[krackerjack69]

BlackBerry Ltd has no plans to shut down its loss-making handset business, said its incoming interim Chief Executive John Chen on Monday, adding that the smartphone maker has enough in its stable to stage a turnaround.

"I know we have enough ingredients to build a long-term sustainable business," said Chen in a telephone interview with Reuters on Monday. "I have done this before and seen the same movie before."

Chen, who is replacing Thorsten Heins, said he plans to make changes in the company's executive team, bringing in new faces from outside and promoting some people within the company too.

[knownastron]

At the end of the day. Whether BlackBerry is private, public, owned by Google, Fairfax, or anyone else, I just want them to keep making these phones we've all come to love.

This is good news.

Posted via CB10

[mikeo007]

BlackBerry Ltd has no plans to shut down its loss-making handset business, said its incoming interim Chief Executive John Chen on Monday, adding that the smartphone maker has enough in its stable to stage a turnaround.

"I know we have enough ingredients to build a long-term sustainable business," said Chen in a telephone interview with Reuters on Monday. "I have done this before and seen the same movie before."

I guess my question for Chen would be: if BlackBerry has enough to attempt ANOTHER turnaround, why didn't they put those eggs into the initial turnaround basket? IMO this sounds like a "stop the bleeding" speech. Their hardware business has been called a liability countless times over the past few months. Sounds like he's trying to somehow stabilize the stock price a little bit. Nothing that hasn't been said before though, so I'm not sure repeating the same thing will have a positive effect.

[SirJes]

This guy sounds promising, he's talking about bringing in people from outside and to me thats needed, and as for those he's promoting, I hope clewely is one of them.

Posted via CB10

[berklon]

They're saying what they need to say to sell their inventory that's rotting away on shelves.

They are FINISHED with the handset business. They can't sell the phones they have now, so what makes them think they're going to be able to sell future phones? Are they have some magical ground-breaking devices that blows away the competition and comes with an already huge ecosystem?

The ship is sinking faster and faster and they intend to go down until it's completely submerged. There's no way around it.

[jedi365]

BlackBerry Ltd has no plans to shut down its loss-making handset business, said its incoming interim Chief Executive John Chen on Monday, adding that the smartphone maker has enough in its stable to stage a turnaround.

"I know we have enough ingredients to build a long-term sustainable business," said Chen in a telephone interview with Reuters on Monday. "I have done this before and seen the same movie before."

Chen, who is replacing Thorsten Heins, said he plans to make changes in the company's executive team, bringing in new faces from outside and promoting some people within the company too.

Same old same old


Posted via CB10

[koolrosh]

Thorsten also brought in people from the outside and we all saw how that worked out. Especially the CMO.

Play Starcraft? Join our Channel: C001242DE

[sentimentGX4]

I think the easiest strategy for a "turnaround" for BBRY is to sell BBRY handsets fashioned with Android. The handset business and the Blackberry brand still has value to it if it can achieve a certain volume of sales.

The problem is that BB10 is directly and indirectly impeding hardware sales. (It's indirectly impeding it by dragging along hardware development times. This was the case for Nokia for a long time too with Symbian and a possible reason why the Z30 is only dual core Snapdragon S4.) Furthermore, Blackberry may not even have the workers to maintain BB10 any more.

Even if the handset division never returns to profitability, BBRY may still be able to offload it for some value in the Android scenario. In its current state, however, it is worth negative dollars.

[playbookster]

I guess my question for Chen would be: if BlackBerry has enough to attempt ANOTHER turnaround, why didn't they put those eggs into the initial turnaround basket? IMO this sounds like a "stop the bleeding" speech. Their hardware business has been called a liability countless times over the past few months. Sounds like he's trying to somehow stabilize the stock price a little bit. Nothing that hasn't been said before though, so I'm not sure repeating the same thing will have a positive effect.

Like watsa said before bb10 launched. It's going to take a few years for a turn around. Not 10 months.

Posted from my Z30

[heymaggie]

I wonder what enterprise sales results have been like over the past couple of months since Blackberry put itself up for sale. Can't be good for sales to not know where the business will be next quarter.

[mikeo007]

Like watsa said before bb10 launched. It's going to take a few years for a turn around. Not 10 months.

Posted from my Z30

They don't have a "few years" at their current burn rate. And meanwhile, the rest of the world doesn't stand still. BB fall further behind, lose more and more supplier deals, and their costs continue to rise.

They threw a tonne of resources on the BB10 launch. If they still had a pouch of pixie dust hidden away, the time to use it was 10 months ago.

[g33kphr33k]

Jesus, you lot are truly the doom brigade.

Many companies go through bad patches and bounce back. How much ground is lost and regained regularly?

They will come back to being a good player but they may not get back to their original status. Someone else will come along and smash the market with something new and currently not around, it's how it goes.

Typed on and then corrected by my Z10. Pin:2B30530D http://geekphreek.com

[joeldf]

I think the easiest strategy for a "turnaround" for BBRY is to sell BBRY handsets fashioned with Android. The handset business and the Blackberry brand still has value to it if it can achieve a certain volume of sales.

