[gokulesh]

For the company overall, if they are making money, and the products aren't about to be obsoleted, then they're in good shape.

But as the percentage of revenues from devices drops, there becomes less and less incentive to continue producing them. With BES 12 able to manage (and thus get revenue) from iOS and Android, and with more and more apps being Android apps, it it very conceivable that BB's need to make their own phones goes away completely, especially as sales volumes continue to drop. If Enterprise can accomplish their mission with BES 12 and iOS/Android, why buy BB phones?

BB moving to a software and services company is good for the company financially and good for investors, but it isn't really a good thing from the perspective of your average CrackBerry user, who, despite lots of talk, is really a fan of the handsets far above any other BB products. Most aren't investors, and only care that BB is doing well inasmuch as it means that BB will continue to produce phones. If the phone business ends, most of those people won't really care how well the company is doing or how great BES 12 is, and CrackBerry will become a ghost town much like WebOS Central.

So, yeah, that is why people here are concerned.

You never have anything positive to say do you? And even in optimistic posts you have to come and p*** on it.

I think folks like you will be here long after the rest of us are gone. Pretty morbid.


Posted via CB10

[Troy Tiscareno]

Clearly I was off-base, because BB would never partner up with a competitor to make THEIR phones end-to-end secure, and thus reducing the need for BB handsets. Right?

http://forums.crackberry.com/news-ru...ership-976142/

You think I'm hating on BB - I'm not. I'm simply looking at the issue from a business perspective, rather than from a fan perspective. Handsets require volume sales to be profitable, because both the components and the manufacturing costs go way up if not done in larger quantities, which makes the resulting products price-uncompetitive. Chen has done a great job at managing prices and reducing SKUs to keep costs controlled, but due to the low volumes, BB is close to the point where, if volumes go much lower, costs will spin out of control. Investors won't tolerate that for long.

And by partnering with other competitors, and making their products competitive with BB10 handsets, it further reduces the differentiation that drives the bulk of existing BB10 sales (i.e., enterprises). If they can buy a Galaxy phone that's "BlackBerry Secure", why buy BB10 devices, which have app issues?

This partnership wasn't announced yesterday, but it's exactly the kind of thing I was talking about - it seems obvious to me that BB is working towards a future (likely within a couple of years) where BB devices aren't necessary for BB's services to be as effective as they were with BB phones. If BB can shed the device business and let other companies assume that risk, that would be much better, from a business perspective, for a software-and-services company, especially one the size of BB. Competition in the device business is massive and brutal and over the next couple of years, a lot of manufactures are going to fail and drop out of the market. BB having a more planned, structured exit will be better for the company, and would allow them to focus more on newer, emerging markets (IoT, cars, etc.).

My original point was to answer the question, which is "why are CBers worried about how BB makes its money?" And the answer is: most CBers only care about BB phones; they otherwise don't care about BB's business or what is in BB's best interests as a company. And that's understandable - most CBers aren't investors, or enterprise mobile device admins or CEO/CIOs, so none of those other things really matter to them. If BB crashed and burned in every other venture, but somehow continued making phones, they'd be perfectly happy, and likewise if BB canceled phones but was wildly successful and profitable, they would still be upset and likely still wouldn't care about BB's other (non-consumer) products. Many people here assume, incorrectly, that CBers care about BB's overall success, but, really, they mostly only care about the phones.

[Andy_bb_king]

Troy, you still have no idea and keep spreading your own logic. Do us a favor, try BlackBerry Passport before you write any more note here!

Posted via CB10

[Troy Tiscareno]

Troy, you still have no idea and keep spreading your own logic.

Obviously, my opinions are my own, and are opinions. Sure, they are based on experience and education, but opinions nonetheless. I don't have a crystal ball and have never pretended to know, for certain, what the future will bring. But I can make educated guesses. Witness that today's announcement is exactly in line with what I was talking about. Many people here have said that BB would never enter into an agreement like that with Samsung, and yet, they have. Where are all those people today?

Do us a favor, try BlackBerry Passport before you write any more note here!

Why do you assume I haven't? But that's beside the point: there is no requirement for any poster here to own, or even try, specific devices before they are allowed to post.

If you don't like my opinions, you are free to ignore them, or to refute them, as you see fit.

[Vorkosigan]

Obviously, my opinions are my own, and are opinions. Sure, they are based on experience and education, but opinions nonetheless. I don't have a crystal ball and have never pretended to know, for certain, what the future will bring. But I can make educated guesses. Witness that today's announcement is exactly in line with what I was talking about. Many people here have said that BB would never enter into an agreement like that with Samsung, and yet, they have. Where are all those people today?



