[Troy Tiscareno]

...would be successful if they could convert 2.5% of the 40,000,000 BlackBerry users...

Per Chen in the most recent interview, BB is down to 30M active devices, across BBOS and BB10. That's not even users - it's devices. Many on CB own several active devices, for example.

[AnimalPak200]

"Ink tit" is going into the "future band names" folder.

Thanks

Lmao... I got hung up on that as well... damn you male brain.

Posted via CB10

[RyanGermann]

Ryan, the party is over at the "Final stage...Acceptance " thread

What is it you think I haven't accepted?

[James Nieves]

Whatever figure can be reasonably arrived at, the money isn't the inhibitor. BB would supply the costs, the support, everything needed to port it to BB10. There are reasons why, or apps like native SnapChat or Instagram WOULD be on BB10. Trying to come up with an rational explanation for something irrational as whatever motivates these software companies to deny BB from providing all the necessary resources is.... Well, implausible says it kindly.

Here's a plausible reason:

(CEO of app vendor): "God, I hate BlackBerry: over my dead body will there ever be a version of our app on BlackBerry."

That is more plausible than any assertion that "it costs too much to port apps to Bb10" because there are mountains of evidence that it doesn't cost a lot, unless you want to totally ignore the fact that iGrann exists, that SnapChat clients exist and SnapChat (for 'security reasons') spends more money blocking third party apps than it would cost them to LET Micsrosoft and BlackBerry (who both know more about security in their pinky toe than SnapChat has in their whole stupid body) develop top-quality native apps. snapChat is a less attractive acquisition target for Google or Apple if there are BB and Windows apps to 'deal with' post acquisition... So it's not costs, it's strategy: mysterious, capricious strategy.

This^

Posted via CB10

[chopachain]

IMO Its not about the apps. That's the smokescreen. This runs way deeper than apps. BB10 scares the crap out of somebody and they have been trying to drown it before it gets out the bag for awhile now. There is definitely some underlying reason for this abnormal abject ongoing hate on BB. Why? Why would Snapchat not want an extra few million users, at no cost to develop the app, from a third party app? The apps have been developed but BB10 devices have been blocked from access. Third party apps are okay as long as its apple or android but not BB. Apple and WP don't have GPS. Where's the hate for them? Go figure.

[anon(9353145)]

Nice opinion piece. Ultimately, as a newer BlackBerry use I think they're a company with a lot to offer. I like BB10 but agree they need to try the Android option: if the mountain won't come to Mohammed....

Enjoy the podcasts with you, James, Darius, Bla1ze, Brandon, etc. Thanks for rhyming in.

[crackfinder]

The patient is dying and needs more than a shot in the arm. I can understand from a business perspective why BlackBerry is going Android.

However, the physical keyboard is only going to attract a small amount of demographic. Remember when Verizon was marketing it's first "Droid" with the keyboard and the commercials as to how it had a keyboard and the iPhone didn't? How did that end up working out? I don't see a single Verizon "Droid" with a physical keyboard.

We are living in 2015. HDDs (spinning hard drives) are being replaced by SSDs. Even cars and airplanes are going fly by wire. Physical keyboards are not what is going to save the hardware division. Being a slider, another mechanical problem waiting to happen, is another mechanical form factor that died on the vine. Hey the 90's called and they want their phone back...I can truly hear it now.

The one single factor that BlackBerry still needs to overcome is the fact that it's brand is damaged beyond what anyone can imagine.

Brand damage along with not having a high spec all touch is killing it. Going full Android at least takes care of the app gap.

Physical keyboards and sliders aren't going to save the hardware division. Sorry folks.

Posted via CB10

[conite]

Physical keyboards and sliders aren't going to save the hardware division. Sorry folks.

Posted via CB10

Perhaps, but I have never seen this much excitement from my Android friends about an upcoming BlackBerry device in years. They are truly interested to put it mildly, as at least five or six of them are prepared to buy one sight unseen.

