Just 5 Models. No More, No Less.

On the heel's of the recent NYT article about there being too many Blackberry devices on the market... they are totally right and I have always had that idea that it needs to be simplified.

Bold 9900
1 Curve Model
1 Slider Model, 9810
1 Touch Screen Model
1 Flip Model

That is it. Why do we have so many?? I understand the difference in carrier models but there is no reason that you cant simply have the Bold 9900 on all carriers?? Apple Does it.

All the phones should feature almost all the same internals. If not, than make it significantly different.

Want a traditional blackberry? Get a Curve. Want it to have touch screen? Get the Bold.
Want a slider? get the 9810
Want a full touch screen? Got that too.
Prefer flip style? Got that covered as well.

I think once new model's are released, the older ones should be pulled from shelves completely to take away confusion. It doesn't help that a lot of vendors like Best Buy and even some corporate cell phone sales reps are not excited to sell someone a Blackberry...

thoughts?

IF you are only talking about the US market sure, and a NYT article certainly would have been thinking the US is the only market in the world and the only one that matters,

but in reality you've got the global market.

RIM needs to have both a budget and a Premium Full touchscreen phone for the Asian markets IMO, QWERTY Keyboards though awesome for English don't cut it for Asian languages, well made touchscreens with quality softkeyboards need to be in those markets,

RIM needs to have their Curve QWERTY line for the latin alphabet market that require low cost phones
RIM needs their BOLD line as the flag ship QWERTY

I firmly believe RIM needs to bring back the Pearl line, and Maintain the slider line, and a flip line

Carriers don't like this, and that's why there are so many ever-so-slighly different HTC models also. (drives our support team nuts!)

Apple is a special case. This is one of a few reasons Verizon didn't agree to the iPhone for so long. Jobs just flat out refused to compromise on certain issues. (for example, the iPhone is the only phone Verizon sells without prominent branding on the device)

But you can argue Apple is paying for that intransigence as Verizon and others push the Android phones so much harder. Phones that have VZ branding, and VZ apps preinstalled. In fact, Verizon initially embraced the early android phones as their answer to iPhone except without the Jobs rules.

I can't see how RIM could dictate this to the carriers now in the position they are in. But it sure would be an improvement. As a developer, all these model numbers confuse me.

I don't know if they need a flip device, I don't think that would sell well, as the style did not. I think they should have 3 models, the Bold, Curve and Torch. And instead of the big model numbers, just have it be like the Bold 4, Curve 5 and Torch 5, or whatever version they are on at the time.

Originally Posted by blue_k

I don't know if they need a flip device, I don't think that would sell well, as the style did not. I think they should have 3 models, the Bold, Curve and Torch. And instead of the big model numbers, just have it be like the Bold 4, Curve 5 and Torch 5, or whatever version they are on at the time.

the Style didn't sell well because it was CDMA in a GSM world, and was released in the US on Sprint, Not Verizon.

It was never given a chance

Originally Posted by app_Developer

Carriers don't like this, and that's why there are so many ever-so-slighly different HTC models also. (drives our support team nuts!)

Apple is a special case. This is one of a few reasons Verizon didn't agree to the iPhone for so long. Jobs just flat out refused to compromise on certain issues. (for example, the iPhone is the only phone Verizon sells without prominent branding on the device)

But you can argue Apple is paying for that intransigence as Verizon and others push the Android phones so much harder. Phones that have VZ branding, and VZ apps preinstalled. In fact, Verizon initially embraced the early android phones as their answer to iPhone except without the Jobs rules.

I can't see how RIM could dictate this to the carriers now in the position they are in. But it sure would be an improvement. As a developer, all these model numbers confuse me.

The speculation due to an Interview with Alec Saunders is RIM is actually working on something within BBX to have scalable development tools for mutliresolution apps. as devices get more powerful being able to upscale an app via software in the OS is possible, the multitude of Supports for different variations of ones app based on resolution changes wont be an issue moving forward.

I believe they should cut it down even more in US markets.

Bold 9790 as the entry level BlackBerry
Torch Slider
Full touch Torch
Bold 9900

I don't see a need for a Curve, Pearl, Style, Storm or any of that.

At firstI was like 'wait.. What?!?! Blackberry has lots of phones, no thats android.
But i gave it some thought and I totlally agree!

I think they should just have Bold, Torch, and All Touch. 3 Phones and that is it. Then after a year come out with new models and last years models become this years lower end cheaper devices and no more curves after that year. The existing curves should be the last and then this migration would work. So basically they would have three phones with a yearly refresh cycle but a two year life cycle.