[anon(9353145)]

For all intents and purposes, BlackBerry has already completely shuttered their hardware division. The Alcatel re-badged devices pretty much dotted the "i" and put the final nail in the coffin.

The Mercury PKB will obviously be designed by BlackBerry but production will be outsourced - TCL, Foxconn, Wistron, etc. Who knows? Who cares, frankly... If it's cheaper for them to continue in handsets this way, I'm all in favour.

[ToniCipriani]

For all intents and purposes, BlackBerry has already completely shuttered their hardware division. The Alcatel re-badged devices pretty much dotted the "i" and put the final nail in the coffin.

The Mercury PKB will obviously be designed by BlackBerry but production will be outsourced - TCL, Foxconn, Wistron, etc. Who knows? Who cares, frankly... If it's cheaper for them to continue in handsets this way, I'm all in favour.

I'm not sure if BlackBerry ever had manufacturing, and it's aways been this case? Priv was built by Wistron.

[anon(9353145)]

I'm not sure if BlackBerry ever had manufacturing, and it's aways been this case? Priv was built by Wistron.

I honestly have no idea, I care that much, lol. I assume they had a much larger hands on role in the design of their handsets back in the day...

I know Apple has outsourced everything from pretty much Day One, and no one ever suggested the sky was falling that I can recall?

As long as they put their money in their comparative advantage - pkb - and make it a device worthy of filling a niche, I don't care. And hopefully the slabs do well enough in enterprise / gov't to keep the boat afloat. I'm not in it to make BlackBerry rich, or stage a miraculous comeback, etc. I'm in it because I prefer PKB, as I'm sure you do.

[Bla1ze]

I'm not sure if BlackBerry ever had manufacturing, and it's aways been this case? Priv was built by Wistron.

They had a small manufacturing plant in Waterloo that built devices but that has long been shut down. I think some of the last things made there were the limited edition red Z10 and even those were in small batches. The last mass-produced devices out of there surely BBOS.

http://crackberry.com/crackberry-kev...app-player-and

PS: People need to consider what 'getting out of the hardware' business means. To me, it means no longer releasing smartphones but so many others have different perceptions and arguments that could be made for what it means to them.

[anon(679606)]

I have no faith in what JC says for a long time ...

Posted via the CrackBerry App for Android

[anon(9353145)]

They had a small manufacturing plant in Waterloo that built devices but that has long been shut down. I think some of the last things made there were the limited edition red Z10 and even those were in small batches. The last mass-produced devices out of there surely BBOS.

CrackBerry Kevin Goes to Waterloo - Sees BlackBerry Bold 9900s on the assembly line, plays with Android app player and way more! | CrackBerry.com

PS: People need to consider what 'getting out of the hardware' business means. To me, it means no longer releasing smartphones but so many others have different perceptions and arguments that could be made for what it means to them.

It definitely depends on perception. Prior to aquiring Nokia was Microsoft in the hardware business? Is Google in the hardware business?

[Bla1ze]

Is Google in the hardware business?

They might be on October 4th lol.

[rubyslipperss]

Too many negative articles. Why would BlackBerry only recently start selling the Priv in Korea?

Posted via CB10

[anon(9353145)]

They might be on October 4th lol.

Hah. On the flip side though, is Samsung in the software business?

EDIT: Yes, Knox before you say it, but they're primarily hardware: washers, dryers, tvs, tablets, cell phones, fridges, god knows what else...

[anon(9353145)]

Too many negative articles. Why would BlackBerry only recently start selling the Priv in Korea?

Posted via CB10

It's always more fun to see the negative side of things? Click bait headlines attract eyeballs, hence revenue? =)

[ToniCipriani]

PS: People need to consider what 'getting out of the hardware' business means. To me, it means no longer releasing smartphones but so many others have different perceptions and arguments that could be made for what it means to them.

But to the said Motley Fool article, all they care is if it has a shock factor...

I mean reading more closely, that shutdown article was 9/21. Just today they posted this:

Will BlackBerry Inc. (USA) Release a New Flagship Device This Year? | The Motley Fool Canada

and to quote the headline:

BlackBerry Inc. (TSX:BB)(NASDAQ:BBRY) has a new flagship device in the works that could finally be a market winner when released later this year.

Clickbait article is clickbait...

[Bla1ze]

But to the said Motley Fool article, all they care is if it has a shock factor...

I mean reading more closely, that shutdown article was 9/21. Just today they posted this:

Will BlackBerry Inc. (USA) Release a New Flagship Device This Year? | The Motley Fool Canada

and to quote the headline:



Clickbait article is clickbait...

I don't disagree with you at all. Personally, I think if you're taking any info from Motley Fool or Seeking Alpha seriously, you're a moron. Great info from there is very few and far between, especially if it revolves around BlackBerry. It's like the TMZ of investor blogs or a broken clock, which is right at least twice a day. Seeking Alpha is only good for one thing... Transcripts of earning calls. You could take any post from the Armchair CEO forums and post it there. Would carry just as much weight. It's literally crowd-sourced market analysis tossed up on a site. Bombastic opinions and thoughts pay off.

