[TBone4eva]

AT&T did the same thing with the 9900 and delayed its launch for months. Why? Because they could. The U.S. carriers have all of the leverage. They are selling tons of iPhones and Androids, they don't HAVE to sell BBs. It doesn't hurt them to wait and see how the Z10 is received in the rest of the world. Some of them have been burnt by RIM in the past, which is why I think Verizon is getting the White Z10 exclusive. So, they are probably dragging their feet to see how early demand and reviews play out. Now that they are seeing that the reviews are good and demand in other countries are good, you see some movement with T-Mobile saying they may move up their launch.

[silversmith75]

could be possible but i still think its the us carriers fault... as today a us carrier that i have never heard of a subsidiary of t-mobile are launching the z10 this month unlocked for a steep price.$999.. and my theory is they see that people are paying crazy prices on ebay for them.. why not get in on the action themselves...

[hennesseystealth]

could be possible but i still think its the us carriers fault... as today a us carrier that i have never heard of a subsidiary of t-mobile are launching the z10 this month unlocked for a steep price.$999.. and my theory is they see that people are paying crazy prices on ebay for them.. why not get in on the action themselves...

Small correction. Solavei is a private company that resells connections to the T-Mobile network. There are several companies that do this and they are not owned in any way by T-Mobile. Just a strategy to fill out the bandwidth on the network. If you want to sign up for the no contract service, you can do so with one of my buddies that is a solid guy. $49/mo, no limits.

Gene Goebel, Social Member | Independent Solavei Member

[theRock1975]

Well, I've read all the responses, and I haven't seen the most logical reason for the delay mentioned.......Supply Constraint.

Here we are, a full week into the Canadian launch, and Canadian supply is sporatic. I know.....I'm flying from Mexico to Canada tomorrow with a plan to buy up to 10 - Z10's to sell down here to friends and family. My plan was to buy them at Koodo, as they appear to have the lowest price. After a frustrating afternoon of calling around, no location had any in stock, however, they appear to be receiving some tomorrow. My conversation with one store: "How many?" I asked....."Well....our first order was three, and our second order was three......so we're guessing... three?" said the clerk.

So, if Blackberry is having a difficult time supplying a market 10% the size of the U.S. market, how in the heck could they have hoped to have a proper roll out in the US in early February? I would imagine, regardless of how it performs eventually, they would have had to seed the U.S. market with perhaps a million units to ensure every store had a reasonable supply on hand. Likely, as they are ramping up production from a standing start, they had a choice......Roll out in smaller markets today, or wait until they've produced enough to roll out across the U.S. sometime in the third or fourth week of February.........

As they are bleeding cash today, it only makes sense to start selling as soon as possible - and start returning to profitability as soon as possible....

There's definitely a supply constraint. I'm still waiting for by white Z10 from Telus in Canada WTF! And I agree with you about profitability. I think it's in RIMs best interest to sell through as many units as they can manufacture before the end of Q4 (Feb 26??). Perhaps they can record a few million reorders?
Also, as Heins said, RIM doesn't have the "economy of scale" to do certain things. $3B in cash can only go so far. How can they market to the entire world at the same time? I think there strategy was smart. Market and sell millions of units to the sure markets (Canada, UK, Austrailia, Middle East), collect a few $Billion, then market and sell millions in the US. Is this the one-two punch Heins was talking about?

[agp101]

whereas BlackBerry is based in Canada and we're mostly metric (sorta, kinda, when it suits us),

Lol that's SO true

[Trevor Franks]

Has anyone thought about all the carrier commitments to i-phone 5 sales and the lack of sales on those phones in the U.S. Most of the carriers were forced by apple to make huge commitments in order to be able to sell i-phones. There is probably so much stock still as the 1-phone 5 is not selling as well that the carriers want more time to try to get rid of that extra stock before another new phone is introduced to take sales away and make all the extra stock of there i-phone 5's worth even less. I do not believe that it is because of carrier testing. It does not take that long at all.

Also I think Blackberry might have delayed a little bit in order for it to have a good track record of sales in the news before launching in the U.S. although I am sure they did not want to have to wait 2 months for it to get to market there. So I think that it could be a combination of those 2 factors added together that we are seeing a delay in the U.S. It does give them more time to iron out any bugs which will make it harder for the americans to bash the phone and hopefully time to grow to 100,000 apps or more so they can stop complaining down there about a supposed lack of apps. As a stockholder and Blackberry user I hope this does not happen with any more of the new phones that they introduce this year. It will only hurt the perception of Blackberry having there sh@$ together.

