[Troy Tiscareno]

Both BB and TCL have burned through all of their carrier goodwill, having delivered phone after phone that undersold and had high returns - both things that cost the carriers money. The consequence of that is that the carriers are no longer interested in buying phones from them, so they are no longer in carrier stores or given support for Enhanced Calling Features.

The smartphone market is brutally competitive, and the weak simply won't survive. Even I may end up with a Samsung next year if LG can't get a new V-series phone out - LG also burned through a lot of loyalty a few years ago, and even though the V30 and V40 were among the very best smartphones ever made, they had damaged their carrier relationships and the phones undersold.

Some major brands and lots of minor ones will be leaving the market over the next 3 years, and I expect to have only about 1/3 of the brands we have today still making phones.

[Chuck Finley69]

Both BB and TCL have burned through all of their carrier goodwill, having delivered phone after phone that undersold and had high returns - both things that cost the carriers money. The consequence of that is that the carriers are no longer interested in buying phones from them, so they are no longer in carrier stores or given support for Enhanced Calling Features.

The smartphone market is brutally competitive, and the weak simply won't survive. Even I may end up with a Samsung next year if LG can't get a new V-series phone out - LG also burned through a lot of loyalty a few years ago, and even though the V30 and V40 were among the very best smartphones ever made, they had damaged their carrier relationships and the phones undersold.

Some major brands and lots of minor ones will be leaving the market over the next 3 years, and I expect to have only about 1/3 of the brands we have today still making phones.

Perfect examples and not limited to BB or BBMo is correct. I wanted LG V50 and not carried by AT&T from what I can see.

[bb10adopter111]

Afaik, there are NO producers posting in these forums? ?? WHY are we, as USERS, concerning ourselves with things like "production costs" and "market viability"? Producers pay folks to worry those things. Worries that need FAR more REAL data than available to anyone here? ??? It's THEIR job, not mine. Absent reasonable compensation, at least. Lol.

OUR job, as USERS, is to identify what best fits our personal use case. Our job, as enthusiasts, is to advocate for what we like best! So that producers can at least consider possibilities.

Why should MY thumb care how many iPhones & Samsungs are sold each year? Will that "fact" make my thumb more proficient on slab than on this 9930? Lol.

As backlog builds thru a given day with slab in hand, chanting the mantra "slabs outsell Bolds" is supposed to somehow improve my slab productivity over Bold? ??? Lmao.

It depends on your reason for coming here. I enjoy discussing business strategy a lot more than I enjoy talking about PKBs, for example.

Some people keep asking "Why isn't BlackBerry making new phones?" and the only answer is that it doesn't make good business sense for them. And the only way to explain that answer is to go into details about cost estimates and sales estimates.

I guess an alternative answer could be something silly like, "BlackBerry hates its fans," but I would delete my account before posting lies.

Again, everyone is different and like discussing different things.

From the screen of my trusty Z10 using the exceptional BlackBerry VKB.

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

Both BB and TCL have burned through all of their carrier goodwill, having delivered phone after phone that undersold and had high returns - both things that cost the carriers money. The consequence of that is that the carriers are no longer interested in buying phones from them, so they are no longer in carrier stores or given support for Enhanced Calling Features.

The smartphone market is brutally competitive, and the weak simply won't survive. Even I may end up with a Samsung next year if LG can't get a new V-series phone out - LG also burned through a lot of loyalty a few years ago, and even though the V30 and V40 were among the very best smartphones ever made, they had damaged their carrier relationships and the phones undersold.

Some major brands and lots of minor ones will be leaving the market over the next 3 years, and I expect to have only about 1/3 of the brands we have today still making phones.

Still not sure how they talked Verizon into picking up the KEY2 LE..... half a year after it had been launched. Ended up being about the time most figured out that BBMo was done.

I suspect someone was saying "I told you not to do it".

[the_boon]

Both BB and TCL have burned through all of their carrier goodwill, having delivered phone after phone that undersold and had high returns - both things that cost the carriers money. The consequence of that is that the carriers are no longer interested in buying phones from them, so they are no longer in carrier stores or given support for Enhanced Calling Features.

