[Article]Heins Interview: RIM's BlackBerry 10 master plan

From an interview with Thorstein Heins:

Research in Motion CEO Thorsten Heins' BlackBerry 10 plan revolves around being one platform and device to bridge your personal and work roles.

"It's not about labeling people as consumer or enterprise, but looking at them as individuals in various roles and being a great tool," said Heins in an interview.

In other words, the BlackBerry 10 platform aims to sandbox work and personal. It's unclear whether RIM can defend those features for long, but the message may arrive at the right time. Why? In recent months, I increasingly here workers complain about the downside of bring your own device. For instance, a large enterprise won't pay for a smartphone for you, but insists on being able to wipe your device completely.

Add it up and RIM---should it position BlackBerry 10 as a convergence device between every role personal and professional---could capitalize on a bit of BYOD backlash. Double bonus for RIM if wireless carriers push this personal and professional role idea. After all, you could conceivably sell two data plans for one device.

Yes, it sounds complicated, but RIM may be on to something.

Another interesting comment from Heins:

If Heins could go back in time and change anything about the company at any point, he would have hopped on the 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) bandwagon much earlier. The answer is a bit surprising given RIM's current struggles. RIM could have seen touchscreens coming, it could have pushed BlackBerry 10 out earlier and could have had email native on the PlayBook out of the gate. LTE?

On further reflection, I tend to agree with Heins' answer. The Android ecosystem hopped on Verizon's LTE train very early---even before the network was fully formed. As a result, those of us that care about network speed went Android. It's really that simple. If there were BlackBerry devices or Windows Phone smartphones available on LTE out of the gate, recent smartphone history may have been written differently.

The bottom line: Apple can hang back. The rest of the pack can't. Even today, LTE is dominated by Android devices. If RIM went LTE early, BlackBerry users who are getting weird looks in an iPhone-Android world could at least have said "but it's 4G."

"In hindsight, we underestimated the deployment of LTE in the U.S.," said Heins. Why? "We were very much focused on Asia Pacific, the Middle East and global markets. It was global growth vs. LTE. We needed to do both."

Full article:

RIM's BlackBerry 10 master plan: Bridge personal, work personas | ZDNet

Originally Posted by W Hoa

From an interview with Thorstein Heins:

"In hindsight, we underestimated the deployment of LTE in the U.S.," said Heins. Why? "We were very much focused on Asia Pacific, the Middle East and global markets. It was global growth vs. LTE. We needed to do both."

I disagree. The ecosystem is more important than 3G vs LTE. If BB7 devices supported LTE it would make very little difference in sell rates vs Android.

Originally Posted by q649

I disagree. The ecosystem is more important than 3G vs LTE. If BB7 devices supported LTE it would make very little difference in sell rates vs Android.

While ecosystem is important, ecosystem is built because you've got the install base, and you've got the development environment

RIM couldn't really do anything to get the install base up in North America without Carrier support, and LTE would have been a selling feature for Carrier support,

RIM's development tools for BB6 were bad, BB7 should have had LTE made them 1mm thicker for bigger batteries, and improved their developer tools, Still wouldn't have the big ecosystem, but it would have slowed their down turn in the US, and would have given them a little less pressure to have BB10 out so early.

How much truth is there with the BYOD comment? If my employer said that I would tell they to F-off. Maybe not if they were paying me a $100K salary. Lol

How many people buy the phone the carrier pushes? Not as many now, but even a year ago many did. Verizon only pushes LTE phones. They actively discourage the purchase of 3G (CDMA) devices. If BlackBerry had LTE phones on Verizon, they would be pushing them instead of hiding them and telling people not to by them. For the same reason Verizon is not pushing iPhones.