The firm derives its content from independent contributors who sign up to the site. Base payment is $35 plus $10/CPM (1,000 page-views). For analysis of stocks that have a large number of followers, the firm has three additional payment tiers, from $150 to $500 per article. Finally, two articles are selected each week for a $2,500 "outstanding performance" prize on the basis of how well the stock idea played out.

Its articles are published as Premium articles, Standard articles, and Instablogs. Standard articles are allowed to be published elsewhere, and are unpaid, but also undergo a selection process. Instablogs are published instantly and with no pay. In 2011, the firm is estimated to have paid its approximately 550 Premium contributors $1.2 million

[anon(9353145)]

But to the said Motley Fool article, all they care is if it has a shock factor...

I mean reading more closely, that shutdown article was 9/21. Just today they posted this:

Will BlackBerry Inc. (USA) Release a New Flagship Device This Year? | The Motley Fool Canada

and to quote the headline:



Clickbait article is clickbait...

http://i.imgur.com/JPw4MMt.jpg

It's amazing to me that BlackBerry continues to command so much attention in the media given their position in the hierarchy....

It's been YEARS since they were in any kind of competitive position with Apple or Samsung when it came to market share / revenue / etc.

And yet, they seem to receive a disproportionate share of the headlines, mostly negative, including in the US where they barely even register in terms of sales. I honestly don't understand why?

[tbonecopper]

And yet, they seem to receive a disproportionate share of the headlines, mostly negative, including in the US where they barely even register. I honestly don't understand why?

Illuminati conspiracy paid for by an endowment from Apple and Samsung no doubt.

[Avenzuno]

Just saw an article on yahoo about this which was referring to motley fool...
Well, ain't that stupid.
So much speculation for nothing. In a week we will know more and like someone pointed out if Chen tells a group of investors he I exiting hardware then that could be ground for insider trading and I doubt Chen wants to be the next Martha Stewart.
And why would he shut down hardware right before the release of dtek60 and right after that of dtek50 and after the return to the Korean market? So many things don't make sense

Posted via the handsome BlackBerry PRIV

Yeah, like a certain big company (hp) giving up in webOS right after the release of its tiny Veer device and just before the release of the excellent (at the time) Pre3 slider phone. Yeah, apps weren't big at the time. Chen is an ***** if he thinks BlackBerry can survive without its hardware division. It should have devices like the DTEK50 to offer to its enterprise and government customers to complement the big software solution purchases. The consumer focus, then, should remain lean and mean. Target the consumer like the Nexus and One Plus devices are targeted, and free the BlackBerry phones from the carriers' clutches. For instance, avoid tension between BlackBerry and the Verizon Priv customer. Thus, maintain direct control of the relationship between BlackBerry and the end user, including making sure software updates and frequent and timely. Overall, that's how I would keep the hardware division open and position its products.

Posted via CB10 on my VZW  Z30 STA100-3 on at&t | 10.3.2.2813

[anon(9353145)]

Illuminati conspiracy paid for by an endowment from Apple and Samsung no doubt.

Hah. But if that were the case, why not just ignore them? That would do more damage than constantly bringing them up.

I don't get it.

[ToniCipriani]

It's amazing to me that BlackBerry continues to command so much attention in the media given their position in the hierarchy....

It's been YEARS since they were in any kind of competitive position with Apple or Samsung when it came to market share / revenue / etc.

And yet, they seem to receive a disproportionate share of the headlines, mostly negative, including in the US where they barely even register in terms of sales. I honestly don't understand why?

Fear and greed drives market movements. Market moves, people make money, whether it's moving up or down.

Basic market economics.

And I would argue Apple still gets more media attention. How many darn copy-pasta "how-to do this and that on your iPhone 7" have you seen the past few days? Some friggin sites even wrote articles about how to turn off lift to wake...

[Bla1ze]

And I would argue Apple still gets more media attention. How many darn copy-pasta "how-to do this and that on your iPhone 7" have you seen the past few days? Some friggin sites even wrote articles about how to turn off lift to wake...

But those are commonsense articles for new things. Do you know why those articles created, even though most people claim to hate them? You ready for it? I dunno if you are... Can you handle it? Maybe you can. Gonna let you in a super secret. A little inside baseball. Here it is.


PEOPLE SEARCH FOR THESE LAME, CRAZY, EVERYDAY, THINGS AND DRIVE A TON OF TRAFFIC.

The fans, the everyday readers, the early adopters, the nerds, the geeks, the people who hate those posts, are like 1% of traffic. 99% of traffic comes from the people looking for those lame, dumb things. For a lot of sites, I'd bet the only reason why the site exists for the 'fans' is because their lame, dumb every day posts that 'fans' don't care about are keeping the site afloat. Some food for thought when you decide to comment on yet another 'how to take a screenshot' post lol.

[tbonecopper]

But those are commonsense articles for new things. Do you know why those articles created, even though most people claim to hate them? You ready for it? I dunno if you are... Can you handle it? Maybe you can. Gonna let you in a super secret. A little inside baseball. Here it is.


