[eyedroid]

I just want to hypothesize a little and imagine what BB10 world would be like after the official death announcement.

So, we no longer have BlackBerry World access, our apps get slower. The browser takes forever to open modern websites. We still call, text and use email. We only use Passport, Classic, Porsche, Leap, Z- and Q-series.

And there goes the dawn of unofficial community support. Crackberry becomes the hub of enthusiasts, developing apps for the OS, making patches, making new custom builds. The option to root/jailbreak Blackberries is available. Let's call it "crack". The cracked devices get custom BB10 based operating systems. For those concerned with security the BB protection is still offered, it's different from previous official protection but it does the job.

Ultimately, it all works just the way Linux communities support old distros. The way xda-developers keep Android alive.

What do you think?

Posted from Z30/STA100-5/OS 10.3.3.3057

[John Vieira]

I think there will be no official announcement, that the OS is already dead.

And that you can't have a community of that type since BB10 is closed source and i don't think that BlackBerry will ever give up the source code.

[eyedroid]

I think there will be no official announcement, that the OS is already dead.

And that you can't have a community of that type since BB10 is closed source and i don't think that BlackBerry will ever give up the source code.

Ah right.. I didn't think about open/closed source thing..

Posted from Z30/STA100-5/OS 10.3.3.3057

[eyedroid]

Hypothetically, if BB adopted open-source model (with all its benefits) how awesome BlackBerry would be!

https://www.pcworld.com/article/2098..._business.html

Posted from Z30/STA100-5/OS 10.3.3.3057

[thurask]

Hypothetically, if BB adopted open-source model (with all its benefits) how awesome BlackBerry would be!

https://www.pcworld.com/article/2098..._business.html

Posted from Z30/STA100-5/OS 10.3.3.3057

It would, but that's as likely as BB10 skyrocketing to 90% of mobile device installs. They've still got a bit of the old stubbornness about that left in them.

[Troy Tiscareno]

True, but not open-sourcing QNX is the main reason BB would never open-source BB10. They would also never release their signing keys, so you couldn't load third-party images anyway.

But QNX is integral to their self-driving car system and used in BB Radar, and probably other things we don't know about yet, so BB has no motivation to open-source it, and lots of motivation to keep it closed.

[saber ovic]

android

[AmritD]

True, but not open-sourcing QNX is the main reason BB would never open-source BB10. They would also never release their signing keys, so you couldn't load third-party images anyway.

But QNX is integral to their self-driving car system and used in BB Radar, and probably other things we don't know about yet, so BB has no motivation to open-source it, and lots of motivation to keep it closed.

On a completely unrelated topic,
Are you convinced of BlackBerry Mobile's strategy? Will they be able to actually create a profitable and successful niche?

Posted via CB10

[Troy Tiscareno]

On a completely unrelated topic,
Are you convinced of BlackBerry Mobile's strategy? Will they be able to actually create a profitable and successful niche?

Extremely difficult to say. IMO. the K1 is likely a loss, but they could do better with future devices. But low-volume sales without a huge hook that is widely valued makes for a very tough situation. And honestly, I doubt they're getting any traction at all in the corporate/government world with these devices, for a variety of reasons - and that was the primary stated goal.

I guess we'll have to stay tuned...

[Zeratul57]

Serious question. What makes a black droid a less attractive business phone than an unsafe to fly samsung? The phone repair business doesn't hold any samsung devices in high esteem. What makes K1 a failure? They seem to keep going on sale all over the world.

Sent from one of my SE Passports using BB10 superior software.

[Troy Tiscareno]

Serious question. What makes a black droid a less attractive business phone than an unsafe to fly samsung? The phone repair business doesn't hold any samsung devices in high esteem. What makes K1 a failure? They seem to keep going on sale all over the world.

The sales speak for themselves. That single "unsafe to fly" Note 7 model outsold ALL of BB's Android phones combined several times over, even after the first reports of problems. And that problem was unique to the Note 7 and hasn't significantly affected Samsung's sales - BECAUSE MOST USERS FEEL THAT SAMSUNG'S PHONES ARE THE BEST CHOICE FOR THEM.

The K1 being a "failure" depends entirely on how you define "failure." I'm pretty sure if you use the ability to generate a net profit as the measure, the K1 is a failure. If you see the K1 as an experiment by TCL to see what the demand is like for a BB-branded PKB phone - and WHERE the demand comes from (consumers vs. enterprise, and which areas of the world), then it might well be a success. In the long run, though, if TCL can't sell BB-branded phones profitably, they'll stop trying.