Originally Posted by jechow

How much truth is there with the BYOD comment? If my employer said that I would tell they to F-off. Maybe not if they were paying me a $100K salary. Lol

People want to bring their own device because otherwise they have to bring two devices... BYOD right now is a bad tradeoff. The corporation can win big if they download all the costs onto employees who opt in. However, there have been issues with BYOD already where people have had outrageous LD charges because the employer isn't even subsidizing airtime. BYOD is going to be a legal mess. The only way around it is to have multiple accounts (or roles) on a single phone.

Open letter to RIM: YOU SHOULD BE AT THE FOREFRONT of multiple users/roles on a phone. Patent everything. Multiple phone numbers, multiple plans, multiple carriers, multiple desktops, whatever. Patent everything -- this is where the technology is going.

Originally Posted by jrohland

How many people buy the phone the carrier pushes? Not as many now, but even a year ago many did. Verizon only pushes LTE phones. They actively discourage the purchase of 3G (CDMA) devices. If BlackBerry had LTE phones on Verizon, they would be pushing them instead of hiding them and telling people not to by them. For the same reason Verizon is not pushing iPhones.

I also think it's which store you go to and which rep you speak with. Not all Vzw reps are pro Android/Apple or pro LTE.

Originally Posted by jrohland

How many people buy the phone the carrier pushes? Not as many now, but even a year ago many did. Verizon only pushes LTE phones. They actively discourage the purchase of 3G (CDMA) devices. If BlackBerry had LTE phones on Verizon, they would be pushing them instead of hiding them and telling people not to by them. For the same reason Verizon is not pushing iPhones.

The educated techy public, NO they buy what they want.
But the mass consumer who goes into the store buys what they see on TV, and what the Stores have on display, The fact that 4G LTE phones were selling in markets that didn't even have LTE and selling to people with minimal data plans shows that it is marketing and carrier push.

You've got your fans of devices in each store that can shift that. but Marketing plays a huge roll, You need a new phone, you walk into the store to buy it, you're buying what you see on the flyer your carrier sent you about your upgrade. I can't believe ONLY Canadian Carriers send flyers to consumers just before their upgrade to show them a few phones to choose from, my latest flyer from Bell was ONLY Samsung SG3 like it was my only phone option, I needed it like yesterday

I had one already but to the know nothing consumer, that is the phone they are going in for.

Originally Posted by deRusett

While ecosystem is important, ecosystem is built because you've got the install base, and you've got the development environment

RIM couldn't really do anything to get the install base up in North America without Carrier support, and LTE would have been a selling feature for Carrier support,

RIM's development tools for BB6 were bad, BB7 should have had LTE made them 1mm thicker for bigger batteries, and improved their developer tools, Still wouldn't have the big ecosystem, but it would have slowed their down turn in the US, and would have given them a little less pressure to have BB10 out so early.

RIM has always had carrier support in NA in the fact that they continued to sell their products. However.. They were never "pushed" hard because quite frankly..the products sucked in comparison to what else was being offered. The hardware on BB's was always sorely lacking.. and the ecosystem in comparison was/is a joke. This is the reason for the decline. Not because they didn't offer LTE. What good is LTE for media consumption on a 2.6" screen? Imo RIM was extremely late to the ball in terms of hardware.. And had they gotten some decent devices out early enough.. Perhaps dev support wouldn't have fallen through the bottom.

Originally Posted by Rickroller

RIM has always had carrier support in NA in the fact that they continued to sell their products. However.. They were never "pushed" hard because quite frankly..the products sucked in comparison to what else was being offered. The hardware on BB's was always sorely lacking.. and the ecosystem in comparison was/is a joke. This is the reason for the decline. Not because they didn't offer LTE. What good is LTE for media consumption on a 2.6" screen? Imo RIM was extremely late to the ball in terms of hardware.. And had they gotten some decent devices out early enough.. Perhaps dev support wouldn't have fallen through the bottom.

Everyone always says RIM was late, but I disagree. If anything Apple and by copycat extension Google were early running into a market that could only support them somewhat. Note how the iPhone was carrier locked for years before other carriers could have/handle what the phones demanded of the networks. Blackberry will be bringing BB10 to the WORLD at a time where the WORLD is ready for it.