The smartphone market is brutally competitive, and the weak simply won't survive. Even I may end up with a Samsung next year if LG can't get a new V-series phone out - LG also burned through a lot of loyalty a few years ago, and even though the V30 and V40 were among the very best smartphones ever made, they had damaged their carrier relationships and the phones undersold.

Some major brands and lots of minor ones will be leaving the market over the next 3 years, and I expect to have only about 1/3 of the brands we have today still making phones.

How do you know the KEY devices had a high return rate for carriers/retailers?

[Laura Knotek]

Perfect examples and not limited to BB or BBMo is correct. I wanted LG V50 and not carried by AT&T from what I can see.

I had a V20. Verizon has the V50, but I passed, since it was as expensive as the Samsung Galaxy S10+. Battery life has never been a strong point for the V series LG devices, so I opted for the Samsung.

[Laura Knotek]

Still not sure how they talked Verizon into picking up the KEY2 LE..... half a year after it had been launched. Ended up being about the time most figured out that BBMo was done.

I suspect someone was saying "I told you not to do it".

That's a good question. If any carrier would want to be rid of BlackBerry, I'd think it'd be Verizon after the Storm and Storm 2 debacles.

[bh7171]

That's a good question. If any carrier would want to be rid of BlackBerry, I'd think it'd be Verizon after the Storm and Storm 2 debacles.

Perhaps Verizon business clients requested a PKB device?

LG and Sony are DONE (like HTC) in the slab market. No BOGO or trade ins for them and that's the death rattle for anyone not Samsung, Apple and to a much lessor extent the Pixel.

In the States its really a two horse show. Apple or Samsung. Ford or Chevy. 100 percent because of their ongoing massive marketing machine and carrier relationships its over for anyone else.

Now I have read carriers and their stores are getting squeezed. Should their stores kick the bucket it would (possibly) open the market for other OEM's but not likely. Samsung has the A range and Galaxy for all price points and Apple has their prior years devices still being sold new at various price points. All very methodical and carefully crafted and marketed to crush and dominate all others.

As I noted in another thread it will soon be 3 carriers and 2 OEM's for us tech fans to squable over who's better and why for our needs.

[Troy Tiscareno]

Still not sure how they talked Verizon into picking up the KEY2 LE..... half a year after it had been launched. Ended up being about the time most figured out that BBMo was done.

I suspect someone was saying "I told you not to do it".

I think they were begging Verizon to throw them a bone, and Big Red threw them a small one - making it available only for online sales on business accounts. That likely involved Verizon buying 10,000 phones or less - a BIG change from the old days when they'd buy a million at a time.

[Troy Tiscareno]

How do you know the KEY devices had a high return rate for carriers/retailers?

Every single phone of the launch batches of K1s had their screens fall out. Launch is when the largest number of sales happen.

The K2s had lots of people returning them due to the spacebar issues - some folks talk about returning 2 or 3 devices before they got one they were happy with. That's a HUGE problem for the carrier, as even if the phone has only been used for a day, it is now no longer "new" and has to be sold as a refurb at a substantial discount.

And those are just the two biggest, most obvious reasons for returns. Others here have talked about "trying it out", coming from a BB10 phone or even a BBOS phone, and returning it because "it wasn't for me." People just don't do that with most other phones, which is one of the reasons PKBs are very hard to make profitably.

[Troy Tiscareno]

I had a V20. Verizon has the V50, but I passed, since it was as expensive as the Samsung Galaxy S10+. Battery life has never been a strong point for the V series LG devices, so I opted for the Samsung.

The V30 and V40 had excellent battery life, but I can't get a V50 for AT&T or T-Mo (only a Korean phone that will kinda work), so I may also end up with an S10+ in the spring. It's really a shame, because LG really got the V-series right starting with the V30.

