1. sinsin07's Avatar
    Facepalm...... yea Z30 with 0 ads great hail Mary... Z3 and Q20 have a much better chance of doing well under Chen. accompanied by ads.

    Z10STL100-3/10.2.1.2141
    Change the name (Heins to Chen), but the game still the same.
    kevinnugent likes this.
    03-09-14 01:23 PM
  2. Dave Bourque's Avatar
    Change the name (Heins to Chen), but the game still the same.
    They aren't the same... they have different strategies... and Chen is not putting all his money on devices. in fact he's focusing on software, BES12,eBBM,BBM with way more features, push for a superior OS,even the upcoming high ends they mentioned they will go all out for internal specs.

    Z10STL100-3/10.2.1.2141
    03-09-14 01:27 PM
  3. sinsin07's Avatar
    They aren't the same... they have different strategies... and Chen is not putting all his money on devices. in fact he's focusing on software, BES12,eBBM,BBM with way more features, push for a superior OS,even the upcoming high ends they mentioned they will go all out for internal specs.

    Z10STL100-3/10.2.1.2141
    The goal is to gain traction and profits. That is the game.

    What you describe is the playbook.

    The playbook has no value unless it can win the game.
    03-09-14 01:32 PM
  4. LuvULongTime's Avatar
    Not brilliant, rather it's the most convenient thing to do - to say that you are listening to your customers and giving them exactly what they want. The problem is that you end up with a fragmented, directionless platform.

    You can see this in discussions about things like the screen aspect ratio. Will it be 1:1 as speculated on the most recent Crackberry podcast? How is that going to run Android apps? How can the platform with the smallest market share have the most number of screen sizes and shapes? What are developers supposed to do with screens that might be square, might be rectangle, might or might not have a keyboard or trackpad and buttons and might or might not support landscape.

    Oh, and we also still have a lot of BBOS devices out there so don't forget them. Actually, most of our customers are still BBOS.

    “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” - may not have been said by Henry Ford
    You're making this more complex than it has to be, and will be. We'll see 4 devices, two screen shapes (possibly even one), and two types of phones from BB.

    1. All touch - Z30 (high end) and now Z3 (low end). I doubt we will ever see another Z10 sized touch device.
    2. Qwerty - Q20 (high end) with the BELT and a future Q device for the low end. Future Q models will have the belt. I don't ever envision another Q10 or Q5 type phone without the BELT.

    Target customers for Z will be consumers and corporate users that can live with out the keyboard (I think this number will grow as the younger generation moves into the business world). Target customers for the Q will be older folks that can't get accustomed to typing on glass.

    In terms of the screen size fragmenting the platform, who says BB can't make a qwerty device with the same aspect ratio as the touch devices?

    In terms of app support, even if the Q has a different screen size, who says they can't rescale the apps to work with black bars on the sides? I know it's not the prettiest, but it will work. Apple did this when they moved from the IP4 to 5.

    And lastly, in terms of coding apps to work with the BELT on touch devices, I would love to hear what devs they think of this. As I see it, the app would only need to be coded to work with the Blackberry, pointer, and back keys. The blackberry key would act as the swiping down gesture to see the app settings. One click of the back button could take the user back to the active frames page, and the pointer key could just act as the pointer. I see no reason why the dev would need to do anything different on their end. Blackberry should be doing all the heavy lifting here in the OS itself. The way those buttons behave should be the same in all apps, as described above. Keep it simple.
    00stryder likes this.
    03-09-14 01:41 PM
  5. LuvULongTime's Avatar
    The present and future are software and services, and not devices. Similar to the automotive industry where dealers make the bulk of their money on service and very little actually selling cars. The relationship of the auto dealer and the manufacturer is very similar to the relationship of the cell phone company (Blackberry) and the manufacturer (Foxcon). The phone is essentially a commodity and a loss leader. A means to get people in the front door. Google is the present day king of this. Even Android OEM's know this and if they could replace Google's services with their own, I'm sure they would do it in a heartbeat. But then they would lose access to Google play.

