[mctapt]

Let's not kid ourselves. The hardware sales were not great and BlackBerry's hand-held user base is diminishing (which I think is very sad).

The software business seems to be doing were good and seems to be highly profitable. Since the hardware business will probably not be a core business unit, the software gets more and more importance.

One idea came to my mind. What if BlackBerry licensed out bb10 to other manufacturers and quit the hardware business completely. Would you buy for example a Samsung phone that is running bb10. You would have a superior hardware and still would be using the same OS.

Posted with my amazing Z10

[app_Developer]

If you hire a software guy to run your company, you end up with a software company. I think the board knew that.

I cannot imagine why Samsung would pay a license fee for BB10. Maybe they might consider buying BB10 outright as a hedge.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[Troy Tiscareno]

Heins was trying to license BB10 for about 18 months and got no interest. There are several problems with the idea of licensing BB10:

1. No OHA member can touch BB10 as long as it contains the Android Runtime, and nearly all manufacturers are OHA members. BB has had relationships with nearly every non-OHA company that makes mobile devices already. Also, while OHA members could make BB10 devices with the Android Runtime removed, sales of such a device would be nearly zero, as there simply isn't enough native apps support to make BB10 viable.
2. BB10 has no ecosystem, and ecosystems are where the real value in an OS lies. Glomming on to the Android ecosystem is clearly a non-starter.
3. Android and WinPhone are free to license - why would anyone pay for BB10?
4. Why could another manufacturer make BB10 successful if BB themselves could not, despite the advantages of BB's patents, years developing it, and not having to pay a license fee?

Bottom line: licensing BB10 makes zero sense to anyone in the business, which is why there was no interest in licensing it back in 2012-2013, and even less (if that's possible) now that it's been a proven failure in the market. Really, the idea that someone else should license BB10 is just another example of "some other company should pay to make BB10 successful because... it would be good for BB!" Companies don't spend money - big money - on other companies just to help those companies - they do it because they believe they can make a profit themselves.

I'd guess that, overall, with everything included, the BB10 project has resulted in a net loss of about $5B for BB - and, yes, that includes the profits from all BB10 sales, along with the various write-downs. That's not anything to inspire another company to spend good money to take a chance on BB10.

[nevertoofar]

I would buy a Samsung device running BB10, why not?

Posted via CB10

[Bonsaibo]

While this is heresy to say on this sight, what I really want is the pim, the Hub and the gestures ( and I could learn to live without the gestures IF I had to) of BlackBerry 10 on whatever device would have these.

[calicocat2010]

Well we got LOVE is LOVE now..so let's bring on Platform or Device Equality.

[menshawy]

BB10 project has resulted in a net loss of about $5B for BB

I think BB10 is not the thing to blame here but the management that introduced BB10 very late. IF BB10 was introduced at the time iPhone emerged it could have been a major dominant in the market by now

[Troy Tiscareno]

I think BB10 is not the thing to blame here but the management that introduced BB10 very late. IF BB10 was introduced at the time iPhone emerged it could have been a major dominant in the market by now

i agree - there's nothing inherently wrong about BB10 (other than some UI changes that could be added to help people transition to the gesture-based UI). The issue was always about timing and BB's limited resources. BB sat and watched the world go by, clinging firmly to technology that was obsolete the day the iPhone was released in 2007 - everyone knew it but Mike and Jim. It's one thing to get caught with your pants down, though, and quite another to wait YEARS to react appropriately, especially with the lead times these things take to develop. But Mike & co literally waited THREE YEARS before they decided to take real action, which wouldn't bear fruit for another 3 years (and that was BB10 v10.0, which was a nightmare).

The problem is, by 2010, it was already way too late to be starting from scratch, and again, most people knew that at the time, and encouraged (and expected) BB to go with Android, which would have let BB focus on the thing they do best - securing the OS - and left their only other major concern being deciding on their mix of hardware. They could have released phones in 2011, with a full ecosystem of services & apps, without having to spend billions trying to develop an entire platform when they clearly lacked the resources, influence, and timing to do so. Instead, they chose to build on QNX, to take a big detour with the Playbook, and not release a really usable product until 2014 (v10.2.1). It should be no surprise that they ended up where they are.