[Chuck Finley69]

The V30 and V40 had excellent battery life, but I can't get a V50 for AT&T or T-Mo (only a Korean phone that will kinda work), so I may also end up with an S10+ in the spring. It's really a shame, because LG really got the V-series right starting with the V30.

Anecdotally, I suspected AT&T wasn’t happy when I saw the V35 and LG did the exclusive run...

When I saw no V50, I suspected another problem. In current environment, OEMs need far more than just deep pockets. It’s not even about the product. That just maintains your share

[bh7171]

Anecdotally, I suspected AT&T wasn’t happy when I saw the V35 and LG did the exclusive run...

When I saw no V50, I suspected another problem. In current environment, OEMs need far more than just deep pockets. It’s not even about the product. That just maintains your share

The carriers are backing themselves into a very precarious position. When it just comes down to just Samsung and Apple both would much rather cut out the middle man and sell direct. If and when Apple and Samsung's deals are as good as carriers (Samsung's already are through their Samsung Store) then who needs the carrier store and sales commissions being taken from the device? And when one carrier realizes the "cost savings" of decreased lease space due to ever decreasing mall traffic and employees labor and bene's it could start an avalanche.

[bb10adopter111]

The carriers are backing themselves into a very precarious position. When it just comes down to just Samsung and Apple both would much rather cut out the middle man and sell direct. If and when Apple and Samsung's deals are as good as carriers (Samsung's already are through their Samsung Store) then who needs the carrier store and sales commissions being taken from the device? And when one carrier realizes the "cost savings" of decreased lease space due to ever decreasing mall traffic and employees labor and bene's it could start an avalanche.

Carriers don't care about the hardware, so long as customers buy unlimited data plans. That's where they make their billions. They sell phones to secure the customers. That's why they discount so aggressively.

From the screen of my trusty Z10 using the exceptional BlackBerry VKB.

[Chuck Finley69]

The carriers are backing themselves into a very precarious position. When it just comes down to just Samsung and Apple both would much rather cut out the middle man and sell direct. If and when Apple and Samsung's deals are as good as carriers (Samsung's already are through their Samsung Store) then who needs the carrier store and sales commissions being taken from the device? And when one carrier realizes the "cost savings" of decreased lease space due to ever decreasing mall traffic and employees labor and bene's it could start an avalanche.

Carriers have been well aware of the situation for several years so that’s what all the secondary brands are for. Those whatever brands that keep everyone honest. Plus now Android is selling it’s own proprietary hardware so you have Apple, Google and third party OEM plus whoever is aiming for title belt..

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

Perhaps Verizon business clients requested a PKB device?

It's possible....

I think AT&T still having the KEYone and it still getting updates is probable because on a "need" for some portion of AT&T enterprise customer base. But it sure seems like they would have switched to the LE as well.

[Chuck Finley69]

It's possible....

I think AT&T still having the KEYone and it still getting updates is probable because on a "need" for some portion of AT&T enterprise customer base. But it sure seems like they would have switched to the LE as well.

If there’s any business case for either at this point, it’s BBMo giving some ridiculous profit margin to either carrier to unload hardware.

[bb10adopter111]

It's possible....

I think AT&T still having the KEYone and it still getting updates is probable because on a "need" for some portion of AT&T enterprise customer base. But it sure seems like they would have switched to the LE as well.

I think it's far more likely that they made a small bet in terms of volume and have simply forgotten about it, with a pre-agreed update plan on automatic pilot. Since it's a Web-only offering, there's almost zero cost to slowly selling off the stock. For all we know, they only have a few hundred units remaining.

From the screen of my trusty Z10 using the exceptional BlackBerry VKB.

[the_boon]

Every single phone of the launch batches of K1s had their screens fall out. Launch is when the largest number of sales happen.

The K2s had lots of people returning them due to the spacebar issues - some folks talk about returning 2 or 3 devices before they got one they were happy with. That's a HUGE problem for the carrier, as even if the phone has only been used for a day, it is now no longer "new" and has to be sold as a refurb at a substantial discount.

