[long] BlackBerry potential, selling short.
It's fairly well known when one can't beat the game one has two options :
Change tactics or change the game.
In mobile apple changed the mobile game completely upon the release of the iPhone. Since then everybody has been chasing.
BlackBerry has been chasing and failing. The current path everyone on these forums, and apparently management, is to change tactics ( ie. go to android)
However, I really hope this is not the case as BlackBerry had at one point, and likely still does, the tools to change the game completely.
Background --
First off QNX. Not only is QNX a real time OS it is a distributed one. The kernel doesn't care if a command comes from the physical device or from some device across the world. It will process the command, efficiently and in proper sequence. This is the most underrated part of QNX.
Secondly, BlackBerry owns an infrastructure and the ip that can hand off processes between devices (blend as a common example, better ones shown in early PlayBook demos).
Finally, (sort of), BlackBerry owns bes12.
Assumptions / other knowns:
1. windows is becoming a SAAS company. Windows as a service is in the works, as is further decoupling of services.
2. BlackBerry denouement tools could be improved or thrown out completely tossing in their api's into visual studio or similiar.
3. QNX has device drivers (Inc. Printers) that haven't been exposed to bb10.
So the basic question is: What more could any 'startup' company dream of having at their disposal?
Thoughts--
Catering to the base and just going after the secure stuff is a cop out. It's essentially settling, lowest hanging fruit, whatever.
The ideal future --
Your bb10 device (please change the name) is your whole world. You go to work and drop your phone on your terminal. The nfc recognizes it and puts bb10 into desktop mode.
Desktop mode looks similar to blend but with some PlayBook app drawer thrown in. It can run windows programs in full. Settings and files are saved by default to your work space. Leaving the terminal creates a graceful hand off via the NOC.
On a commute or wherever, a dumb terminal in the train or a dumb tablet can essentially do the same thing. The dumb tablet when booted on its own is a simple QNX, just looks like blend. When the phone is in proximity the app drawer opens up and starts similar to the terminal but shows apps in tablet form.
When one gets home the bes12 router recognizes this and sets the appropriate actions. Moreover, as far as the bes home router was concerned, the phone had never left. QNX hone devices (from various manufactures) continued to talk amongst their mesh network and continued to talk to the phone via a secure connection via the NOC.
Should the person decide to work at home or browse on a terminal all that person would have to do is place their phone on a home terminal and voila the desktop view shows up again.
Steps forward --(thoughts to bb)
1. Port bes12 to QNX. You own an advanced OS for pete's sake. Use it. Port an easy version to cisco routers as a home bes version.
2.. Give QNX away to any manufacturer (LG, Samsung, etc) for all devices. Make your money off the unified app with secure connection that communicated to all devices in the house rather than individual apps. ($5/mo or sonething). Share with the device manufactures and the wireless companies to create incentives.
3. Build a dumb terminal and a dumb tablet. Pretty easy for you actually.
4. Build a small business server in a box. It is not a pc, but a device. Base os is QNX. Bes built in. Very easy to manage. This is still a huge market. And the savings in dumb terminals would be enormous to a business. Make it work wit office 365 natively.
5. Create hardware extensions. You are the only ones that can do this. Why aren't you? In business when we run out of memory in a pc we have to open the box. The unique ability of your distributed architecture allows you to buy 'processing boosters or memory boosters' and just put them in to somewhere in the network. Voila more memory for everyone.
6. Cars, you dropped the ball. My phone should be my car and vice versa. They shouldn't even know they are seperate devices. You've had this technology for years. Even slipped prototypes of car apps on BlackBerry World, why isn't this done already? Why has nobody been fired over this? This was a silver platter and you three it out.
Final thoughts--
Any startup would kill for the resources at BlackBerry's disposal. The ip is actually crazy. But the failure seems to be not the engineers but the dreamers.
I run a small business, why doesn't BlackBerry have a solution for me as described above? The tech is all there. Just refine it and package it up.
Stop worrying about the apps. The apps are apple's game. Instead of throwing good money after bad chasing apps for the same thing everyone else is doing, change the game completely. Go for apps that are desktop but have a mobile view. Integrate windows as a service and get programs instead of apps or create your own. Sell a system instead of standalone products.
You claim open that productivity is your thing, do it end to end.
I had hopes back in the day that when bb10 was initially released that this was the plan. all the spoilers pointed towards this fare. But the plan seemed to focus on selling lots of phones to pay for it to come. But the failure, imho, was not realizing that people need to see the future to invest in the phone.
If there is no future to bb10 then it's just another phone doing things sorta better than others but without apps. This will never work.
Going to android is an easy way to solving the immediate problem, but again, not creating anything disruptive or making the future better, just more short sightedness.
So finally, I'm saying sure: catering to the base and shoring up the stock price in the near future is probably a good thing to keep the business going. But you better have a 'project purple' in the pipeline or you are selling everybody short.
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[long] BlackBerry potential, selling short.
So instead of competing with the biggest and best technology companies in the handset market they should expand their efforts to compete with all tech companies in all areas? I think you are vastly overestimating the scale that this company can compete on at this point.