Why do you assume I haven't? But that's beside the point: there is no requirement for any poster here to own, or even try, specific devices before they are allowed to post.

If you don't like my opinions, you are free to ignore them, or to refute them, as you see fit.

What BlackBerry has entered into is pretty far from licensing BB10 onto an android phone. It's also still pretty far from making Bb10 phones obsolete. You can try to twist the meaning to support your argument but personally I don't see that fall out from this partnership.

Posted via CB10

[Troy Tiscareno]

What BlackBerry has entered into is pretty far from licensing BB10 onto an android phone. It's also still pretty far from making Bb10 phones obsolete. You can try to twist the meaning to support your argument but personally I don't see that fall out from this partnership.

I never said BB was licensing BB10 for Android. But answer this: does BES 12 make Android secure enough for enterprise use? BB seems to think so, and is selling BES 12 with that claim. In fact, that's part of what prompted this partnership. So, is the true, or false?

If it's true, then why does BB need to make BB10 phones? Not for enterprise use, certainly - because if you believe BB's statement to be true, then Android with BES is good enough for enterprise use.

If it's not true, then BB is lying about BES 12's capabilities, and once that lie is exposed, that's going to be a huge blow to BES 12 sales, and thus a big chunk of BB's current and future revenues.

So, which is it?

[LuvULongTime]

I never said BB was licensing BB10 for Android. But answer this: does BES 12 make Android secure enough for enterprise use? BB seems to think so, and is selling BES 12 with that claim. In fact, that's part of what prompted this partnership. So, is the true, or false?

If it's true, then why does BB need to make BB10 phones? Not for enterprise use, certainly - because if you believe BB's statement to be true, then Android with BES is good enough for enterprise use.

If it's not true, then BB is lying about BES 12's capabilities, and once that lie is exposed, that's going to be a huge blow to BES 12 sales, and thus a big chunk of BB's current and future revenues.

So, which is it?

BB10 has the distinct advantage of being written from the ground up by Blackberry. Paired with BES, it offers a level of security probably not attainable in an Android "secured by Blackberry". You even said yourself in another thread a while ago (similar discussion) that Android or iOS devices managed by BES are probably 'good enough' for most organizations. I don't completely disagree. However I stand by my previous opinion that there are orgs and governments that demand an E2E solution, and with a device target of 10 million per year to attain profitability I don't see BB getting out of the handset business. In fact, I think they need to stay in the handset business as a hedge in case any of these partnerships ever go south.

While this announcement with Samsung is good news, I don't see it as some big surprise that came out of nowhere. It also is not a death blow to BB10. The reality is that Blackberry has been heading down this path from the moment they announced that BES would be able to manage other OS's (and that BB devices could be managed by the competition). It only makes sense to for Blackberry to capitalize on the success of their competitors by offering to secure their devices. This is a brilliant strategy. Again, it doesn't mean BB10 is going anywhere despite it no longer being the sole focus of the company.

[Vorkosigan]

I never said BB was licensing BB10 for Android. But answer this: does BES 12 make Android secure enough for enterprise use? BB seems to think so, and is selling BES 12 with that claim. In fact, that's part of what prompted this partnership. So, is the true, or false?

If it's true, then why does BB need to make BB10 phones? Not for enterprise use, certainly - because if you believe BB's statement to be true, then Android with BES is good enough for enterprise use.

If it's not true, then BB is lying about BES 12's capabilities, and once that lie is exposed, that's going to be a huge blow to BES 12 sales, and thus a big chunk of BB's current and future revenues.

So, which is it?

BES12 was always meant to manage other devices and make them secure. What about that is new? It still doesn't change the fact that for the best combination of security and experience you can also get a BB10 phone.

Contrary to your belief that as soon as android is secure everyone will want one, there are still lots of people that will never want an android due to the OS experience. With BES12 people can choose the device that is right for them.



Posted via CB10

[Troy Tiscareno]

My point, again, is that this is yet another thing that reduces demand (significantly, IMO) for BB hardware among BB's core market: enterprises. And that means that handset sales volumes are likely to fall among that group, which is likely to bring sales well south of Chen's 10M per year number, which he stated was the number he needed to make selling phones reliable. Remember that BB has already been right at or below that magic number for the last 3 quarters. So, if BB can only sell 5-6M phones a year instead of 10M, and thus won't profit from handset sales, will they still keep them, as a loss-leader as was suggested earlier? I suspect investors won't let that happen for very long - there will be tremendous pressure on Chen to either increase sales or to exit the hardware business. And which of those is more likely?