PassportSQW100-4/10.3.2.2639

[mrlahjr]

Perhaps, but I have never seen this much excitement from my Android friends about an upcoming BlackBerry device in years. They are truly interested to put it mildly.

PassportSQW100-4/10.3.2.2639

Wait until an all touch Passport with better specs than the slider comes out. You'll see some excitement.

TMO  Z10,STL100-3/10.2.1.2156

[asherN]

IWhy would Snapchat not want an extra few million users, at no cost to develop the app, from a third party app?.

It's called Qc and maintaining the integrity of your brand. If osme 3rd party writes a BB10 ap and a network breach occurs because of that app, the headline is not going to be "3rd party app causes user data leak", it will be"Massive user data leak at SnapChat".

[AnimalPak200]

Wait until an all touch Passport with better specs than the slider comes out. You'll see some excitement.

TMO  Z10,STL100-3/10.2.1.2156

So like... a Note?

Posted via CB10

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

Really, the whole thing was a massive chicken/egg thing. How do you attract users without apps? And how do you attract developers without users?

The way the plan was SUPPOSED to go was that the PlayBook and the Colt would have QNX, but would also run legacy BBOS apps to ease the transition for the existing BlackBerry userbase back in 2011. Then they would have taken a couple of years to actually build out BB10 and bring the developer community along. Had they succeeded in this, they might have had 20 million BB10 users by the end of 2013 and we'd be having a VERY different conversation right now.

I think the problem is BlackBerry did too much assuming and not enough planning.

Even after the PlayBook was launched and everyone was wanting Instagram, Netflex, Candy Crush.... BlackBerry still just assumed that people would buy their phones without these and that eventually the userbase would naturally be large enough to attract these developers.

Of course the other problem is the development of BB10 was out of control... they didn't have a clue of where they were in the development timeline. It always seemed a few months away.... but then had to be pushed back. I think if they had known it would take them 3 years to release it and 4 years to get it out of Beta... we would have been using Android 3 years ago. Anyway BlackBerry's moving target for the OS Release, made it hard for anyone to really consider the App issues and how to address them.

[mrlahjr]

So like... a Note?

Posted via CB10

Nah. All touch Passport BB10 with better specs than the slider. like 4gb ram to start.

TMO  Z10,STL100-3/10.2.1.2156

[Tre Lawrence]

IMO Its not about the apps. That's the smokescreen. This runs way deeper than apps. BB10 scares the crap out of somebody and they have been trying to drown it before it gets out the bag for awhile now. There is definitely some underlying reason for this abnormal abject ongoing hate on BB. Why? Why would Snapchat not want an extra few million users, at no cost to develop the app, from a third party app? The apps have been developed but BB10 devices have been blocked from access. Third party apps are okay as long as its apple or android but not BB. Apple and WP don't have GPS. Where's the hate for them? Go figure.

LOL. We're back to fear?

[Tre Lawrence]

It's called Qc and maintaining the integrity of your brand. If osme 3rd party writes a BB10 ap and a network breach occurs because of that app, the headline is not going to be "3rd party app causes user data leak", it will be"Massive user data leak at SnapChat".

Exactly.

The same reason BBRY would cry blood if another party tried to make a BBM client...

ETA: thanks for pointing out error Flip...

[abass]

Exactly.

The same reason BBRY would cry blood if another party tried to make a BB10 client...

I think you mean BBM client, an I totally agree. People will cry and complain that companies like Snapchat are ridiculous for blocking 3rd party ports.. but they started doing it after the big *hack* that happened and put a company like BlackBerry in their shoes, they don't want other people screwing with their API and creating these apps that could have security holes.

Nah. All touch Passport BB10 with better specs than the slider. like 4gb ram to start.

