced monthly subscription. In its rush to monetize things, BlackBerry should keep in mind the current cost of other similar products on competing platforms. BlackBerry can't charge a lot for things like keyboards and Docs to Go. Guess how much Swiftkey is on iPhone. Free. Guess how much Microsoft Office apps are on iPhone. Free.

It's harder to judge the value of the HUB on competing platforms, but a high monthly subscription is probably a non-starter, unless it's bundled with another product like BES.