It's true, I have no crystal ball, and something could come along and change the situation, but so far, everything points to this coming to be in the near future. I guess we'll all see together.

[LuvULongTime]

My point, again, is that this is yet another thing that reduces demand (significantly, IMO) for BB hardware among BB's core market: enterprises. And that means that handset sales volumes are likely to fall among that group, which is likely to bring sales well south of Chen's 10M per year number, which he stated was the number he needed to make selling phones reliable. Remember that BB has already been right at or below that magic number for the last 3 quarters. So, if BB can only sell 5-6M phones a year instead of 10M, and thus won't profit from handset sales, will they still keep them, as a loss-leader as was suggested earlier? I suspect investors won't let that happen for very long - there will be tremendous pressure on Chen to either increase sales or to exit the hardware business. And which of those is more likely?

It's true, I have no crystal ball, and something could come along and change the situation, but so far, everything points to this coming to be in the near future. I guess we'll all see together.

In this scenario yes, investors will win out. HW will disappear if it is unprofitable. But let's not forget that Chen could outsource production of all HW to foxconn in an effort to maintain at least a break even position assuming sales are under 10m per year.

I don't see them being done with HW quite yet, despite this announcement. It sounds like they have some new innovations coming similar to the Passport that could disrupt the industry. Couple this with recent acquisitions to allow for multiple numbers on one phone/separate billing (assuming it is used with Balance), it doesn't appear they are ready to give up yet. I would say we will know for sure whether they will be in or out of HW by the end of the Foxconn contract (another 3 years left in it)?

[MobileZen]

Clearly I was off-base, because BB would never partner up with a competitor to make THEIR phones end-to-end secure, and thus reducing the need for BB handsets. Right?

http://forums.crackberry.com/news-ru...ership-976142/

You think I'm hating on BB - I'm not. I'm simply looking at the issue from a business perspective, rather than from a fan perspective. Handsets require volume sales to be profitable, because both the components and the manufacturing costs go way up if not done in larger quantities, which makes the resulting products price-uncompetitive. Chen has done a great job at managing prices and reducing SKUs to keep costs controlled, but due to the low volumes, BB is close to the point where, if volumes go much lower, costs will spin out of control. Investors won't tolerate that for long.

And by partnering with other competitors, and making their products competitive with BB10 handsets, it further reduces the differentiation that drives the bulk of existing BB10 sales (i.e., enterprises). If they can buy a Galaxy phone that's "BlackBerry Secure", why buy BB10 devices, which have app issues?

This partnership wasn't announced yesterday, but it's exactly the kind of thing I was talking about - it seems obvious to me that BB is working towards a future (likely within a couple of years) where BB devices aren't necessary for BB's services to be as effective as they were with BB phones. If BB can shed the device business and let other companies assume that risk, that would be much better, from a business perspective, for a software-and-services company, especially one the size of BB. Competition in the device business is massive and brutal and over the next couple of years, a lot of manufactures are going to fail and drop out of the market. BB having a more planned, structured exit will be better for the company, and would allow them to focus more on newer, emerging markets (IoT, cars, etc.).

My original point was to answer the question, which is "why are CBers worried about how BB makes its money?" And the answer is: most CBers only care about BB phones; they otherwise don't care about BB's business or what is in BB's best interests as a company. And that's understandable - most CBers aren't investors, or enterprise mobile device admins or CEO/CIOs, so none of those other things really matter to them. If BB crashed and burned in every other venture, but somehow continued making phones, they'd be perfectly happy, and likewise if BB canceled phones but was wildly successful and profitable, they would still be upset and likely still wouldn't care about BB's other (non-consumer) products. Many people here assume, incorrectly, that CBers care about BB's overall success, but, really, they mostly only care about the phones.

*yawn*. BlackBerry is prioritizing for enterprise focus for an end-to-end BB10 solution. You want superior communications, full security (multi-layer in the stack), privacy protected, productivity, scalability, software expertise, corporate app deployment and management, corporate service support, robust IT mobile management, NOC, strong integration with Office 365 with a single vendor, rugged hardware and iron clad and efficient OS... you go BlackBerry. Even more so in regulated industries. No more other hands in the pot to create more risks between multiple vendors that tends to break at the integration points when one vendor updates or customize their components.