    Hence Blackberry's focus on enterprise software and security. They don't have to be #1, 2, even 3 in the smartphone market. They just have to make money. That's the name of the game.
    03-09-14 01:51 PM
  6. anon(5818411)'s Avatar
    Chen has been telegraphing this since the day he took the job.

    Blackberry is not going to be making hardware if the next products they introduce don't sell. And I don't think HE thinks they're going to.

    Come on. The Q20?! That is a hail-mary folks. The hardware keyboard is as good as dead in 2014. Chen knows that.

    ...and this is just my .02�. Try not to get your ****-feelings hurt.

    Posted via the Android CrackBerry App!
    completely wrong on all points

    1. Why do you think he would partner with Foxconn if they were planning to not make phones in the future? They just said in a press release that they are only going to concentrate on the 4 main pillar devices. If they start losing money on handsets they will probably make even less devices but I'm sure they will always be selling handsets just maybe not at your local carrier.

    2. Q20 i'm against it but there is kind of a need for it with all the old BBOS7 users and I'm pretty sure this was done ebcause business' wanted the track pad for their employees. BBOS7 still out runs any phone in enterprise.

    3. The keyboard is dead? Come on seriously?
    Look at the Typo sales for iPhone it's sold out until April.
    A lot of people that had a Blackberry in the past misses the keyboard but unfortunately screen size out weighs the keyboard.
    If Blackberry puts some serious R&D into their keyboards and makes the next phone Q phone with a big screen. That can easily be a hit. Blackberry seems like they are putting some R&D with their recent patents.

    The thing is Chen doesn't want to battle Apple, Google/Samsung and Windows for the consumer market because they will never win (at least anytime in the next few years) since those companies have the most money to spend. Blackberry has them all beat in 1 category and that's business and security so I can see the next phones being completely directed towards them for now at least. Sure they are trying to play the 3rd world game but android will crush them since they just can't beat the prices.

    The OP is misguided by what Chen is trying to say and it's basically what I just said ^^^
    03-09-14 10:28 PM
  7. crackbrry fan's Avatar
    I think sooner or later it's a reality that we have to face, till then I am sticking with BlackBerry. Perhaps the licensing off with hardware manufacturing will be a solution.

    Posted via CB10
    03-15-14 11:58 PM
  8. Omnitech's Avatar
    Samsung runs on small margins propped by huge volumes as Nokia used to do.

    Not really. Unlike ALL the other players, Samsung is a vertically integrated producer. This is one of the key reasons they are killing Apple on a unit and revenue basis globally now.

    Apple even had Samsung making their own custom CPU for them. There are very few companies in the world that can do this. Apple is trying to move away from its Samsung hardware dependency now but this is easier said than done. Samsung is also the #1 manufacturer of flat panel displays in the world, and the #1 manufacturer of RAM in the world.

    Interestingly, in contrast to the quote from Chen made in the OP, Chen has also stated since the Foxconn announcement that he is willing to make almost nothing on phones for a while to gain marketshare.

    I would take this particular quote with a grain of salt.
    03-16-14 07:14 AM
  9. RyanGermann's Avatar
    Not brilliant, rather it's the most convenient thing to do - to say that you are listening to your customers and giving them exactly what they want. The problem is that you end up with a fragmented, directionless platform.
    I would challenge any insinuation that listening to customers results in a "directionless product".

    Bad Product Design results in a directionless product.

    Listening to your customers + common sense + mad skillz at product design = hugely successful product.

    What BlackBerry did with BB10 was listen to their NON-customers (i.e. people who want Apps) and went ahead and designed a product BBOS users by and large don't want and that didn't deliver the main thing their non-customers want (apps).

    How could it not fail?

    Posted via CB10
    03-16-14 07:51 AM
  10. Omnitech's Avatar
    I would challenge any insinuation that listening to customers results in a "directionless product".

    Bad Product Design results in a directionless product.

    Listening to your customers + common sense + mad skillz at product design = hugely successful product.