Yes, Android and iPhones have sold massively well but that's because they pushed Objective C into mobile before the world even cared. As I've said numerous times. The scale between smartphone and feature phone in the US has just recently tipped into greater smartphone volumes than feature phones. The rest of the world hasn't rushed onto the trend as fast as we have in North America because here WE have fully rolled out 3G(thanks iPhone) and the fasted growing LTE networks anywhere.
Now that the rest of the world is rushing to roll out LTE in response to hardware manufacturers selling them heavily in places like North America and Europe, in 6 months the worlds networks will be much more mature and ready to handle the future data speeds we're headed toward anyway.
Look at RIMs Paratek purchase and how it will "to help concentrate their efforts on working with multi-band radios which will allow RIM devices to better connect to a multitude of wireless networks. As wireless networks have been growing, it has become increasingly important to be able to connect to those wireless networks across the world no matter what frequency or band those networks are using."



Sent from my BlackBerry 9900 using Tapatalk

Originally Posted by deRusett

The educated techy public, NO they buy what they want.
But the mass consumer who goes into the store buys what they see on TV, and what the Stores have on display, The fact that 4G LTE phones were selling in markets that didn't even have LTE and selling to people with minimal data plans shows that it is marketing and carrier push.

This makes it sound like RIM's problem isn't its devices but rather its commercials.

Originally Posted by jechow

How much truth is there with the BYOD comment? If my employer said that I would tell they to F-off. Maybe not if they were paying me a $100K salary. Lol

Most large employers (1000+) operate this way. You can BYOD (often limited to BB, iOS, or Android due to WP not having administration/security tools) but have to sign an agreement that they can wipe your device if need be (lost, terminated, etc.). They then will ususally pay for service (though you pay for the device itself).

Originally Posted by Rickroller

RIM has always had carrier support in NA in the fact that they continued to sell their products. However.. They were never "pushed" hard because quite frankly..the products sucked in comparison to what else was being offered. The hardware on BB's was always sorely lacking.. and the ecosystem in comparison was/is a joke. This is the reason for the decline. Not because they didn't offer LTE. What good is LTE for media consumption on a 2.6" screen? Imo RIM was extremely late to the ball in terms of hardware.. And had they gotten some decent devices out early enough.. Perhaps dev support wouldn't have fallen through the bottom.

Yes RIM has had Carrier support, BUT carrier marketing support is what has been lacking, On the LTE flyers having BB10 devices would have been more push, less "RIM is bankrupt" and also there are GREAT reasons to have LTE on your BlackBerry as a business device, since I use my BlackBerry with my Laptop, and when I had the SG3, I very much took advantage of the SG3's LTE,

Also LTE BlackBerry is a valid reason for Enterprise customers who use Verizon BlackBerry's to upgrade from OS6 to OS7 device,


I agree fully RIM was late in the hardware party, I FAULT RIM all the time, for Releasing the 9800 with an underclocked processor, and the 9780 without using the same processor as the 9800, they could have been running 800Mhz not 624Mhz with the hardware they already were using! BB6 devices should have launched slightly less spec'd than the current BB7 devices, and the BB7 devices could have been running LTE, also bringing the PlayBook with LTE out much much sooner.

Thats why the talk was about RIM should have done both, RIM addressing LTE a year-18 months sooner would have been RIM addressing underpowered hardware a year-18months sooner

Originally Posted by Wiki Cydia

This makes it sound like RIM's problem isn't its devices but rather its commercials.

It is both,

RIM has device problems, but I've put BB7 devices in Android users hands, and they had no IDEA that RIM's devices could do that, their last RIM device was a Storm, or Curve 83XX
And because RIM is absolutely terrible at marketing, no one knows what BB7 can do unless you're a tech fan, who is open minded enough to explore multiple platforms.