However, if your business is heterogeneous and using a BYOD/COPE approach you can still go BlackBerry as part of the solution to manage multiple platforms (legacy BES, BB10, Android, iOS, Windows phone), device types and security that has been proven track record.

BlackBerry strategy is now to sell the brand from within the enterprise with software services but also expose and familiarize the BB10 OS and devices to end users. The ability to separate (containerize) work and personal using a BB10 device that is built from the kernal that is seamless and easy to the end-user in their functional usage habits (app agnostic), makes the case for BB10 (+deviceXYZ) as a desirable phone either from a COPE/BYOD/Personal/Consumer POV. BlackBerry was desired from corporate inside-out before, it is not out of the realm of possibility this time around with a renewed and refocused BlackBerry.

If one truly wants to seek out the truth in an objective manner, there is evidently value-add sticking with BlackBerry from all perspectives.

Posted via CB10

[tchocky77]

Game on indeed.

Eventually as the company starts to make a solid profit on a quarterly basis analysts, tech bloggers and investors will look at device sales less and less. Really, does it matter how they make money as long as they are making it?

Well if they're not making hardware, fewer and fewer will write about blackberry at all.

Nobody other than customers and shareholders care about back end management.

Posted via the CrackBerry App for Android

[abwan11]

Not making BBM cross platform, almost killed it. So I don't see how this partnership is any different.

Posted via CB10

[Prem WatsApp]

Not making BBM cross platform, almost killed it. So I don't see how this partnership is any different.

Posted via CB10

Good observation.

Mix and "blend" in...

Same here, at our local "North Queensland" edition of the German Beer fest, the Oktoberfest. You don't need to be German, Swiss or Austrian to be part of it, there are a ton of other people from all sorts of nationalities, backgrounds and ethnicities having fun. Same goes for the Italian Festival ... :-)

? ? ? Passposted via CB Chen ? ? ?

[LuvULongTime]

Well if they're not making hardware, fewer and fewer will write about blackberry at all.

Nobody other than customers and shareholders care about back end management.

Posted via the CrackBerry App for Android

Who said they won't continue making HW? I think we would all agree that BB is a SW and services company. Last time I checked, BB10 was also SW that was integral to the E2E solution. BB may in fact get out of the HW... and outsource everything to foxconn.

[tchocky77]

Who said they won't continue making HW? I think we would all agree that BB is a SW and services company. Last time I checked, BB10 was also SW that was integral to the E2E solution. BB may in fact get out of the HW... and outsource everything to foxconn.

And that's precisely what I'm alluding to. I think the Samsung deal heavily suggests exactly that. I'll grant you that's only my opinion, but I don't think it's any great leap of the imagination.

In light of the performance of BlackBerry devices in the market in the last few years, I think we could call the Passport a success....but is it enough? I mean,...do we know if it's even profitable at this point?

[abwan11]

Wasn't Foxconn going to deal with the hardware issue? How is it that the passport is produced by another vendor? Just in time delivery is what they need with hardware, if it is possible, I don't know. Make them as you need them. I thought that's what Foxconn was going to do, for 5 years.

Posted via CB10

[LuvULongTime]

Wasn't Foxconn going to deal with the hardware issue? How is it that the passport is produced by another vendor? Just in time delivery is what they need with hardware, if it is possible, I don't know. Make them as you need them. I thought that's what Foxconn was going to do, for 5 years.

Posted via CB10

Yes, but BB has only outsourced production of the Z3 (and Classic?) to Foxconn. The other models are still produced in house. I'm guessing they want to keep higher end/higher margin products in house as a means to keep more $$ from each device sale. Assuming they can manage their inventory well then this should be doable, though they won't get the same prices on components as Foxconn does.

[LuvULongTime]

And that's precisely what I'm alluding to. I think the Samsung deal heavily suggests exactly that. I'll grant you that's only my opinion, but I don't think it's any great leap of the imagination.

In light of the performance of BlackBerry devices in the market in the last few years, I think we could call the Passport a success....but is it enough? I mean,...do we know if it's even profitable at this point?

Gotcha. But it wouldn't be Samsung making the outsourced HW. This would be a violation of the OHA which Samsung is a member of. No Android OEM can produce phones with a forked version of Android that competes with Google's version. The Android runtime on BB10 falls into this category. If anyone is going to produce all BB10 phones it will be Foxconn.