And those are just the two biggest, most obvious reasons for returns. Others here have talked about "trying it out", coming from a BB10 phone or even a BBOS phone, and returning it because "it wasn't for me." People just don't do that with most other phones, which is one of the reasons PKBs are very hard to make profitably.

But we don't know that.

We don't know if a substantial amount of KEY2's were in fact returned or not due to spacebar or other issues.
The only way you could know is if a knowledgeable person working in a carrier/retailer store told you because they experienced it.

And what about the LE? What's the reason for a "high return rate" there?

The KEYone? Yes, all early silver batches had the screen glue issue, but none of the ones that came after did. So those shouldn't have had an abnormally high return rate.

And why would you say the KEY phones would have a higher chance of being returned by those "it wasn't for me" people rather than slabs? Aren't there some people who will return slabs after a few days of use for that same reason? Or if they see that the new one doesn't really bring much more than their old one?

Sounds a bit unsubstantiated and bias against PKB to me

[idssteve]

It depends on your reason for coming here. I enjoy discussing business strategy a lot more than I enjoy talking about PKBs, for example.

Some people keep asking "Why isn't BlackBerry making new phones?" and the only answer is that it doesn't make good business sense for them. And the only way to explain that answer is to go into details about cost estimates and sales estimates.

I guess an alternative answer could be something silly like, "BlackBerry hates its fans," but I would delete my account before posting lies.

Again, everyone is different and like discussing different things.

From the screen of my trusty Z10 using the exceptional BlackBerry VKB.

Well, I must apologize to all for posting these responses in the wrong thread. I could blame it on "age" but really just failed to adequately check things after swapping handsets. A hazard of dual carry. Lol. That's my excuse, anyway. Lol. Interesting to see how those posts interacted with a thread I didn't intend to interact with, tho. My apologies, tho.

Yes, I also enjoy good academic business strategy discussions. A cherished pastime for this old businessman. I fully agree that such discussions are inescapably relevant to market realities including product AVAILABILITY. I don't, however, see market realities, nor availability itself, as automatically relevant indicators of a given product's design performance for an individual use case. Only its market performance. Imo. An inference mentioned in the thread I was intending to respond to. Lol.


My overall point is that your Z best suits your use case regardless of Z's "market viability". This Bold best suits my use case regardless of Bold's "market viability". By day's end, we each KNOW which tool has afforded best daily productivity for our activities. All the "market viability" in the universe can't alter that reality.

Likewise, "tyranny of the majority" IS impacting availability of attributes valued only by tiny minorities, like us. That's life. Neither of us aspired into business as the "easy" path. Nothing new about the difficult. The impossible just takes a little longer. Lol.

The only slim hope tiny minorities like us might aspire to preserve valued attributes is to advocate for them. Out of slim chance some measure of those attributes might influence some young designer's "new" design, some day?

Such advocation once seemed welcomed activity here at CB. Guess I've been around long enough to recall the days when at least a couple feature suggestions, advocated around here and in enterprise space, seemed to materialize in RIM's products. Possibly just coincidental... but? It WAS inspiring to those of us who appreciated what appeared to represent RIM's "bottom up" evolutionary design approach. Actual or not.

Again, I must apologize for posting a post and subsequent replies that really wasn't intended for this thread. Interesting outcome, tho.

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

But we don't know that.

We don't know if a substantial amount of KEY2's were in fact returned or not due to spacebar or other issues.
The only way you could know is if a knowledgeable person working in a carrier/retailer store told you because they experienced it.

And what about the LE? What's the reason for a "high return rate" there?

The KEYone? Yes, all early silver batches had the screen glue issue, but none of the ones that came after did. So those shouldn't have had an abnormally high return rate.

And why would you say the KEY phones would have a higher chance of being returned by those "it wasn't for me" people rather than slabs? Aren't there some people who will return slabs after a few days of use for that same reason? Or if they see that the new one doesn't really bring much more than their old one?

Sounds a bit unsubstantiated and bias against PKB to me

He didn't even get into the network issues that many KEYone users here were having... but yes as a "support site" I'm sure CrackBerry saw a lot of this issues, and with 100's of thousand of units being moved it might have been a normal percentage.