It's crazy that they didn't have a well-funded "secret lab" working on a next-gen OS back in 2005, when the first rumors of the iPhone started circulating. Even if it was only in the alpha stage, they could have had their next-gen OS out by 2009 at least (a year after Android's release), and still been well ahead of Microsoft and the big jump in smartphone adoption.

But, hey, they delivered the Playbook (Amateur hour is over!), so, you can't complain, right? LOL.

[AnimalPak200]

Lol... timing is the word. It is what made them successful (almost despite themselves), and it is what killed them (many times... playbook without email, new OS, BBM cross platform, BES cross platform).

Posted via CB10

[CTU2fan]

When they stop making and selling (PKB) phones they'll be dead to me.

Posted via CB10

[p51]

i agree - there's nothing inherently wrong about BB10 (other than some UI changes that could be added to help people transition to the gesture-based UI). The issue was always about timing and BB's limited resources. BB sat and watched the world go by, clinging firmly to technology that was obsolete the day the iPhone was released in 2007 - everyone knew it but Mike and Jim. It's one thing to get caught with your pants down, though, and quite another to wait YEARS to react appropriately, especially with the lead times these things take to develop. But Mike & co literally waited THREE YEARS before they decided to take real action, which wouldn't bear fruit for another 3 years (and that was BB10 v10.0, which was a nightmare).

The problem is, by 2010, it was already way too late to be starting from scratch, and again, most people knew that at the time, and encouraged (and expected) BB to go with Android, which would have let BB focus on the thing they do best - securing the OS - and left their only other major concern being deciding on their mix of hardware. They could have released phones in 2011, with a full ecosystem of services & apps, without having to spend billions trying to develop an entire platform when they clearly lacked the resources, influence, and timing to do so. Instead, they chose to build on QNX, to take a big detour with the Playbook, and not release a really usable product until 2014 (v10.2.1). It should be no surprise that they ended up where they are.

It's crazy that they didn't have a well-funded "secret lab" working on a next-gen OS back in 2005, when the first rumors of the iPhone started circulating. Even if it was only in the alpha stage, they could have had their next-gen OS out by 2009 at least (a year after Android's release), and still been well ahead of Microsoft and the big jump in smartphone adoption.

But, hey, they delivered the Playbook (Amateur hour is over!), so, you can't complain, right? LOL.

Hahahaha. I couldn't believe that they went with that tagline.
Good use of it in your post. I started laughing out loud about the irony of that tagline.

Posted via CB10

[lnichols]

i agree - there's nothing inherently wrong about BB10 (other than some UI changes that could be added to help people transition to the gesture-based UI). The issue was always about timing and BB's limited resources. BB sat and watched the world go by, clinging firmly to technology that was obsolete the day the iPhone was released in 2007 - everyone knew it but Mike and Jim. It's one thing to get caught with your pants down, though, and quite another to wait YEARS to react appropriately, especially with the lead times these things take to develop. But Mike & co literally waited THREE YEARS before they decided to take real action, which wouldn't bear fruit for another 3 years (and that was BB10 v10.0, which was a nightmare).

The problem is, by 2010, it was already way too late to be starting from scratch, and again, most people knew that at the time, and encouraged (and expected) BB to go with Android, which would have let BB focus on the thing they do best - securing the OS - and left their only other major concern being deciding on their mix of hardware. They could have released phones in 2011, with a full ecosystem of services & apps, without having to spend billions trying to develop an entire platform when they clearly lacked the resources, influence, and timing to do so. Instead, they chose to build on QNX, to take a big detour with the Playbook, and not release a really usable product until 2014 (v10.2.1). It should be no surprise that they ended up where they are.