    Now define "who is your customer".

    It's not so simple. Read some of Steve Jobs philosophy - not that different than the Henry Ford quote someone posted here earlier. If he had asked people what they wanted before he came out with his cars, most of them would have likely told him "A faster horse".



    What BlackBerry did with BB10 was listen to their NON-customers (i.e. people who want Apps) and went ahead and designed a product BBOS users by and large don't want and that didn't deliver the main thing their non-customers want (apps).

    How could it not fail?

    Most of BB10's first-year failure, IMHO, can be attributed to execution errors, not conceptualization errors.

    A lot of the legacy OS partisans are patting themselves on the back these days, but that's mostly because that dried-up and shriveling business only looks good in comparison to a botched BB10 launch. If BB10 had been even moderately successful, the voices of the die-hard BBOS partisans would be down underneath the noise floor by now.

    I will grant you that one of the "execution errors" the company made was making a clean-break from the legacy engineering team and A) not cherry-picking the knowledge from them that could have still been useful in BB10, and B) re-inventing the wheel on a variety of subsystems with staff that were clearly not experienced enough in these areas to know what they were doing.

    That said, I view the main launch problems to be as follows:


    • The product was LATE, and had continuous issues with not meeting their own promises and deadlines
    • BES10 was buggy and feature incomplete for months after BB10 launch, a major strategic mistake
    • The product was BUGGY, including a terrible random-restart problem that severely hurt the product's reputation
    • The product had MISSING FEATURES, ie face-detection/exposure control in camera app, limited email retention, etc etc.
    • The MARKETING and ADVERTISING was terrible
    • The well known APP GAP, about which there is only so much the company could do
    • COMMUNICATIONS with customers and DOCUMENTATION was poor


    The success of all-touch devices in both the mass market and enterprise markets in recent years is proof enough that an all-touch device and platform could be very successful. BlackBerry just squandered their major opportunity. (Not entirely their fault - they did not have the financial resources to throw at this platform that a company like Google or Apple or Microsoft could bring to bear. But that is only part of the picture.)
    JeepBB, gokulesh and techvisor like this.
    03-16-14 08:32 AM
  11. RyanGermann's Avatar
    A lot of the legacy OS partisans are patting themselves on the back these days, but that's mostly because that dried-up and shriveling business only looks good in comparison to a botched BB10 launch. If BB10 had been even moderately successful, the voices of the die-hard BBOS partisans would be down underneath the noise floor by now.
    I don't know how to break it to you but there is absolutely nothing that BlackBerry could have done differently with a Beltless BB10 launch with BB10 the way it is designed today that would have changed the outcome. Unfamiliar to BBOS users (and inferior in some ways that matter) and no apps to appeal to users settled in on iOS or Android.

    If the Q20 and Z10 were the launch devices (planned early on, not some last minute "ok, we'll do a keyboard" by the then management team) they might have 20 million happy BB10 q20 users instead of the current number.

    In short: they got greedy: they should have catered to the modest BBOS base first then expanded instead of going all-in on full touch. They gambled and list, but they have one more ace to play, if all the chips aren't already off the table (and if they are, it's no harm to try).

    Posted via CB10
    bbq10l likes this.
    03-16-14 09:50 AM
  12. Omnitech's Avatar
    I don't know how to break it to you but there is absolutely nothing that BlackBerry could have done differently with a Beltless BB10 launch with BB10 the way it is designed today that would have changed the outcome.



    Now that is the voice of a true believer.

    Let's just say I don't agree. Whatsoever.
    Troy Tiscareno likes this.
    03-16-14 10:20 AM
  13. crackbrry fan's Avatar
    Omni I agree 100 % with your comments. They botched the launch and subsequent 90 days thereafter, which I think was due to lack of direction. There was a lot going on at the time and too much riding on BlackBerry 10, the delays in getting product to market was a major flaw and when they did it was released with an incomplete OS, (since then they have made strides in the right direction) they just panicked and made a mess. Right now they need to refocus on core ,sales numbers or volume will come thereafter. Apps or Native apps should still be addressed but I don't think with Android runtime available it's a major issue at this point the app gap temporarily has significantly closed.