[AmritD]

Extremely difficult to say. IMO. the K1 is likely a loss, but they could do better with future devices. But low-volume sales without a huge hook that is widely valued makes for a very tough situation. And honestly, I doubt they're getting any traction at all in the corporate/government world with these devices, for a variety of reasons - and that was the primary stated goal.

I guess we'll have to stay tuned...

Inspite of the whole "exceeded our expectations" it's still a loss?
Yea even I don't feel this low volume game is going to help in the long run.
Well the corporate/government world is all moving to consumer devices. Something that BBMobile needs to understand IMO.
Why do you feel they haven't been able to gain much traction in the corporate/government world?

Posted via CB10

[Troy Tiscareno]

Why do you feel they haven't been able to gain much traction in the corporate/government world?

The corporate world desires stability and long-term support very highly, and BB/TCL have given them no reason to believe that BBMo devices will be around or well-supported a few years from now. And iOS and Samsung Knox with an MDM are considered "secure enough" for almost any business or government use - BB's advantages over those are seen as insignificant. iOS and Android (Knox in particular) have caught up (or, close enough) that "enhanced security" angle doesn't "sell" like it did a decade ago.
Today, BB is a consumer brand - everyone needs to be realistic about that. To the degree that a "corporate" smartphone brand even exists, that designation is owned by iOS and Samsung, not BB. TCL would do well to accept that and make sure their focus is on consumers IMO.

[AmritD]

The corporate world desires stability and long-term support very highly, and BB/TCL have given them no reason to believe that BBMo devices will be around or well-supported a few years from now. And iOS and Samsung Knox with an MDM are considered "secure enough" for almost any business or government use - BB's advantages over those are seen as insignificant. iOS and Android (Knox in particular) have caught up (or, close enough) that "enhanced security" angle doesn't "sell" like it did a decade ago.
Today, BB is a consumer brand - everyone needs to be realistic about that. To the degree that a "corporate" smartphone brand even exists, that designation is owned by iOS and Samsung, not BB. TCL would do well to accept that and make sure their focus is on consumers IMO.

And why aren't they doing that!? Making consumers their focus? Why are they still playing the whole enterprise focus card?
Didn't they learn anything from BB10?

Posted via CB10

[Troy Tiscareno]

And why aren't they doing that!? Making consumers their focus? Why are they still playing the whole enterprise focus card?
Didn't they learn anything from BB10?

Corporate/government/security focus is what BB has always been all about. IMO, it is BB, not TCL, who hasn't gotten the message that the corporate train left BB's station long ago. TCL couldn't really license BB without inheriting the corporate focus of BB's.

[anon(10268214)]

The sales speak for themselves. That single "unsafe to fly" Note 7 model outsold ALL of BB's Android phones combined several times over, even after the first reports of problems. And that problem was unique to the Note 7 and hasn't significantly affected Samsung's sales - BECAUSE MOST USERS FEEL THAT SAMSUNG'S PHONES ARE THE BEST CHOICE FOR THEM.

The K1 being a "failure" depends entirely on how you define "failure." I'm pretty sure if you use the ability to generate a net profit as the measure, the K1 is a failure. If you see the K1 as an experiment by TCL to see what the demand is like for a BB-branded PKB phone - and WHERE the demand comes from (consumers vs. enterprise, and which areas of the world), then it might well be a success. In the long run, though, if TCL can't sell BB-branded phones profitably, they'll stop trying.

Come on Troy, stop it with the fake news. You have no basis on which to assume the K1 has not been profitable for TCL so far. TCL have said they are pleased with the KEYone and that uptake has exceeded expectations. On top of their words, they are expanding into new markets and bringing in new variants...all as what...an experiment to see how fast they can **** money onto the wind by slapping BlackBerry logos on their phones?

Gimme a break.

[Troy Tiscareno]

Obviously, the K1's sales cycle isn't over, so things could change. We may never know if it turned a profit - we rely on TCL making that public information - but it certainly didn't have a great start given the extremely low production volumes and limited availability for its first 3-4 months of production, which is when most devices sell the bulk of their volume.

[butterbean1983]

The reason Android is open source is because it's revenue stream is based almost entirely on advertising and data mining. So Android makes money off of any version of Android, be it an OEM release or home-baked. BB10 has no such revenue stream in place, and they're already backing android which DOES have that revenue stream, so no incentive for them to try to build that type of revenue stream for BB10, and since they can't make any money off of open-source BB10, no reason for them to release it.

