1. BB10user07's Avatar
    http://forums.crackberry.com/news-ru...erryos-877917/

    I don't generally start threads here, and I debated whether to start this one, especially given the topic, which I know isn't going to be received with open arms by many Crackberrians. Still, I think it needs to be said.

    BB eliminated the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) and Chief Operations Officer (COO) positions today. They didn't just fire the folks in those positions, they dissolved those positions. Think about that for a second: they no longer feel that Marketing and Operations divisions are important enough to be led by a C-suite-level position. How is that possible if they plan to continue to be in the hardware business? In my opinion, it isn't.

    Instead, I see this as yet another strong piece of evidence that BB does not plan to be in the hardware business going forward, and in fact has ALREADY exited the market. Let's look at the reasons why I believe that is true:

    • Massive losses in hardware, with nearly $2 billion in write-downs over the last couple of years, between the Playbook and the Z10.
    • Continued bleeding of marketshare, and particularly low sales of BB10 devices (BBOS has outsold BB10 each quarter, by a wide margin).
    • At the end of September, BB canceled its contract with the OEM manufacturer, Jabil Circuit, who actually made the BB handsets, leaving them without a manufacturing partner.
    • John Chen's repeated statements about focusing on software and services going forward, and refusing to outright deny that BB was exiting the hardware business (it makes sense not to do so while they still have existing inventory to sell).
    • And now, eliminating the CMO and COO positions entirely.


    In the face of all of that evidence, I don't see how anyone can believe that hardware is in BB's (near) future.

    I don't believe that BB is going to cease to exist, mind you. Rather, I see BB pretty quickly becoming a sub-1000-person software company (maybe closer to 500 employees, total), focusing on QNX, XBBM, and BES/MDM. It's also possible that one or more of these lines of business may be spun off into a separate company. Clearly, there is value in these areas and potential for profits, but BB's days as a company that makes billions in revenue and competes in the smartphone market are, IMO, clearly over, at least for the foreseeable future.

    Could they jump back in 5 years down the road? Who knows? Maybe HTML6 (7? 8?) will have made native apps truly obsolete, and the smartphone OS world will be broken wide open again, with lots of new competition. For the current cycle, though, BB took WAY too long to take multi-touch, web, media, and app-enabled smartphones seriously, and by the time they made a real effort to get back into the game, it was too little and WAY too late. 95+% of the blame for that rests with Mike and Jim, without a doubt. Thorsten was obviously not the right guy for the CEO job, but to be fair, his task was nearly impossible to begin with, due to the situation Mike and Jim left him with.

    I get that this is a BB fan site, and this post isn't going to be popular, but can anyone really say it's not realistic? Is there any real, substantial evidence that points in the other direction?
    Lol lol...1 minute ha ha ha ha....what a day Troy!!! Loved the conference call today

    Posted via CB10
    12-20-13 08:12 AM
  2. m1kr0's Avatar
    I already said what I wanted to say earlier in this thread, but after the earnings call, just thought I would revisit this. So, like most of us said, BB WILL continue with their handset business.

    Z10 goodness
    12-20-13 08:16 AM
  3. Jonesy1966's Avatar
    5 years. Foxxconn.

    'Nuff said.
    12-20-13 08:17 AM
  4. birdman_38's Avatar
    To be fair, they are manufacturing for only one country so far.
    12-20-13 09:26 AM
  5. badiyee's Avatar
    To be fair, they are manufacturing for only one country so far.
    Slowly turning over. If I heard it correctly.
    12-20-13 09:29 AM
  6. heymaggie's Avatar
    Well, Foxconn will be making them and they will have the Blackberry name on them.
    12-20-13 09:37 AM
  7. badiyee's Avatar
    Well, Foxconn will be making them and they will have the Blackberry name on them.
    and the point is?
    12-20-13 09:44 AM
  8. Jonesy1966's Avatar
    Foxxconn already manufactures for BlackBerry in Mexico, correct?
    12-20-13 09:51 AM
  9. badiyee's Avatar
    Foxxconn already manufactures for BlackBerry in Mexico, correct?
    Don't think so. But they can take over, seeing that they're quite heavily embedded in Mexico.
    12-20-13 09:53 AM
  10. heymaggie's Avatar
    Foxxconn already manufactures for BlackBerry in Mexico, correct?
    Well then what's the big deal about the partnership, then, if Foxconn is simply continuing to do what they already do?
    12-20-13 09:56 AM
  11. badiyee's Avatar
    Well then what's the big deal about the partnership, then, if Foxconn is simply continuing to do what they already do?
    Its in a new plant? and its BlackBerry sub-contracting initially the low end before considering subcontracting the high end as well to Foxconn in selected plants?
    12-20-13 10:03 AM
  12. howarmat's Avatar
    eh he was half correct IMO. BB is offloading alot of costs this way which is what several of us have been speculating
    bekkay likes this.
    12-20-13 10:24 AM
  13. Its Spade's Avatar
    Well... 'what does the foxxcon say?'

    Posted via CB10
    Hahahaba yea!!! Win!

    Squircle device powered by 10.2.1.1901
    12-20-13 11:27 AM
  14. missing_K-W's Avatar
    What a foolish assumption it was to suggest BlackBerry won't be making devices.

    BlackBerry is a fully integrated solution.

    Posted via CB10
    12-20-13 11:32 AM
  15. R Field's Avatar
    Well... 'what does the foxxcon say?'