[Omnitech]

The carriers need time to figure out how to ruin BB10 with all of their ugly branding and bloatware apps. Probably need to hire BB programmers and "user experience destroyers".

[docgasberry]

Facts:

1. BB10 achieve FIPS 140-2 certification in the US even before launch.
2. UK, Canada and the UAE complete "carrier testing" before any US carrier can.
3. A small virtually unknown (until now) company named Solavei is actually selling unlocked Z10s right in the U. S of A. Before any of the GIANT 4.

Has to be a conspiracy ........ OK, another conspiracy theory here .........

The latest Z10 with BB10 has been used successfully in Area 51. Squads of MIB are right now busy processing the contacted/identified aliens seeking asylum in the USA. Once these aliens are resettled successfully, then the Z10 will be released to the public. You may then chat with these extra terrestrial beings via BBM, and this will be the BEST selling point of the Z10!

[BB Fightclub]

BB can only report official sales numbers during the quarterly address. This quarter ends March 2 - Reported March 28. By delaying the US launch till after Mar 2, BB won't have any US sales. Make the numbers look bad - just another reason to pound the stock. Conspiracy theory #3542.

[docgasberry]

Facts:

1. BB10 achieve FIPS 140-2 certification in the US even before launch.
2. UK, Canada and the UAE complete "carrier testing" before any US carrier can.
3. A small virtually unknown (until now) company named Solavei is actually selling unlocked Z10s right in the U. S of A. Before any of the GIANT 4.

Has to be a conspiracy ........ OK, another conspiracy theory here .........

The latest Z10 with BB10 has been used successfully in Area 51. Squads of MIB are right now busy processing the contacted/identified aliens seeking asylum in the USA. Once these aliens are resettled successfully, then the Z10 will be released to the public. You may then chat with these extra terrestrial beings via BBM, and this will be the BEST selling point of the Z10!

And one of the founding members of the Men in Black, and the former Chief/Head of the MiB is ....... drums rollllllll ........ Zed.

[BaconMunch]

Hm just wanted to add to the conspiracy theory....when I heard some countries in the middle east were launching BB10 without BBM Video...I thought maybe the US carriers are pulling an ATT Bridge scheme. With BBM Voice and Video available over LTE, they might try to "fix" software so that they can put an add-on onto their data plan. Wouldn't that just be a fine dandy way to kill BlackBerry more?

[Thunderbuck]

Well, I've read all the responses, and I haven't seen the most logical reason for the delay mentioned.......Supply Constraint.

Here we are, a full week into the Canadian launch, and Canadian supply is sporatic. I know.....I'm flying from Mexico to Canada tomorrow with a plan to buy up to 10 - Z10's to sell down here to friends and family. My plan was to buy them at Koodo, as they appear to have the lowest price. After a frustrating afternoon of calling around, no location had any in stock, however, they appear to be receiving some tomorrow. My conversation with one store: "How many?" I asked....."Well....our first order was three, and our second order was three......so we're guessing... three?" said the clerk.

So, if Blackberry is having a difficult time supplying a market 10% the size of the U.S. market, how in the heck could they have hoped to have a proper roll out in the US in early February? I would imagine, regardless of how it performs eventually, they would have had to seed the U.S. market with perhaps a million units to ensure every store had a reasonable supply on hand. Likely, as they are ramping up production from a standing start, they had a choice......Roll out in smaller markets today, or wait until they've produced enough to roll out across the U.S. sometime in the third or fourth week of February.........

As they are bleeding cash today, it only makes sense to start selling as soon as possible - and start returning to profitability as soon as possible....

This isn't completely incompatible with my "market validation" theory.

There's a fair amount of risk associated with the Z10 launch. Apple knows even with a poor launch they won't have any trouble selling 20 million iPhones in a short time, so the phones and all of the needed components can be ordered and ready. If the first couple of days indicate a good launch, they can ramp up production, and if it's poor they can scale back.

BB's position with the Z10 is a lot foggier. So, there's an initial run of maybe a couple million units, and when those go to market everyone watches closely. BB carefully gauges the sales as they prepare to enter the really BIG mass market of the US so they have a better idea of what uptake will be. The US carriers gauge market reaction to help judge how many resources to devote to their own Z10 launches. BGR watches carefully for bad-news anecdotes to cherry-pick.

