[MrGlenn]

I cannot get my head around this. I am from the Netherlands, and as far as I can tell (from statements, support forums, hear-say) pretty much all carriers no longer want to offer BB10 devices directly or they have stated they have no intention to offer future devices.

So why do I still have to go through my carrier to get any chance of Customer Support for my BB10 device? How does it make sense for a carrier to still offer a line of feedback, but not the hardware? I imagine it is the man-power that is actually costly for them, not keeping stock of a relatively small amount of devices?
And then OS updates. If a carrier is not interested in future BB10 support, why are they still actively involved in the update process?
I should add that both of these are of course suffering massively in terms of quality and speed, probably as a result of the internal negative view of BB.
Why does the carrier not absolve whatever arrangements they have made concerning BB10 support, if that is what they openly claim to want? Or why does BB not absolve these arrangements when they are being actively targeted by such providers (like the T-Mobile US example a while ago)?

To me it just looks like right now those carriers somehow still spend their resources on "proper" platform support, while they spread a negative message about dropping BB at the same time. How does that make sense, I just cannot think of an actual reason why carriers would take this direction. To me it just seems to be unjustly negative for BB, while the carrier does not get any clear benefit from it.

To reference that moronic statement about Stockholm syndrome among smartphone users: I think you would have more luck using that term to describe the relationship between carriers and BlackBerry. Because to me it seems like BlackBerry defends the harm providers are doing them, because the thought of going against them (against their current contracts/arrangements) is just too risky/scary for whoever is in charge.
_____

A bit of a rant, but after yet another annoying call with my (ignorant) carrier I had to vent somewhere. On a side note, why the hell would a carrier drop their Customer Support email address in favour of Twitter/FB?

[jaydee5799]

Yeah. VZW has dropped all the hardware here in the Northeast US. If I want a BB I have to order the hardware online. Then if I need help (which I don't from them. they know nothing) I have to call on the phone for help.

Easy answer to your question. They want the money that data plans brings them. They don't care that they don't carry or support the hardware.

[app_Developer]

I think you make an excellent point.

Part of the answer is that BlackBerry wants to maintain carrier relationships as best they can because they hold onto hope that they can turn the handset business around one day. I don't know how it is in Europe, but here in the US I work for a 50,000 person company and we buy all of our phones and support from Verizon.

So if we as an enterprise ever intend to implement BES12 and buy a lot of Classics and Passports, Verizon must support that. We won't switch our whole company to some other carrier just to get BlackBerry's. Further, Verizon wants to own that relationship and so they want us calling then for every service issue.

Now for the time being, maybe BlackBerry could offer a customer service function to which carriers could immediately transfer BB users when they call in. Or they could offer something like AppleCare that customers can choose to call directly. The issue there is that Chen is trying as hard as he can to balance the books right now. Expanding a worldwide service network is not cheap.

[Troy Tiscareno]

In the US market, carriers are the primary retailers for smartphones, and because of that, except for Apple who has a bunch of Apple Stores, the phone manufacturers don't have much if any direct support structure. All of that support has always been handled by the carrier, so if you have a problem with your device, you take it to the carrier. People in the US are mostly trained to do this now, because that's how it has worked for the last 10+ years.

Any BB that was sold by a carrier thus still has to be supported by that carrier. Further, OS updates always have the possibility of breaking things on the phone, and if/when that happens, the carriers have to provide a ton of support, up to and including swapping out the device for the customer, which is very expensive for the carrier. That's the main reason that US carriers insist on doing comprehensive testing of OS updates for all phones (except Apple, and the only reason they were able to negotiate an exemption was because of those Apple stores, where Apple pays for the support). Every non-Apple manufacturer has their OS updates delayed by this testing, though clearly updates are prioritized based on marketshare - the more units a phone model sells, the higher priority its OS testing gets with the carrier.

Because the carrier provides primary support for those devices, they almost certainly have a contract with the manufacturers that prevents the manufacturers from pushing out OS updates directly OTA - they have to wait for the carrier to complete testing. And even if the carrier stops selling new phones, that contract certainly is going to remain in force for all of the phones previously sold.

[MrGlenn]

I can understand how those existing contracts might be unavoidable. I just think there should be at least a few secondary measures by BlackBerry to try and mitigate the damage from this snowballing effect on carrier/consumer relations.
Right now that just seems non-existant and any response from BlackBerry is basically "please report those employees, they should not respond in that manner." Like it is still an exception instead of the rule.

Heck, they should hire a few "BlackBerry Geniuses" to go around to those carriers and give their reps (not the managers that follow those binding contracts but the uninformed unmotivated staff) a quick schooling to get their facts straight.
If not, I think it is only a matter of time before this negative perception hits the enterprise side too.

The 'social Internet' has caused the divide between work and personal to fade away, and BlackBerry should realise they can not win the one while being outcasts in the other.

BlackBerry 10 signed.

[Troy Tiscareno]

While I agree that work/consumer is a very blurred line at best anymore, the time for "BB Geniuses" was at the BB10 launch. Today, most carriers don't even stock the devices in stores, and there is little interest in a BB Genius to come and train on a device that they won't be able to sell on-the-spot anyway. Plus, I'm not sure BB could afford to find, train, and deploy nearly the number of Geniuses that would be required to make any significant dent in their reputation and perception.

It really must be recognized that BB has given up and abandoned the consumer market (at least in mature markets of North America and Europe), despite half-hearted claims to the contrary, and are focusing almost exclusively on the regulated enterprise market. I'm sure they have corporate account reps who serve the "Genius" role for those big companies, and they don't plan to expand beyond that anytime soon (and probably couldn't afford to even if they tried).

Remember that BB has cut 2/3 of its staff over the last couple of years, and is presumably only keeping the staff necessary to accomplish its stated goals, which is: selling 10M phones, mostly to regulated enterprise and emerging markets. The mature market consumers have already been ceded to the competition in fact, if not by the official narrative of the company.

[early2bed]

I'm pretty sure that the launch of these two upcoming phones will be a pretty big reality check regarding what selling 10 million phones per year worldwide looks like. First, there will probably be no US or Canadian carrier pushing the phone with any advertising. There won't be any consumer advertising from Blackberry. There won't be devices to be found in any of the carrier stores. Think Z30 launch but significantly less.

[Troy Tiscareno]

Exactly. BB will be sending the word to enterprises via corporate account reps and via enterprise-targeted marketing, which most of us will never see or hear of. The consumer market is barely going to notice the existence of these phones, because BB isn't going to be spending any significant amount of money marketing them on the consumer level.