It's crazy that they didn't have a well-funded "secret lab" working on a next-gen OS back in 2005, when the first rumors of the iPhone started circulating. Even if it was only in the alpha stage, they could have had their next-gen OS out by 2009 at least (a year after Android's release), and still been well ahead of Microsoft and the big jump in smartphone adoption.

But, hey, they delivered the Playbook (Amateur hour is over!), so, you can't complain, right? LOL.

The problem is with securing Android, but still making it functional, and not having to spend the time and money to constantly to run the OS through security testing. That isn't cheap or trivial. Samsung has to run every device and IS version through. The way that QNX/BlackBerry 10 has the crypto kernel implemented is vastly superior to Android in every way. The OS can be updated quite a bit, without requiring the device and OS to be retested. It isn't tied to specific phones either. Unfortunately they basically had to engineer two versions of QNX based OS, PlayBook and then BB10 when Adobe pulled back from mobile and TabletOS was heavily based on it. They basically had to develop a next Gen OS twice.

Anyway, the best play would have been to buy WebOS, make it the consumer play and BBOS for regulated and try to secure WebOS, buy QNX as the long term play and had the WebOS apps port into the QNX based OS when ready. WebOS had keyboard devices and all touch, was widely regarded as being one of the best OS offerings when it came out, but had a near bankrupt company behind it and BlackBerry at that time still had a decent name and more money than Palm to make it successful. QNX was the right idea based on the finished architecture, it simply was started too late and took too long to mature.

That's what I find the most frustrating. BB10 is superior OS out of the box to Android and iOS in base features and security, but without apps a platform cannot succeed, and because of this the best product will likely die.

Posted via Z30

[RH1Pearl]

Another question is will CrackBerry the website still be around if BB turns into a full fledged software company and if so for how long?

[Troy Tiscareno]

Another question is will CrackBerry the website still be around if BB turns into a full fledged software company and if so for how long?

WebOSNation is technically still around, though it isn't exactly a lively place to hang out.

[gebco]

Another question is will CrackBerry the website still be around if BB turns into a full fledged software company and if so for how long?

Many forums still exist after the product ceases to be updated. CB will exist if/when BB stops making phones, but it will die a slow death as fewer people frequent the forums.

Posted via CB10

[Ed YANG]

Just software? Just OS?
BB will be just as bad as now... When Win10 proves to be a better budget-friendly solution to phone makers as well as enterprise... It's going to be as "open source" as Android!

[mctapt]

Heins was trying to license BB10 for about 18 months and got no interest. There are several problems with the idea of licensing BB10:

1. No OHA member can touch BB10 as long as it contains the Android Runtime, and nearly all manufacturers are OHA members. BB has had relationships with nearly every non-OHA company that makes mobile devices already. Also, while OHA members could make BB10 devices with the Android Runtime removed, sales of such a device would be nearly zero, as there simply isn't enough native apps support to make BB10 viable.
2. BB10 has no ecosystem, and ecosystems are where the real value in an OS lies. Glomming on to the Android ecosystem is clearly a non-starter.
3. Android and WinPhone are free to license - why would anyone pay for BB10?
4. Why could another manufacturer make BB10 successful if BB themselves could not, despite the advantages of BB's patents, years developing it, and not having to pay a license fee?

Bottom line: licensing BB10 makes zero sense to anyone in the business, which is why there was no interest in licensing it back in 2012-2013, and even less (if that's possible) now that it's been a proven failure in the market. Really, the idea that someone else should license BB10 is just another example of "some other company should pay to make BB10 successful because... it would be good for BB!" Companies don't spend money - big money - on other companies just to help those companies - they do it because they believe they can make a profit themselves.

I'd guess that, overall, with everything included, the BB10 project has resulted in a net loss of about $5B for BB - and, yes, that includes the profits from all BB10 sales, along with the various write-downs. That's not anything to inspire another company to spend good money to take a chance on BB10.

Thanks for the input. I did not know that they tried to license it. If you could not get the system out there numbers were higher, they will probably not any interest with lower volumes nowadays.