    Posted via CB10
    Hahaha nice. Well had proof before of device production in the short term and the 5 year deal projects it even further.

    BlackBerry Z30 | 10.2.1.1055 | BBM Channel C0006E212
    12-20-13 11:44 AM
  16. Dgree03's Avatar
    What a foolish assumption it was to suggest BlackBerry won't be making devices.

    BlackBerry is a fully integrated solution.

    Posted via CB10
    Sure they are making devices, but do you live in Indonesia?

    I would change the tune on the Headline to "Will stop making phones for all locations with the exception of the middle east and Africa"
    12-20-13 11:52 AM
  17. badiyee's Avatar
    Sure they are making devices, but do you live in Indonesia?

    I would change the tune on the Headline to "Will stop making phones for all locations with the exception of the middle east and Africa"
    Sorry, that is also incorrect. They are just shifting low end devices production to Indonesia. It does not mean that they are discontinuing high end phone productions yet, nor are they discontinuing making handsets to be available in America.
    R Field likes this.
    12-20-13 11:58 AM
  18. R Field's Avatar
    Thank you the amount of misinformation people spout about BlackBerry with nothing to validate their points is ridiculous.

    BlackBerry Z30 | 10.2.1.1055 | BBM Channel C0006E212
    12-20-13 12:16 PM
  19. Dgree03's Avatar
    Sorry, that is also incorrect. They are just shifting low end devices production to Indonesia. It does not mean that they are discontinuing high end phone productions yet, nor are they discontinuing making handsets to be available in America.
    Did they say there were continuing the high end devices?
    12-20-13 12:19 PM
  20. badiyee's Avatar
    Did they say there were continuing the high end devices?
    I'm trying to download the webcast, but if I heard it right the manufacturing for the jakarta device only to be built in an Indonesian. Foxconn plant somewhere in Yogyakarta. It was also insinuated that if the partnership is proven to be better than expected they will allow Foxconn to design other phones beside the codenamed "Jakarta" phone. Therefore it is insinuated that Foxconn will receive a bigger share in the manufacturing if things goes smooth in the future.

    1.However, the z10. productions have slowed down. If I remember correctly its not halted, just slowed down. Z30 remains to be produced, and as of what we know it is not made by Foxconn entirely (yet).


    2. BlackBerry is in the process of disengaging current hardware manufacturers that are presently contracted to them. This is verifiable by reports of manufacturers publicly annoincing that they are no longer working with BlackBerry.

    3. High end market devices for North America market discontinued. Depending on how it is interpreted, there can be a few meanings and at the moment I'm taking the more liberal interpretation of possibly having the next high end if all goes well, probably by Foxconn. However, in the same earnings call John Chen says they will provide thw software 100% so I don't think we should be expecting Android style OEM skinnings.
    12-20-13 01:09 PM
  21. R Field's Avatar
    Did they say there were continuing the high end devices?
    Yes check out the 15 minute mark of the earnings call. Mentioned a few other times in the call as well. Just not initially they're producing the low end phone first which is a smart play to focus more on BES10, QNX and BBMX.

    BlackBerry Z30 | 10.2.1.1055 | BBM Channel C0006E212
    12-20-13 01:24 PM
  22. Troy Tiscareno's Avatar
    Okay, clearly I was wrong. BB is continuing to "make" hardware. I can admit that I was mistaken about.

    Having said that, there isn't a lot of evidence TODAY that there is going to be anything beyond the Jakarta device, which likely won't be available in Western markets. John Chen stated that IF things go well with Jakarta and IF enterprise sales pick up enough, that there could be high-end devices from FoxConn in the future. Without discounting that possibility, it's clear that those potential devices are not certain.

    Still, much of what I said has actually come to pass. BB has gotten out of the manufacturing business. They won't even be doing the internal design of the phones anymore, nor will they be managing the inventory. They'll design the look of the case, the high-level specs (screen size, CPU), and the OS of course, and FoxConn is going to do pretty much everything else. And for the immediate future, this is only for entry-level Asian-market phones.

    IMO, this was a good move by BB, and really should have been done a year before BB10 launched. I'm not sure that it will bring a ton of profits to BB, but if it can manage to grow the BB10 installed base significantly, that could help BB with more profitable sales elsewhere by restoring some faith in the platform with both consumers and developers. I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens.
    12-20-13 02:47 PM
  23. Dave Bourque's Avatar
    THANK YOU. Not sure why you couldn't see this before hand instead of being set on one side.

    Z10STL100-3/10.2.0.1803
    12-20-13 02:49 PM
  24. MarsupilamiX's Avatar
    THANK YOU. Not sure why you couldn't see this before hand instead of being set on one side.

    Z10STL100-3/10.2.0.1803
    Half of what he predicted actually was true...
    I have seen way weirder "predictions" than this one.

    The whole thread, even though about half of what the OP says was wrong, makes more sense than the "better Android than Android" statements...

    Posted via CB10
    kbz1960 likes this.
    12-20-13 02:57 PM
  25. Dave Bourque's Avatar
    Half of what he predicted actually was true...
    I have seen way weirder "predictions" than this one.

    The whole thread, even though about half of what the OP says was wrong, makes more sense than the "better Android than Android" statements...

    Posted via CB10
    I don't have a problem with predictions when there is a emphasis on maybe. These predictions always seem to have 100% certainty.

    Z10STL100-3/10.2.0.1803
    12-20-13 03:00 PM
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