[butterbean1983]

The sales speak for themselves. That single "unsafe to fly" Note 7 model outsold ALL of BB's Android phones combined several times over, even after the first reports of problems. And that problem was unique to the Note 7 and hasn't significantly affected Samsung's sales - BECAUSE MOST USERS FEEL THAT SAMSUNG'S PHONES ARE THE BEST CHOICE FOR THEM.

The K1 being a "failure" depends entirely on how you define "failure." I'm pretty sure if you use the ability to generate a net profit as the measure, the K1 is a failure. If you see the K1 as an experiment by TCL to see what the demand is like for a BB-branded PKB phone - and WHERE the demand comes from (consumers vs. enterprise, and which areas of the world), then it might well be a success. In the long run, though, if TCL can't sell BB-branded phones profitably, they'll stop trying.

The fallacy in your logic is the assumption that TCL only makes money off of the handset itself. You're forgetting the kickbacks from advertising and data mining. BlackBerry receives a portion of the revenue stream, and I'm sure TCL does as well because TCL can sell phones without BlackBerry, but BlackBerry can't sell software without their licensees so I'm sure that there are kickbacks and incentives for the licensees. So even if they only sold a few thousand handsets, that could be millions in revenue from advertising and data mining.

[kvndoom]

The fallacy in your logic is the assumption that TCL only makes money off of the handset itself. You're forgetting the kickbacks from advertising and data mining. BlackBerry receives a portion of the revenue stream, and I'm sure TCL does as well because TCL can sell phones without BlackBerry, but BlackBerry can't sell software without their licensees so I'm sure that there are kickbacks and incentives for the licensees. So even if they only sold a few thousand handsets, that could be millions in revenue from advertising and data mining.

Well, we WERE having a factual conversation, until the conspiracy theory folks showed up.

So how do you know the android runtime in your BB10 phone isn't data mining you and selling your search info to the New World Order, since it is Google code after all? You can't even remove or disable it! You've been had, buddy! And don't forget Crackberry is mining for Google too, since TCL helps pay the bills! I hope you signed up with a throwaway email account and are using a triple-layer VPN hosted on underground servers in Antarctica... No one is safe from the Google Illuminati!

[butterbean1983]

It's not a conspiracy theory bro, it's simple business economics. We all see the ads, you think Google isn't profiting from it? They're a search engine, so you think they aren't data mining? And you think they aren't going to profit from those two things? You think the majority of their revenue stream doesn't come from those things? If I owned Google it's what I would do. And yeah, we were totally having a factual conversation about someone hypothesizing the underground future of BB10. Whether you think I'm a tinfoil hat wearing ***** or not, the fact remains that BlackBerry has no incentive to release BB10 to the public. And that's a factual statement but go ahead and argue I know you're going to.

[Chuck Finley69]

It's not a conspiracy theory bro, it's simple business economics. We all see the ads, you think Google isn't profiting from it? They're a search engine, so you think they aren't data mining? And you think they aren't going to profit from those two things? You think the majority of their revenue stream doesn't come from those things? If I owned Google it's what I would do. And yeah, we were totally having a factual conversation about someone hypothesizing the underground future of BB10. Whether you think I'm a tinfoil hat wearing ***** or not, the fact remains that BlackBerry has no incentive to release BB10 to the public. And that's a factual statement but go ahead and argue I know you're going to.

I think you're missing the point.... BB10 users were being harvested too.

We all know and we agree how Google makes it money.....

I'm also not sure about your jump to Google sharing revenue with BB. I don't see it. They don't have to share and Google isn't altruistic or a non-profit.

[butterbean1983]

Maybe, maybe not. Either way, making BB10 public in no way benefits BlackBerry. They simply don't care about the platform or its users or their ideas for how to "make BB10 great again". Pun intended.

[anon(10268214)]

Obviously, the K1's sales cycle isn't over, so things could change. We may never know if it turned a profit - we rely on TCL making that public information - but it certainly didn't have a great start given the extremely low production volumes and limited availability for its first 3-4 months of production, which is when most devices sell the bulk of their volume.

The only thing that is obvious is that TCL has not made any facts public and therefore you have no rational basis to conclude the KEYone is failure.

[AmritD]

The only thing that is obvious is that TCL has not made any facts public and therefore you have no rational basis to conclude the KEYone is failure.

He never said anything about failure or success.
He just said about profit. It's not necessary if it didn't turn a profit so it failed. Maybe TCL was very much expecting it to not turn a profit.

Posted via CB10