[kk s]

latest rumors about blackberry/android joint wont help regain market share If Blackberry continue to run passive promo strategies. As we know Blackberry Brand was seriously damaged. Market wont buy it even If Blackberry would run latest Android OS today. The only good thing about Samsung/Blackberry mirage would be a lesson from Samsung how to run aggressive TV, social media Adds where it shows what its phone actually can do. Where are the TV Blackberry Adds about: how blackberry blend works?, what is HUB?, how superior hard keyboard works in terms of corrective typing?. instead of that they show pointless promo adds about releasing phone in 'new white color". 60 seconds TV add showing how blackberry blend works with PC, how blackberry hub organize Your email etc.., pro for using hard keyboard. If You still have 2-3 billions cash in the bank You can do it. All the problems Blackberry has now, is because the brand is dismissed from public. so there are no developers to release new apps, no updates from carries etc . I just hope Samsung will take care of the promo new phone, They know how to do it

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

No it won't change the public's perceptions - but then I doubt marketing would help either.

But it might make enterprise more willing to use BlackBerry's device management software if Android is a better supported option. Too be honest, I think that getting out of hardware is still Chen's plan. Doing an Android device might be proof that BlackBerry hardware isn't needed. Because from what I've read, BES12 is not really being considered as a standalone option for EMM as much as it should be.

[notafanofyou]

Nothing will help....nothing they do will be good enough....nothing can be done. Just kidding but I have to see what's it's like to be part of the BlackBerry cant do anything right crowd. Was to busy so didn't sell my shares today as the increase in FUD posts was a dead give away of a down day. It's hard not to think of all the free extra shares I could of had. Anyhow nothing will work for BlackBerry even if they do sell android phones because?????? I don't know give me some time to think of a lame FUD excuss. Cheers. and keep FUDing away

Posted via CB10

[early2bed]

The financial math doesn't add up. A decent smartphone marketing campaign costs $100M. A successful launch of the slider would be 2M units. That's $50 per unit in advertising costs. How is that going to pay off? Unless they can get one of the major carriers to adopt the slider as their exclusive flagship device and pitch in for the ad buy then it's a no-go.

[Prem WatsApp]

The financial math doesn't add up. A decent smartphone marketing campaign costs $100M. A successful launch of the slider would be 2M units. That's $50 per unit in advertising costs. How is that going to pay off? Unless they can get one of the major carriers to adopt the slider as their exclusive flagship device and pitch in for the ad buy then it's a no-go.

Thanks for doing this. Really, that's why the ten-million figure is so important... :-)

�   Pastaporto aglio e olio... Mmmhhh!   �

[early2bed]

Thanks for doing this. Really, that's why the ten-million figure is so important... :-)

It goes a lot way towards explaining why so many Z10's were manufactured that it resulted in a $1B write down. If you're going to do a real ad campaign, you had better have 10 million units ready to ship because 2 million doesn't break even at that scale of marketing.

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

What if that 1 Billion had been spent on marketing....

I think BlackBerry has to do a better job of choosing where to do their marketing. A Global company they maybe, but maybe that is costing them too much also.

Don't know how the Z3 worked out for BlackBerry & Foxconn... but it's very strange that Foxconn isn't building the LEAP. Maybe it's time to focus on products that better fit in western markets where pricing isn't as cut throat and hardware specs are capable of running the apps that BlackBerry has in mind.

[early2bed]

What if that 1 Billion had been spent on marketing....

Then they would have had to build and sell at least 50 million phones - $20 per phone in marketing. The point is that your marketing budget has to match up with your anticipated sales volume. If your carriers order 10 million phones and everyone is committed to making them then you can spend $100 million on marketing. If you don't sell them, of course, then you have the huge write down and are fired. Just ask Thorsten Heins. However, if your carriers order 200K units then you can't have the marketing budget.

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

Then they would have had to build and sell at least 50 million phones - $20 per phone in marketing. The point is that your marketing budget has to match up with your anticipated sales volume. If your carriers order 10 million phones and everyone is committed to making them then you can spend $100 million on marketing. If you don't sell them, of course, then you have the huge write down and are fired. Just ask Thorsten Heins. However, if your carriers order 200K units then you can't have the marketing budget.

Oh I understand all of that.... I'm just saying if more of that 1 billion went towards marketing back at that time, then maybe long term the sales of products might have been better and there might not have been a write off of that size.