As for the Screen issues... the KEYone was a slow roll-out. In the US only one Carrier had it at that point (they never had another BBMo device). Online sales were always out of stock... Who know how many of the KEYone's were in that "bad batch"??

But how many KEY devices have you owned... in search for the "perfect" one?

There is no verifiable evidence that I've seen for BBMo return rates in comparison to any other brand. That said I'm 100% sure there is a bias, as a PKB has moving parts that do wear out.

But you know what... if BlackBerry came out with some Cylance secure phone for enterprise and government customers (you'd need to check with Vegas for odds on that). If BlackBerry picked one form factor, I bet it would be a SLAB at this point.

[bb10adopter111]

Well, I must apologize to all for posting these responses in the wrong thread. I could blame it on "age" but really just failed to adequately check things after swapping handsets. A hazard of dual carry. Lol. That's my excuse, anyway. Lol. Interesting to see how those posts interacted with a thread I didn't intend to interact with, tho. My apologies, tho.

Yes, I also enjoy good academic business strategy discussions. A cherished pastime for this old businessman. I fully agree that such discussions are inescapably relevant to market realities including product AVAILABILITY. I don't, however, see market realities, nor availability itself, as automatically relevant indicators of a given product's design performance for an individual use case. Only its market performance. Imo. An inference mentioned in the thread I was intending to respond to. Lol.


My overall point is that your Z best suits your use case regardless of Z's "market viability". This Bold best suits my use case regardless of Bold's "market viability". By day's end, we each KNOW which tool has afforded best daily productivity for our activities. All the "market viability" in the universe can't alter that reality.

Likewise, "tyranny of the majority" IS impacting availability of attributes valued only by tiny minorities, like us. That's life. Neither of us aspired into business as the "easy" path. Nothing new about the difficult. The impossible just takes a little longer. Lol.

The only slim hope tiny minorities like us might aspire to preserve valued attributes is to advocate for them. Out of slim chance some measure of those attributes might influence some young designer's "new" design, some day?

Such advocation once seemed welcomed activity here at CB. Guess I've been around long enough to recall the days when at least a couple feature suggestions, advocated around here and in enterprise space, seemed to materialize in RIM's products. Possibly just coincidental... but? It WAS inspiring to those of us who appreciated what appeared to represent RIM's "bottom up" evolutionary design approach. Actual or not.

Again, I must apologize for posting a post and subsequent replies that really wasn't intended for this thread. Interesting outcome, tho.

Yes, I totally agree it's annoying when people reflexively post that, "The market has decided. You're a small minority and no one will build a device for your use case..." in response a nuanced thread about what's been lost in the 2010s when it comes to mobile productivity.

Market reality and product quality rarely go hand-in-hand in consumer computing. If they did, Microsoft's Windows would have succumbed to IBM's OS/2, and Steve Jobs would have been too busy running NeXT Inc. to ever lead Pixar or return to Apple!

From the screen of my trusty Z10 using the exceptional BlackBerry VKB.

[Troy Tiscareno]

But we don't know that.

We don't know if a substantial amount of KEY2's were in fact returned or not due to spacebar or other issues.
The only way you could know is if a knowledgeable person working in a carrier/retailer store told you because they experienced it.

And what about the LE? What's the reason for a "high return rate" there?

The KEYone? Yes, all early silver batches had the screen glue issue, but none of the ones that came after did. So those shouldn't have had an abnormally high return rate.

How many Galaxy phone buyers send back the phone because the screen touch didn't feel like their last Galaxy phone? Those kind of things just don't happen - but with PKB phones, there were a lot of people taking "test drives" and then sending them back, or exchanging for better PKBs, or broken PKB backlighting, or other various problems that other phones don't have.