And, how well has that worked for every other Android phone maker not named Samsung?

Posted via CB10

[donmateo]

If money does get tight, but improves, which it will when the expenses are all cut, I wouldn't be surprised to see more money pumped in if need be. People need to take the blinders off.

Posted via CB10

[scribacco]

At the end of the day. Whether BlackBerry is private, public, owned by Google, Fairfax, or anyone else, I just want them to keep making these phones we've all come to love.

This is good news.

Posted via CB10

for the few people who still buy them..good business plan indeed..They are good story teller indeed since they fooled everyone into thinking there was a buyer but in reality it was just fiction..I think investors and the SEC has to take down Blackberry for good.
Blackberry 'buyout' was always a joke - The Term Sheet: Fortune's deals blogTerm Sheet

[Elite1]

Thorsten also brought in people from the outside and we all saw how that worked out. Especially the CMO.

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Not sure what conclusion you're trying to draw from that.
So they shouldn't bring in anyone from the outside?

If you meant the news that new executives will be brought in doesn't necessarily equal success, well then yes of course that's right.

[chopachain]

Some people just feed off and enjoy spreading negativity. Chen is not TH.

[ElGusta]

This guy sounds promising, he's talking about bringing in people from outside and to me thats needed, and as for those he's promoting, I hope clewely is one of them.

Posted via CB10

Promising?

Lol we heard that before with Thorn Heins.

Especially Crackberry Kevin, he was all over Heins, mega man crush.

And we saw what the resulted in.

[EchoTango]

I really thought TH made all the right moves, but the end results were simply abysmal. Unfortunately, as a share holder I'm looking to see a recovery in the share price, not a sale or some other structural change in ownership or leadership.

I'm so glad that the $9 a share deal did not go ahead, although it would not have received shareholder approval. It was dead from day one. I'm still not clear as to the purpose or what Fairfax will get for their $1 Billion investment (other than 6% return), other than BBerry now has long term debt on it's books for the first time.

All in all, not a bad outcome.

[dshusha]

Whether they keep the handset business or not is not relevant ... I think BBRY needs too take a deep look at itself and find out what are its strengths and what value they can bring to the market. I personnally would have been pushing the security card much harder thant they have in the past, as this is a major differentiator from the other players in the market.

[Roo Zilla]

Why would they shut down the handset business? It's like 80-90% of their business, although not in revenue. They shut it down they'd have to fire another few thousand employees and basically become a Whatsapp wannabee, an email forwarder, VPN, and an MDM provider with an app store. You could probably run that entire operation with like.... 100 guys/gals. I think when Instagram was bought out they had like 13 people on payroll.

[JeepBB]

Sorry to be so cynical, but every politician in history has used the phrase "we have no plans to..." right up to the moment they announce those plans.

My guess is they'll close down handset production in late December just after the next ER and announce a firesale of the existing inventory.

[Shlooky]

There is nothing different Chen can do, lets face it...it's the culture at BB that will never change.
So to conclude, BB will continue to lose money every quarter until yet another buyout rumor and Chen getting the golden package.

[Troy Tiscareno]

Why would they shut down the handset business?

Simple: because it's not possible to be a "niche provider" AND be your own ecosystem. You could be a niche provider in someone else's (much more robust) ecosystem, but in order for developers to make apps for your platform, they want to see MARKETSHARE, and BB doesn't have any (BB10 marketshare is less than 1%). Very few people want to buy a smartphone with no apps.

And once your sales drop below a certain volume, you can no longer be profitable paying to design, engineer, produce, code, distribute, and market a smartphone, much less make a profit at doing so. BB is at that point already: they are LOSING money being in the hardware business, and their sales continue to drop. This Q's numbers are going to make last Q's disastrous numbers look like a sales success by comparison - at least last quarter, there was still advertising and full carrier support; this quarter, carriers dropped support, the "strategic review" happened, and businesses either put BB10 purchases on hold or chose another platform.

Of course, if BB were to declare that they were out of the phone business, their only option would be to firesale all of their existing inventory for another huge loss. By stating that they have "no plans, just yet" to exit the hardware business means they're going to try to get as much money as they can from their existing phone inventory before they "officially" shut it down.

It's Business 101: you have to be able to make a profit on the products you produce, or, if not, be taking *significant* marketshare away from your competitors in trade for losing money temporarily. BB is doing neither, and they can't continue to do what they've been doing without burning through their cash in a year (maybe 18 months with the extra billion they just borrowed, but that assumes that they'd be allowed to spend down to $0, which won't happen).

[sinsin07]

BlackBerry Ltd has no plans to shut down its loss-making handset business, said its incoming interim Chief Executive John Chen on Monday, adding that the smartphone maker has enough in its stable to stage a turnaround.

"I know we have enough ingredients to build a long-term sustainable business," said Chen in a telephone interview with Reuters on Monday. "I have done this before and seen the same movie before."

Chen, who is replacing Thorsten Heins, said he plans to make changes in the company's executive team, bringing in new faces from outside and promoting some people within the company too.

Will the prey never learn.

The trap has been reset.