I'm just saying that the launch of BB10 should never have been about making money in the short term.... it should have been about kick starting the platform so that the ecosystem could grow quickly. (of course that was also what the PlayBook was suppose to do)

I think the Z10 should have been priced much cheaper. (again did the PlayBook teach them nothing)
I think marketing budget should have been more and should have been better targeted. Really don't think the success of BBOS, should have been expected from BB10 in developing markets.
Money should have been spent on larger developers and big companies with highly sought after apps.

But for Thor it was business as usual and they wanted to make a big profit right out of the gate....

[Troy Tiscareno]

Since everyone loves car analogies (even though they tend to be very flawed), I'm going to try one here.

BB10 competing in the smartphone market would be like your local speed-shop trying to enter Formula One. While the guy might be a genius and has designed an amazing, competitive chassis, if he lacks industry support for engines, tires, fuel, car bodies, and can't get any major sponsorships, then all he is going to do is embarrass himself by sending his car out onto the track AND go deep into debt.

The market BB entered is not the smartphone market, but rather the mobile device platform market. What that means is that, in order to be successful, a smartphone OS is not nearly enough - you must also have competitive hardware (which could be drilled down further into categories, such as having a competitive camera, processor, etc.), competitive cloud services, competitive app ecosystem, competitive third-party accessory support, competitive carrier support, competitive distribution, and enough money to compete in advertising spend. And, yet, none of those is a guarantee of success, but lack of them is a guarantee of failure.

BB never had all of these things with BB10, nor ever really had a hope of having them. They blew that by waiting FAR too long to respond to the iPhone with something competent and competitive (the Storm wasn't it!), and by the time BB10 was finally released, the door leading to the possibility of success had long been closed.

No one is saying that BB10 is bad - it isn't. It's a fine mobile OS. It's just that the contest for mobile phone OSs was over by 2009, when the contest became about ecosystems and industry support for the platform as a whole. BB was trying to compete in a race that had already been ran and had nothing to enter in the current (ecosystem) race.

And plenty of people saw this occurring back in 2008-2009, and couldn't believe that, after waiting until 2010 to finally decide to move to a modern OS, BB still thought they had time to develop an entire ecosystem of their own from scratch. BB could have adopted Android in 2008 and had a phone out in 2009, and at this point could be the undisputed king of EDM, experts of "secure Android", and been able to have both security and "models with hardware keyboards" as unique differentiators in the Android market. They would also have the $8-10B or so they've lost messing with BB10, and you can do a whole lot with that kind of money - including advertise to keep brand recognition high. I have long asserted that they should have done exactly this.

I'm not sure changing to Android now is going to make much of a difference (as I've also said in the past), and I suspect that doing so would just be a precursor to BB exiting the hardware market, but I do think it would help give them credibility as an Android EDM, and it would likely stop the bleeding that they continue to experience by continuing to (poorly) support BB10.

But that's just my guess, and I know plenty here disagree with me. So be it.

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

And plenty of people saw this occurring back in 2008-2009, and couldn't believe that, after waiting until 2010 to finally decide to move to a modern OS, BB still thought they had time to develop an entire ecosystem of their own from scratch. BB could have adopted Android in 2008 and had a phone out in 2009, and at this point could be the undisputed king of EDM, experts of "secure Android", and been able to have both security and "models with hardware keyboards" as unique differentiators in the Android market. They would also have the $8-10B or so they've lost messing with BB10, and you can do a whole lot with that kind of money - including advertise to keep brand recognition high. I have long asserted that they should have done exactly this.
t.

Which is why the Android Player was added to the OS. BlackBerry knew they needed an ecosystem, they just made the mistake of assuming that if they made it easy that developers would come. And they just assumed that if they had 70 million BBOS users they would come to the new platform. In other words they just did a bunch of assuming that didn't work out for them. Along with assuming they could build the new OS in a year and a half. But it wasn't until the 10.2 was release that they got out of the beta phase.... so it ended up taking four and half years.

But yeah the real mistake was not being a forward looking company to begin with. By 2005 there should have already been some type of replacement OS in the works. BBOS started on a PAGER, it was pretty much the same OS that most dumb phones were using. Did RIM really think that BBOS was going to power the handheld computers of the future? As with most companies if you aren't on the leading edge, you are being left behind. And that is what happened to BlackBerry. Maybe Android would have gotten them a new OS quicker. But it would have meant no ecosystem and other than security... nothing to separate them from all the other Android OEMs. They might have been able to secure a larger niche in Enterprise and closed the door on Apple and Android making inroads.... but again that is assuming a lot.