    Posted via CB10
    03-16-14 11:02 AM
  14. lawguyman's Avatar
    I like Chen but so far all he has really done is talk. The structural changes to the company were mostly accomplished under Heins.

    Chen has brought in a new management team but we know very little about what products are planned. (Jakarta is not a Chen thing. It began under Heins).

    Is it really just going to be BES12, do something to monetize BBM, and hope for the best from Foxconn?

    Maybe this is enough but this isn't very exciting. Perhaps Chen will bring better execution to the table . This is something BlackBerry has never been good at. Perhaps if BlackBerry had executed consistently, it would not be in the bad spot it is.

    Talk about smartphones becoming obsolete is pretty speculative at this point. What will replace them? Google Glass or other wearables? I doubt it unless they become less silly looking.




    Posted via CB10
    TGR1 and CDM76 like this.
    03-16-14 11:10 AM
  15. early2bed's Avatar
    Listening to your customers + common sense + mad skillz at product design = hugely successful product.
    Well, Blackberry customers are less than 3% of the market right now. The other 97% prefer a different platform so I don't see how listening to the 3% gets them anywhere. They have the majority of the shrinking keyboard smartphone market and have just discovered that their customers want more buttons. That's going nowhere fast.
    03-16-14 11:23 AM
  16. Wiki Cydia's Avatar
    Not really. Unlike ALL the other players, Samsung is a vertically integrated producer. This is one of the key reasons they are killing Apple on a unit and revenue basis globally now.
    Putting aside for a moment that the point of business is profit, not revenue (or even unit sales), isn't it true that Samsung doesn't report their number of phones sold, or the average selling price of their phones, or their percentage of revenue that comes from their mobile devices?
    03-16-14 11:30 AM
  17. Omnitech's Avatar
    (Jakarta is not a Chen thing. It began under Heins).
    That's ridiculous.

    The product that was planned for the Indonesian market - and had even passed local certification - was the "Kopi/Cafe" series - which was cancelled before Chen was hired.

    It would have been impossible for Heins to plan the Jakarta, because there was no outsourcing deal with Foxconn when Heins was in charge, and Foxconn was heavily involved in the design of that device, among other things.

    If you have proof otherwise, please show it, otherwise I'll assume you're just making things up.


    Perhaps Chen will bring better execution to the table . This is something BlackBerry has never been good at. Perhaps if BlackBerry had executed consistently, it would not be in the bad spot it is.
    They have unquestionably had execution problems as I posted earlier, and undoubtedly Chen is going to improve that, and quite honestly I have already noticed improvements.
    03-16-14 06:39 PM
  18. Omnitech's Avatar
    Putting aside for a moment that the point of business is profit, not revenue (or even unit sales), isn't it true that Samsung doesn't report their number of phones sold, or the average selling price of their phones, or their percentage of revenue that comes from their mobile devices?
    Even if they didn't report it, it's fairly trivial for someone to ascertain the number of devices sold and their selling prices, this is all public info.

    Regardless, Samsung themselves crowed about sales numbers for the SGS4, for example (LINK), and they also publish mobile revenue figures. (LINK)

    Specifically, while their profits in mobile were down 18% in Q4 2013, they still made $5 Billion profit on mobile in the last quarter. Mobile revenue was $31.5 Billion.

    For Apple, extrapolating from their published figures from fiscal Q4 2013, mobile device revenue is 71% of total revenue, and total revenue is $37.5 Billion, suggesting that mobile device revenue should be about $26.6 Billion.

    Samsung's profit margin is undoubtedly smaller than Apple because their product mix is dramatically larger and they sell into far lower price categories than Apple does. But Apple's margin is dropping too, and if they follow-through with rumored cheaper devices, that won't help. And don't forget that Mac product margin is probably higher than mobile margin, and Apple's substantial revenue from software and media sales is also a high margin business.
    03-16-14 07:07 PM
  19. lawguyman's Avatar
    That's ridiculous.

