Going into Fall 2014

As I head back to school in a couple days, I thought I'd share my opinions about BlackBerry during this summer and the near future that awaits.

To start off with, I think I was very disappointed with the Marketing team these last few months! I've owned a z10 since July 2013, and although I love the device, it's sometimes hard to make do without the trending apps. Yeah, I do my best to fill the gap with Snap, the native Play Store client, but of course, native would be better!

Many people are saying that the gap is what keeps new customers coming to blackberry but I really think it's the other way around. New customers not coming to blackberry is what's keeping the apps not arriving! I put myself in a developer's shoes and ask, would I want to put in the same amount of work, effort, and support for 2-3% of the market share as I do for the 97-98%? Of course not! It would make no sense to do that. But going back to the marketing team, it was just frustrating for me. I'm sitting, watching almost every game of world cup, watching wimbledon, the pga championships, the VMAs, the Emmys the other night, just about things an average viewer would watch, and not a single commercial for blackberry!

I'm not qualified to say whether or not it would have hurt blackberry to put up a commercial during halftime of USA vs Belgium,which had immense viewership, but it is a curious subject! Yeah, I also hear that the target group is the enterprise/business customers, and sales in Eastern Asia are going very well and the company seems to be in a comfortable spot. But I would've loved to have seen some more promotion. I'm sure there was huge promotion for the Z3 in the countries that received it but would've loved to have seen something in the States.

Anyway, sorry for the banter, can't wait for 10.3, blend, and perhaps a Z10 successor in 2015!

Posted via CB10

The saddest news of the year.. No high end full touch or a decent Z10 successor

1) There was no huge promotion for Z3 outside of the Indonesia launch a few newspaper ads here and there but no sustained campaigns worthy of a new BB10 category.
2) MS has but 10s of millions into mass media ad campaigns and barely have anything to show for it. In fact in some countries they have lost ground.
3) BB does not have the resources to waste that MS does.

BB doesn't even have phones in the vast majority of carrier stores, so a TV commercial (or any other consumer-focused advertising) would be a complete waste of money - nearly everyone it drove into a carrier store to buy a BB phone would result in another brand of phone being purchased - one they could get right now.

When BB released the Z30 in Malaysia nearly a year ago, with barely even a press release in the North America or Europe, that was the first clear sign that BB had ceded the consumer market in mature markets. Chen's repeated statement that the company is focusing on the enterprise, and that they recognize that they can't compete in the consumer market against Apple and Android should make it crystal clear: you should not expect any consumer advertising from BB anytime soon. There's currently nothing in stores to sell, and the new devices being released are being targeted at specific niches, none of which would benefit greatly from TV or other mass-market advertising.

Plus, as pointed out, that kind of advertising is very expensive, and BB is hardly "comfortable" at this point. They lost massive amounts of money in the last year, and haven't even gotten to the break-even point yet. They certainly can't just start spending money for little or no tangible results. That's what they did with the BB10 launch, and they lost big time.

It seems lots of CBians are still in denial about what it means to be "focused in the enterprise."