Posted with my amazing Z10

[Soulstream]

Thanks for the input. I did not know that they tried to license it. If you could not get the system out there numbers were higher, they will probably not any interest with lower volumes nowadays.

Posted with my amazing Z10

As troy said, I think it was not the lack of interest for BB10 itself. It's the problem that the biggest hardware manufacturers are members of OHA and cannot touch BB10.

[kvndoom]

I would buy a Samsung device running BB10, why not?

Posted via CB10

OK now if you could clone yourself 10 million times over, we'd be onto something!

Posted from BlackBerry Classic, Verizon, no camera, 10.3.2.840

[abwan11]

A lot of money is still on the table, 60 million cars and counting, shipping containers alone could surpass those numbers quickly. Cisco, AT&T, Samsung, Google, HP, IBM are in fact working in tandem. Perceptions are not reality, in this case especially, never being able to live down the mistakes of the past is what's holding this company back.

Posted via CB10

[Troy Tiscareno]

A lot of money is still on the table, 60 million cars and counting, shipping containers alone could surpass those numbers quickly. Cisco, AT&T, Samsung, Google, HP, IBM are in fact working in tandem. Perceptions are not reality, in this case especially, never being able to live down the mistakes of the past is what's holding this company back.

Certainly it's possible that BB will have a part to play in some or all of the above, but none of that has anything to do with BB10 phones. Do you regularly follow forums about car OSs or shipping container tracking? I don't think many people here care about any of those things, which is the point that several were trying to make.

[abwan11]

Certainly it's possible that BB will have a part to play in some or all of the above, but none of that has anything to do with BB10 phones. Do you regularly follow forums about car OSs or shipping container tracking? I don't think many people here care about any of those things, which is the point that several were trying to make.

Didn't mean to derail the thread, I thought it was about BlackBerry software.

If I could tap into my shipment from Indonesia to the US or how long the bus will be until it reaches my stop in real-time, and how many seats are available on that bus or a cam view of it traveling down the road towards my stop, I would be very interested. Tomorrow's connection points will be more important information then anything available today imo. A micro Internet of all things is going to transform the user experience on mobile devices. BlackBerry may not be the front runner but they will be there.
Dwelling into the past is too much at this point, with all the opinions of the past never really conveying what is the right direction for the future. That is where opinions fail.

Posted via CB10

[Aman Darred]

Didn't mean to derail the thread, I thought it was about BlackBerry software.

If I could tap into my shipment from Indonesia to the US or how long the bus will be until it reaches my stop in real-time, and how many seats are available on that bus or a cam view of it traveling down the road towards my stop, I would be very interested. Tomorrow's connection points will be more important information then anything available today imo. A micro Internet of all things is going to transform the user experience on mobile devices. BlackBerry may not be the front runner but they will be there.
Dwelling into the past is too much at this point, with all the opinions of the past never really conveying what is the right direction for the future. That is where opinions fail.

Posted via CB10

If BlackBerry acquires Sierra Wireless, especially on this recent dip, they might be a real threat in the space you mention. It would be a nice tie up if you ask me. Especially if this new BlackBerry stays close to Cisco.

Posted via CB10

[abwan11]

If BlackBerry acquires Sierra Wireless, especially on this recent dip, they might be a real threat in the space you mention. It would be a nice tie up if you ask me. Especially if this new BlackBerry stays close to Cisco.

Posted via CB10

You've read my mind, but Sierra isn't generating a profit at the moment, the market may kill BlackBerry further, and Sierras business consists of hardware, (as far as I know), another negative. Maybe a joint venture. I completely agree that these two need to be together.

Posted via CB10

[Aman Darred]

You've read my mind, but Sierra isn't generating a profit at the moment, the market may kill BlackBerry further, and Sierras business consists of hardware, (as far as I know), another negative. Maybe a joint venture. I completely agree that these two need to be together.

Posted via CB10

They build the type of hardware that BlackBerry needs to be a winner in this space and they've also developed a cloud network which BlackBerry may be able to replace with their own. Would be very interesting for these two Canadian pioneers to get together.

Posted via CB10