    The product that was planned for the Indonesian market - and had even passed local certification - was the "Kopi/Cafe" series - which was cancelled before Chen was hired.

    It would have been impossible for Heins to plan the Jakarta, because there was no outsourcing deal with Foxconn when Heins was in charge, and Foxconn was heavily involved in the design of that device, among other things.

    If you have proof otherwise, please show it, otherwise I'll assume you're just making things up.




    They have unquestionably had execution problems as I posted earlier, and undoubtedly Chen is going to improve that, and quite honestly I have already noticed improvements.
    I'm only going by what Chen himself said. He said that the Foxconn deal was negotiated by Heins. Of course, Heins was gone before the deal was consummated. So, the strategy that led to Jakarta originated with Heins.

    Recall Chen became CEO in November and the Foxconn deal was done a month later. This deal had been in the works for months and work on Jakarta was already underway. Recently, Chen was talking about a five month development cycle.

    It was certified in February and in development for 5 months. Do the math.

    Posted via CB10
    xandermac likes this.
    03-16-14 07:19 PM
  20. Omnitech's Avatar
    Sony's latest available figures (2013-Q3) show that they are losing money on mobile (listed as "MP&C" in the graph)
    Source: http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/fina...r/viewer/13q3/

    Attachment 255737

    HTC is losing money:

    HTC ends 2013 with an operating loss, but net profit - GSMArena.com news

    "HTC has just posted its financial report for Q4 of 2013 showing it made a profit of $10.3 million thanks to selling its remaining stake in Beats Electornics.

    Take that out and you see a quarterly operating loss of $52.7 million - a second consecutive one after a disappointing Q3. Total revenue for the period was $1.4 billion.
    "


    LG is losing money on mobile:

    LG Electronics Misses Estimates on Smartphone Marketing - Bloomberg

    "LG’s mobile division had a third-quarter operating loss of 79.7 billion won on sales of 3.05 trillion won. Smartphone shipments in the quarter were 12 million units."


    Nokia's operating margin for 2013-Q4 was apparently -7.5% on mobile - they aren't providing exact figures but most group profits are from other divisions:

    Nokia reveals hugely disappointing Lumia Windows Phone sales in Q4 2013
    Nokia shares Q4 2013 results, including vague report on device sales | PhoneDog
    03-16-14 07:55 PM
  21. Omnitech's Avatar
    I'm only going by what Chen himself said. He said that the Foxconn deal was negotiated by Heins.
    I would love to see a link to that quote.


    Recently, Chen was talking about a five month development cycle.
    Funny, all the quotes I've seen quote him saying three months.

    MWC 2014: BlackBerry "ready to compete" as CEO announces Q20, Z3, BES 12 and revised licensing - 25 Feb 2014 - Computing News

    "Whipping out the new, budget-aimed BlackBerry Z3 - codename Jakarta - Chen said that in "less than three months, we have the phone up and running" after signing a deal with Foxconn in December 2013."


    http://www.computerworld.in/news/sub...l-from-foxconn

    "It's going to be a very, very attractive phone for the market," said John Chen, during a news conference at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. "Somewhere in April, it will come out in Indonesia. It will be under $200 in retail price."

    "When I first got into the phone business, they told me it takes 9 to 12 months to get a phone up and going. In less than three months the phone is up and qualified and we are now working on distribution," he said
    ."