PEOPLE SEARCH FOR THESE LAME, CRAZY, EVERYDAY, THINGS AND DRIVE A TON OF TRAFFIC.

It's what keeps google in business actually. hah.

[anon(9353145)]

Fear and greed drives market movements. Market moves, people make money, whether it's moving up or down.

Basic market economics.

And I would argue Apple still gets more media attention. How many darn copy-pasta "how-to do this and that on your iPhone 7" have you seen the past few days? Some friggin sites even wrote articles about how to turn off lift to wake...

Oh yeah, Apple and Samsung get more attention, I'm just more surprised at how much attention BlackBerry receives to this day given their position in the market. It's totally disproportionate, for sure.

Another recent observation: Headlines focus on hardware (will they, won't they)... At the same time, they just released their Hub Suite for all Android devices. IMHO, the Hub is a great app, and something that should appeal to a lot of people (integrated SMS, Email, Calls, etc).

I have yet to see LifeHacker, HowToGeek, MakeUseOf, CNet, ZDNet, etc. take a close look at the package and give it a review.

Why wouldn't The Hub be included as a contender for Best Email App? Best Productivity App? Etc. Not that it should win, but shouldn't it be considered as a useful productivity app?

I dunno, just noticed it recently, and its absence seems glaring to me. I don't think it's Reptilian Illuminati Aliens that are preventing it from being reviewed, just find it odd. Maybe it's as simple as BlackBerry isn't pushing these tech review sites... Or paying them enough with free parties and booze, lol.

[Bla1ze]

I have yet to see LifeHacker, HowToGeek, MakeUseOf, CNet, ZDNet, etc. take a close look at the package and give it a review.

Why wouldn't The Hub be included as a contender for Best Email App? Best Productivity App? Etc. Not that it should win, but shouldn't it be considered as a useful productivity app?

I dunno, just noticed it recently, and its absence seems glaring to me. I don't think it's Reptilian Illuminati Aliens that are preventing it from being reviewed, just find it odd. Maybe it's as simple as BlackBerry isn't pushing these tech review sites... Or paying them enough with free parties and booze, lol.

It's because most don't care about BlackBerry unless there's a negative angle. Even if they did take the time to review them, history shows whatever it is would simply just get trashed anyway. Like I've mentioned a few times, I'm not big into conspiracy theories but there is certainly a long standing bias against BlackBerry among the media.

For some, it goes back as far as the early days of RIM when BlackBerry was REALLY high on their horse and leading the pack. They were not, shall we say, overly nice to the media and they didn't really play fair. If you look hard enough you will find some not so nice horror stories about BlackBerry ticking off some outlets or people and for lack of better words burning bridges among them which I believe is still strong today for some mainly because

1) Some of them old school folks are still around and remember.

2) The new crop of people in the tech world know no different way to treat BB, they've been bashed for so long now every just hops on the bandwagon. They have a built-in bias against BlackBerry by no real fault of their own lol. They just come to expect BlackBerry = trash.

In the case of Hub+ as well, BlackBerry hasn't REALLY gone out of their way to push it to anyone either. Outside of the initial blog post on the BlackBerry blogs and a few random sites that still care about BlackBerry did you see any huge announcements or pushes for it? Nope. As far as I can recall, I don't even think they had a media embargo for it, so anyone who didn't know it was coming, was at the mercy of their blog and press release to actually be able to obtain info on its existence. I mentioned this on the last BerryFlow podcast as a thought of mine as well, I believe.

[anon(9353145)]

It's because most don't care about BlackBerry unless there's a negative angle. Even if they did take the time to review them, history shows whatever it is would simply just get trashed anyway. Like I've mentioned a few times, I'm not big into conspiracy theories but there is certainly a long standing bias against BlackBerry among the media.

For some, it goes back as far as the early days of RIM when BlackBerry was REALLY high on their horse and leading the pack. They were not, shall we say, overly nice to the media and they didn't really play fair.

So a long standing feud, that makes sense. Too bad considering that most of the perps have long since left the company I assume. Sins of the father...

Hmmm. I think I'm going to send a few emails to some of the tech journos at those sites recommending the suite. I certainly think it's worthy of consideration so I'm not being disingenuous.

[ToniCipriani]

Some food for thought when you decide to comment on yet another 'how to take a screenshot' post lol.

Yeah, "don't hate the player, hate the game". It's all about traffic. "Where's BB 10.3.3" comments are traffic too I suppose...

[Bla1ze]

Yeah, "don't hate the player, hate the game". It's all about traffic. "Where's BB 10.3.3" comments are traffic too I suppose...

Lol..

Also, it's Friday night and hate you and Reaney for making me go this deep on old BlackBerry stuff.

[anon(9353145)]

Lol..

Also, it's Friday night and hate you and Reaney for making me go this deep on old BlackBerry stuff.

What else were you going to do tonight, lol. You're in Halifax, right? What about you ToniCipriani? I'm in Toronto.

I say we get together at a Pub some night and hash it out, lol