As for end-of-quarter sales reporting, there very likely IS something to that, too; the Z10 has thus far launched in BB's best markets, so they get a chance to report the best news possible on market penetration. I don't think they held off on the US launches because of this, though; it's more of a happy by-product.

And in fact, really, a decision like this is rarely made for one reason in isolation.

[chi-town311]

What about the theory that it is really just Verizon holding things up. Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe all the releases thus far have been on GSM networks. There has not been a CDMA release yet. With that in mind, possibly the CDMA carriers (Verizon in Particular) have not finished their testing and the CDMA radio is not ready. Verizon may have made a deal with BB that requires them to have a release at the same time as the other major carriers (not too crazy considering they have the exclusivity with the white Z10). This would all mean that ATT and T-mobile have to wait until Verizon has everything sorted out.

[peter9477]

BGR watches carefully for bad-news anecdotes to cherry-pick.

Bwahahaha! Brilliant. :-)

the Z10 has thus far launched in BB's best markets, so they get a chance to report the best news possible on market penetration. I don't think they held off on the US launches because of this, though; it's more of a happy by-product.

And in fact, really, a decision like this is rarely made for one reason in isolation.

And more seriously... ^^ THIS. Especially the last sentence.

[TheScionicMan]

I like the way you think. Makes sense and has also been sitting in the back of my head. Yesterday, i walked into the sprint store with my girl (her iphone so cracked, it looks like a puzzle) but when the rep askes if he could help me with anything... whats a blackberry fan to say but "When are the new blackberry's coming?". The rep, like an *****, said he's been asked that a lot this week and doesnt know. he said he doubts it would sell well. At that point, i just looked at him in awe and thought, why would a phone that is selling like crazy in canada and uk not sell well for sprint? whatevs...

This guy is a salesman by trade and he doesn't see the contradiction there?

[TheScionicMan]

My theory is that because the US is still using the Imperial system, whereas BlackBerry is based in Canada and we're mostly metric (sorta, kinda, when it suits us), they forgot to do the conversion correctly and grossly underestimated the number of units that would be needed in the US.

The delay is simply to buy extra time so they can manufacture more devices.

How many units in a metric gross?

[Omnitech]

What about the theory that it is really just Verizon holding things up. Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe all the releases thus far have been on GSM networks. There has not been a CDMA release yet. With that in mind, possibly the CDMA carriers (Verizon in Particular) have not finished their testing and the CDMA radio is not ready. Verizon may have made a deal with BB that requires them to have a release at the same time as the other major carriers (not too crazy considering they have the exclusivity with the white Z10). This would all mean that ATT and T-mobile have to wait until Verizon has everything sorted out.

I think your idea has more likelihood of being true than most of the others.

There was a specific article on the CDMA Z10 qualification process in a credible telecom-industry publication, as I recall, that claimed exactly that. Also, Verizon has a history of dragging their feet on new product/firmware rollouts.

Verizon's market power could very well pressure BB to throttle-back the other carriers, though it looks like T-mobile is "going rogue" a bit by announcing that they are moving up their launch date a bit on the Z10. T-Mobile rarely gets an opportunity to get a jump on its bigger US carrier competitors in terms of new product intros, I can't say I blame them.

(Edit: I'm pretty sure there are at least a couple of CDMA carriers in Canada - Bell and Telus, if I'm not mistaken.)

[hennesseystealth]

How many units in a metric gross?

144 * 1.1

[jrohland]

Why not throw another theory out there; The upper management of AT&T and Verizon are way deep in AAPL, GOOG and MSFT. They have a strong financial interest in not seeing BBRY do well.

[unbreakablej]

I think the carriers are in cahoots with.. my biggest suspect is Samsung.

Posted using CrackBerry App on BB10

[netwerx1]

Patriot Act...no current support for background apps means the device can't yet run any logging/tracking app the Feds may deem necessary

[docgasberry]

Alright .....enough of conspiracies. I work in the medical industry. The US has the FDA. Occasionally, there'll be new medical stuff that doesn't get licensed for ages. Even though these stuff is out and being used on millions. Elsewhere on planet earth. Just another one for the great U-S of A.

Both BBRY and the carriers have repeatedly clarified that BB10/Z10 is still being tested/certified. I guess this is THE reason. Another instance where the U-S of A is just a little behind the rest of planet earth