    I could only find one article claiming the device had been conceptualized under the Heins administration, and I looked very hard:

    BlackBerry signs partnership with Foxconn, will launch the 3G BB10 'Jakarta' by April | MobileSyrup.com

    Also - BB10 watchers have long predicted new devices by looking through device-specific details embedded in configuration data inside recent builds of the OS, and I do not recall any of the usual indications of the STJ100-1 discovered in this way, which has been a very reliable indicator of upcoming planned devices for over a year now. This would corroborate the idea that the device in fact had not been in planning stages until Heins was out.
    03-16-14 08:04 PM
  22. lawguyman's Avatar
    This if from Chen's mouth from the December earnings call:

    Okay, so let?s start with the device unit, which is obviously the biggest. And it?s the biggest risk exposure for us, as you can see, in the last couple of years. One thing I did is to finish a job, by the way, it was laid out by both the Board and prior management, a discussion with Foxconn. So I wouldn?t claim credit that I come in and then just go grab the thing that is the smartest thing I?ve done with that. It?s a smart move. I will tell you that.

    The only thing I could claim credit is that I saw the opportunity and drove it to completion. That?s the only thing I could say. I could claim that credit. You know, Foxconn and BlackBerry have been, as I said, in discussion on a partnership for a little while. It?s a very, very good partnership. And if people want to talk about detail, I can talk about detail. We have a press release on it.

    Posted via CB10
    03-17-14 06:51 AM
  23. lawguyman's Avatar
    Just because Z3 is not exclusively Chen's is really irrelevant.

    Much of what went into BB10 was not Heins's. What is important is execution.

    The BB10 launch was a cluster -F. It began with a weird Superbowl commercial and was followed by nothing for several months. Then, there was an underwhelming advertising campaign and lots of broken promises about the availability of apps.

    If z3 can be launched properly and be a successful product, that means that BlackBerry can still have a future making phones. If it flops, let's face it, will there ever be another chance?

    Z3 looks like it stands a good chance but we still don't know the price. This will be extremely important. It should be well under $200 if it is going to stand a chance. BlackBerry seems to have made some good design decisions: less ram, big low res screen, competitive CPU. It can be built cheaply but still has good specs. The phone has a chance.


    Posted via CB10
    03-17-14 07:18 AM
  24. Omnitech's Avatar
    This if from Chen's mouth from the December earnings call:

    Okay, so let?s start with the device unit, which is obviously the biggest. And it?s the biggest risk exposure for us, as you can see, in the last couple of years. One thing I did is to finish a job, by the way, it was laid out by both the Board and prior management, a discussion with Foxconn. So I wouldn?t claim credit that I come in and then just go grab the thing that is the smartest thing I?ve done with that. It?s a smart move. I will tell you that.

    The only thing I could claim credit is that I saw the opportunity and drove it to completion. That?s the only thing I could say. I could claim that credit. You know, Foxconn and BlackBerry have been, as I said, in discussion on a partnership for a little while. It?s a very, very good partnership. And if people want to talk about detail, I can talk about detail. We have a press release on it.

    Well that's not a link as I had requested, but I will take it at face value for the moment. Very strange I saw no transcripts of that excerpt anywhere.

    Regardless, what it sounds like to me is that the previous management may have been interested in doing a deal with Foxconn, but the specifics (ie the Z3 details) had not been decided yet. Who knows.

    I sure hope it isn't qHD (540x960) as rumored, because that would seem to throw a massive wrench into app compatibility and device performance (if they have to scale all the UI elements on the fly) if that turns out to be true.
    03-17-14 06:35 PM
  25. lawguyman's Avatar
    Well that's not a link as I had requested, but I will take it at face value for the moment. Very strange I saw no transcripts of that excerpt anywhere.

    Regardless, what it sounds like to me is that the previous management may have been interested in doing a deal with Foxconn, but the specifics (ie the Z3 details) had not been decided yet. Who knows.

    I sure hope it isn't qHD (540x960) as rumored, because that would seem to throw a massive wrench into app compatibility and device performance (if they have to scale all the UI elements on the fly) if that turns out to be true.
    I can't link to it because it is from seekingalpha. You need to sign up but it is free.

    The deal was in the works but not inked by the time the Board gave Heins the boot.

    I bet the board wanted to make sure Chen was okay with it before committing to it. Why make such a major move with input from the CEO?

    It seems like the lower ppi is confirmed so that is that. Cost is more important than specs for this device.

    Posted via CB10
    03-17-14 06:58 PM
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