Chen Does About Face on Handsets
From this morning's Wall Street Journal following the BBRY quarterly results analysts call.
BlackBerry’s Chen Does Apparent About-Face on Handsets - Canada Real Time - WSJ
Just more proof that like previous BBRY executives, Chen will stick to the "strategy on the fly" style of leadership in Waterloo.
So, BB7 is back...more new BB7 handsets.
Focusing on "prosumers" is out..."touting" upcoming launches of devices "aimed at emerging markets" (aka cheap phones designed to compete against entry level Android devices).
The "Classic" device targeted at BBRY's "traditional business customer base".
I don't get it.
Didn't we hear for years that the market for BBOS/BB7 was falling and doomed hence we needed BB10?
Then BB10 failed (to wit, BB7 sales continue to outstrip BB10 sales) so we're now back to BB7 or BB7 and BB10 side-by-side.
All I can say is: Wow...does anyone know what they're plans are in Waterloo anymore?
Chen Does About Face on Handsets
Chen said they were going to upgrade BES so that clients could use it to manage both legacy and BB10 devices. One could reasonably ask why they didn't do that originally. Either it's a significant technical challenge and won't work very well or they could have done it but were using BES as leverage to get people to upgrade to BB10.
Either way I wouldn't be happy as a client. The latter means you tried to screw me and the former means you're going to screw me with a half-assed solution.
customer first as core attitude
Originally Posted by
NYC10065 That's the part I really don't get. Chen is supposed to be smarter than the previous bunch. Prem Watsa is supposed to be smart. So why go down this road?
As the saying goes, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Well, BB7 was on the fast track to oblivion so why keep producing more when you need to, one would think, support BB10 and force the transition?
It just looks to me that BBRY and Chen have cast a major vote of non-confidence in BB10 by doing this. If you were a developer, would you risk spending any time or money on developing a BB10 app with this type of confusion going on? One of the major criticisms of BB10 is the dearth of apps so why make it even worse with hamfisted decisions?
Does prolonging the pain of BB7 with its rapidly shrinking user base help anything other than perhaps the service revenues that BBOS generates for BBRY?
Just like Heins, Chen seems to be flailing and failing and no one over in Waterloo can seem to make up their minds about where BBRY is headed.
- One day it's consumer with BB10, then;
- It's prosumer, then;
- Chen announces low end consumer devices (aka Jakarta), then;
- it's BES10, then;
- it's BBRY is jetisonning hardware because hardware is not BBRY's main focus for the future, then;
- it's hardware will be important and we are restarting production of BB7 devices and launching a slew of low end devices for the developing world AND launching new, QWERTY focused high end devices for the "traditional" BBRY market which was shrinking and continues to do so.
Chen has made more pivots than Heins that BBRY observers should sue for whiplash!
It's truly sad since BBRY should be a great company, doing great things and going places. Mismanagement and insanity have really thrown BBRY into the sh*tter and hundreds, perhaps thousands, more careers and families will be impacted by bad management.
While BlackBerry's strategy may not seem as clear as it could be, Chen is likely focused on re-building relationships with a prioritized set of customers and segments. Perhaps he is simply responding to customer requests/complaints arising from face to face meetings as a means of showing commitment to building sustainable business relationships with the decision makers he meets with during face to face sales calls. I suspect he is trying to exorcise the past ghosts of arrogance and abuse of power typical of market leaders/monopoly. The technology is half the battle which I feel BlackBerry has it handled. In the end, it's people who make things happen and Chen is trying to set a new tone of genuine care for the customer. He could be going the extra mile to address the short term needs of strategic customers as a way of ensuring future upgrades and sale of services. Nothing new in sales. It's all about the people and relationships. This I think is the reason he has a proven turnaround record and glad he is occupies the captain's chair on the bridge. Creating a people centered ecosystem from within is just as important as the technology.