TMO  Z10,STL100-3/10.2.1.2156

Creating yet another BB10 device with another odd aspect ratio is not the solution. It just doesn't work like that... It's bad on so many fronts. Do you have any idea how much of a paint it is supporting all of these crazily different aspect ratio on BB10 for native app developers? Talk about making the app situation even worse.. you accomplish that by doing just this. I honestly wouldn't go through the effort of porting my app over to ANOTHER screen aspect ratio. It was hard enough accommodating to the Q10's square screen from the Z10's normal screen, then to the Z30 which is a slightly different aspect ratio from the Z10, just enough to be annoying for the dev, then the Passport, same aspect ratio as the Q10, but if you port your Q10 layout to the Passport, you aren't doing Passport users justice. All of these devices functioned way different and had different aspect ratios.. (it's a bad UX to just mirror Q10 app on Passport because the device is so much bigger and parts of the screen are harder to reach so more modifications are needed).

It's so much work making apps fully function on all of these aspect ratios and devs are already frustrated enough, throwing yet another screen aspect ratio at the wall is not going to help anyone. I get it, you and a fe others are dying for an all-touch passport but it's such a tiny part of the market that it appeals to and it'll turn away even more devs, even existing devs. This move just doesn't make any sense.. on so man different levels..

Posted via CB10

[conite]

Wait until an all touch Passport with better specs than the slider comes out. You'll see some excitement.

TMO  Z10,STL100-3/10.2.1.2156

Excitement from who? A handful of BB10 holdouts?

PassportSQW100-4/10.3.2.2639

[abass]

Excitement from who? A handful of BB10 holdouts?

PassportSQW100-4/10.3.2.2639

Exactly the answer. There are 10 million BB10 users right now, and such a small portion of them here want this device to come. Thinking it'll save BlackBerry.. BlackBerry needs to sell 10 million devices a year for the hardware division to stick around and make sense.. It's just not feasible for this device to do that well, the Passport didn't sell that well and it got rave reviews and many appreciated the different form factor. It still didn't sell on the level that it needed to. And another odd aspect ratio device is not going to change that.. the market has spoken as slabs are what 99.9% of the market wants.

Posted via CB10

[tangozulu]

Z10 screen is an odd size? Really?

Posted via CB10

[peter0328]

Z10 screen is an odd size? Really?

Posted via CB10

Yes, it's a 1 off aspect ratio. It's 15:9 whereas all other BlackBerry 10 phones are 16:9 or 1:1.

https://developer.blackberry.com/des...een_sizes.html

Posted via CB10

[glwerry]

Hey, great article. It really opened my eyes because even though I have spent my life in software (mostly maintenance / support) I'm not in software development. I work for corporation that's selling something else.

So, I have been used to the model of "grow your user base because the maintenance fees from that software is what's paying the bills" for the software vendor.

I have actually lived through something like this: we were on a proprietary Hewlett-Packard (MPE) system and moved to HP's flavour of Unix. This sort of transition that BB is looking at may just work.

I would consider an Android-based slider, if not for the costly and messy divorce, as my wife has very bluntly informed me that since I only got my Classic 3 months ago, I do NOT need another BB!

Ah well ...

[DrBoomBotz]

Everyone got it?
Good!

[anon(6038817)]

From a business standpoint, it absolutely makes sense to go where the developers and users are, rather than try to make them conform to and come to you.

BlackBerry has tried the latter approach for long enough. It doesn't work. It just doesn't. No amount of marketing or throwing buckets of money at developers can change that. Look at how much money Microsoft has poured into its Windows Phone marketing and developer incentives and how little return on investment they've received.

Chen will not let BlackBerry's handset business die without a fight. But you have to let the guy do what it takes to save it. Digging their heels in and staying with BB10 until the bitter end will result in just that. A bitter end. I don't think any BlackBerry fan realistically wants that outcome.

[eduzojordan]

As Birdman said in the news section...well said.

...BlackBerry has an advantage over other manufacturers and that is the keyboard....

Not sure about this...otherwise sales for Q5, Q10, Passport and Classic would be by the millions!!!

[DrBoomBotz]

Not sure about this...otherwise sales for Q5, Q10, Passport and Leap would be by the millions!!!

No sure how the leap fits as it does not have a keyboard.
Two differences that might account for the low sales.
The Q series and the Passport have non standard screen dimensions and they run BB10.
I hope those are the reasons that account for the low sales because the reason might be the Blackberry brand.