BB7 has a heck of a lot of faults, but so does Android, and so does iOS,
The problem is Android and iOS people know their strengths, people only hear about RIM's faults, and oh it has a Keyboard.

The 9800 was built with and for AT&T, who aggressively marketed the phone with active TV commercials in Prime Time here in the USA. The phone was under powered from the get go, had no front facing camera, no real multimedia support. It received very poor word of mouth from early adopters. A good friend I talked into a 9800 after antenna-gate and poor iP4 phone service, couldn't run back to Apple fast enough when the 4s was launched. The 9810 was launched and again AT&T was there with Prime Time TV advertising for it but again the phone has no front facing camera, no real multi-media support, and while it fixed just about everything that was wrong with the 9800 it brought nothing really new to the table when Samsung was bringing the SII and now the SIII to the table to rave reviews and iPhone is the iPhone.

I guess I would add that LTE would have, by necessity forced RIM to step up their game somewhat because the processors they are using now would not be able to run LTE so in that aspect I agree - but I can't agree with RickRoller more the reason I have a GNote right now in addition to the 9810 is that the hardware was not capable.

It's pretty simple really. When the average consumer is out "phone shopping", a very simple thought process goes:

"What does this BlackBerry thing do that my phone can't do?"

which quickly turns into,

"Oh wait, that BB can't do _______ , like my Samsung/HTC/iPhone."

When I read this I was wondering if tackling the LTE radio integration with BB7 phones, when business was stronger, would have accelerated the BB10 development / launch life cycle. Is this one of the contributing factors to the delayed launch? Anyone have insights into this? @deRusett?

Originally Posted by Rickroller

RIM has always had carrier support in NA in the fact that they continued to sell their products. However.. They were never "pushed" hard because quite frankly..the products sucked in comparison to what else was being offered. The hardware on BB's was always sorely lacking.. and the ecosystem in comparison was/is a joke. This is the reason for the decline. Not because they didn't offer LTE. What good is LTE for media consumption on a 2.6" screen? Imo RIM was extremely late to the ball in terms of hardware.. And had they gotten some decent devices out early enough.. Perhaps dev support wouldn't have fallen through the bottom.

You are correct on this. Its not cause of LTE its mainly on ecosystem. Example would be the lumia 900. ATT pushed hard on this phone. Has lte and 4.3" screen. All the bells and whistles. Just beautiful a hardware. Yet it didn't make a dent against iOS and android at all.

Its just windows OS doesn't offer a good integrated ecosystem with apps that consumers want to buy.



Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

Originally Posted by darkmanx2g

You are correct on this. Its not cause of LTE its mainly on ecosystem. Example would be the lumia 900. ATT pushed hard on this phone. Has lte and 4.3" screen. All the bells and whistles. Just beautiful a hardware. Yet it didn't make a dent against iOS and android at all.

Its just windows OS doesn't offer a good integrated ecosystem with apps that consumers want to buy.



Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

and it will not get the windows 8 upgrade.why?

Originally Posted by deRusett

It is both,

RIM has device problems, but I've put BB7 devices in Android users hands, and they had no IDEA that RIM's devices could do that, their last RIM device was a Storm, or Curve 83XX
And because RIM is absolutely terrible at marketing, no one knows what BB7 can do unless you're a tech fan, who is open minded enough to explore multiple platforms.

BB7 has a heck of a lot of faults, but so does Android, and so does iOS,
The problem is Android and iOS people know their strengths, people only hear about RIM's faults, and oh it has a Keyboard.

This may be one of the most logical reasons for blackberries recent long term downfall I have ever read on this forum russet. Users going from the all time famous bold 9000 to fail devices such as the storm would have put so many users off blackberries that it actually could of been this inital substantial loss of existing customers that began the downfall of blackberry. And with most of these users not being "tech savy" or "open minded" switched to android/iphone and never actually checked back to see what blackberry has to offer nowadays I.e. 9900,Os7,9320,9860,9810 etc etc