But you're missing the point. For the carriers, the K1 was already blacklisted by most carriers, and when they got AT&T to agree to carry it, that was really the very last chance at mainstream carrier distribution, and it needed to be perfect - and they (TCL) blew it out of the gate. It needs to be remembered that the previous 2 generations of Alcatel phones (Idol 3 and 4 series) also had a high problem rate, as did their DTEK cousins - though the carriers cared much more about the Alcatel phones that they were selling themselves. But it was all a reflection on TCL, as well as on BB.

That's why the K2 and K2LE launched with zero carrier support, and the one carrier that finally agreed to carry the LE at all didn't pick it up until it was already - what, 6 months old? - and only sold it online on business accounts.

Carriers will forgive mistakes - such as the Note 7 battery issue - if the manufacture issues a recall and handles the expense themselves - AND if that phone draws in a lot of business. BB phones haven't drawn in business for a long time, and having a higher than average rate of returns isn't forgivable when you are already begging to be carried by the carriers.

[Troy Tiscareno]

The carriers are backing themselves into a very precarious position. When it just comes down to just Samsung and Apple both would much rather cut out the middle man and sell direct. If and when Apple and Samsung's deals are as good as carriers (Samsung's already are through their Samsung Store) then who needs the carrier store and sales commissions being taken from the device? And when one carrier realizes the "cost savings" of decreased lease space due to ever decreasing mall traffic and employees labor and bene's it could start an avalanche.

The carrier stores exist because a lot of people need real, in-person support when upgrading phones (different SIM sizes, difficult provisioning, etc.), and especially if moving from one carrier to another or just setting up a brand new account. And OEMs allow the carriers a large profit margin on the phones in return for providing primary after-sale support. I don't know that the carriers are in any hurry to get out of the device sales business - most people want to walk into a store and leave with a phone, and not having phones on-site would lose the carrier a lot of leverage. The carriers (in North America, anyway) desperately do NOT want to be mere service providers for calls and mobile data - that's their biggest fear - so they use every trick in the book to maintain power over their OEMs. Of course, Apple and Samsung wield a LOT of power, and the carriers would be screwed if they tried to not carry Apple or Samsung brands, so, really, it's the smaller OEMs who have the least leverage. Those that deliver excellent, reliable devices that bring in buyers will do well, and those that don't won't be around much longer.

[bh7171]

How many Galaxy phone buyers send back the phone because the screen touch didn't feel like their last Galaxy phone? Those kind of things just don't happen - but with PKB phones, there were a lot of people taking "test drives" and then sending them back, or exchanging for better PKBs, or broken PKB backlighting, or other various problems that other phones don't have.

But you're missing the point. For the carriers, the K1 was already blacklisted by most carriers, and when they got AT&T to agree to carry it, that was really the very last chance at mainstream carrier distribution, and it needed to be perfect - and they (TCL) blew it out of the gate. It needs to be remembered that the previous 2 generations of Alcatel phones (Idol 3 and 4 series) also had a high problem rate, as did their DTEK cousins - though the carriers cared much more about the Alcatel phones that they were selling themselves. But it was all a reflection on TCL, as well as on BB.

That's why the K2 and K2LE launched with zero carrier support, and the one carrier that finally agreed to carry the LE at all didn't pick it up until it was already - what, 6 months old? - and only sold it online on business accounts.

Carriers will forgive mistakes - such as the Note 7 battery issue - if the manufacture issues a recall and handles the expense themselves - AND if that phone draws in a lot of business. BB phones haven't drawn in business for a long time, and having a higher than average rate of returns isn't forgivable when you are already begging to be carried by the carriers.

Did the "Space Black " AT&T Variant have screen issues? Although not a carrier device my Black Edition Blackberry KeyOne is rock solid. Other than my Cobalt Classic one of the best "feeling" devices I have owned in hand. (Wish the back was a bit more tacky like the Z30)

My S7 and S9 unfortunately cannot be used sans a case so their ergonomics depended on Spigen rather than Samsung. Same with my daughter's XR. All require cases. Hey maybe that's why they are not as many returned glass slabs 🤔 although nobody here really has that data. Just guesses based on issues exacerbated here in forums I suspect.