[fanchettes]

No seriously, this is a question worth asking. I attended my first BlackBerry Live event this week, and came away genuinely impressed by the forward-thinking, creative people and ideas at BlackBerry. I get home and crank up my top 2 or 3 tech blogs, and it's all about how BBM going cross-platform is a "desperate" move from a dying company, or worse there's barely any mention of anything BlackBerry going on. Nothing about the innovation going on, or the incredible initiative Alicia Keys launched to get more women in tech, or the great strides happening with the app situation, or... well I could just keep going all night.

I'm not a nut-case or conspiracy theorist by any stretch of the imagination, but I have gotten to the point that I really think there may be some concerted effort going on to torpedo BlackBerry. I mean, did Lazaridis **** off the tech journos THAT bad?

I hope to get a sincere conversation going about this and not just another trollfest. So tell me, am I just paranoid, or could something else be going on here?

[axeman1000]

I don't know how many times I have to correct a co-worker because of some bull**** article he read on Google or yahoo from an American media company. I have to pull up the true article and show him where they are wrong. It is pathetic. Because it's not the American flavor they think right away the rest of the world has to think it's junk too. Umm nope wrong! The world does not revolve around American media, at least I don't!!!!!

Posted via CB10

[birdman_38]

BlackBerry could make a better effort to make the tech media aware of the progress they're trying to make. Do they even have a Public and Media Relations director? Who is it? Thor is quoted in articles 90% of the time. There's not enough of him to go around.

Posted via CB10

[Jake2826]

As an American, all I can tell you is that most American media is crap. Once you accept this and learn to ignore them, the happier you'll be. Just my 2 cents.

[neo9104]

To be honest, I feel like I wouldn't be surprised if some of those Bloggers or whatever are being paid by giant companies like Apple to give negative reviews about their competitors, including BlackBerry. Especially when considering that I've read reviews that claim that the iPhone 5 is superior to the Z10 when all evidence basically points to the contrary. The only thing Apple still has on RIM at this point are more apps. And even then most of those are probably redundant or useless, like a market would realistically have a million useful apps anyways. Yet still you see those articles, and you gotta laugh how they completely downplay the fact that BlackBerry Z10 has a superior processor, superior screen, superior virtual keyboard, superior user interface, superior connectivity, and superior messaging; but the iPhone5 is still better because it is slightly smaller and weighs less and it has ten times the apps in their store. To me those are just the words of either someone that's paid to be based or someone who's just an Apple junkie.

Which is fine if you prefer one device over another, if you ask me, however giving such based reviews in my opinion is not. I won't claim my Z10 is better than a Galaxy S4: theoretically speaking it's not considering its technology. However I chose BlackBerry over Android because BlackBerry gives me what I want from my phone, and I like it's messaging capabilities and user interface over Android's. And it still is great for apps and fun and other extras that I might use to show off or entertain myself with from time to time.

Posted via CB10

[castano22]

As an American, all I can tell you is that most American media is crap. Once you accept this and learn to ignore them, the happier you'll be. Just my 2 cents.

+1 on that

[.pinkberry]

Probably because they predicted RIM/BBRY's death long ago and don't want to admit they're wrong.

[kojita]

I agree with op there is a constant bashing almost like a trend or a norm. We have seen samsung already pay for fake reviews so you cannot expect fair competition from them. On another side tech bloggers could be frustrated from the years where BlackBerry was king and they really did not have much influences given the enterprise nature of research in motion back then. They sort of unleash their accumulated Hate. But I wonder how much tech blog have true influence on mass consumption, u d' rather rely on Large media such as the ny times where David Pogue did a pretty fair and honest review. I am much more critical of those blogs after watching how they report the information about blackberry. I tend to actually avoid them while I was using them a lot in the past to buy tech stuff.


Posted via CB10

[kojita]

Another thing is that anybody seriously involved in R&D or tech knows how difficult to come up with a new product. BlackBerry managed in two years time to have a successful launch of two redesigned phones on a brand new secured and gov certified platform that is now being used in cars. Honestly this is an amazing achievement whether you like or dislike BlackBerry. Far beyond anything the other did given the tremendous pressure on them. Apple developped ios quietly in two years or more, not sure about android.

Touchscreen on smartphone exists since 2006 or the first iPhone yet BlackBerry managed to create the best virtual keyboard both in terms of usability and design.

A great strategic asset BlackBerry has and they stated it is the global network they own, neither apples nor samsung nor Google has that and it is something you van build like that. Again something not appreciated to its true value by tech bloggers.

Many tech bloggers looked down at the q5 with despise but it is a great device. First it looks great, then it is qwerty something important in emerging and youth markets, then it ll be cheaper so honestly u trust Heins when he says that it will be a hit. It will. Sure it won't be a hot among tech lovers who spend half of their budget on every high tech stuff that comes out. But teenagers, students, emerging countries, kb lovers will jump on that.

Bbm move was perceived as a desperate move by many bloggers but to think of it you realize that it will allow BlackBerry to penetrate into untouched market, the ios and android fans, if tech enthusiastic will download the app, because they want to check it out, because some of their friends like us are on BlackBerry, and once they are in they will see the quality of bbm and could potentially be interested in jumping on board.

The latter will be facilitated by the huge app growing rate on BlackBerry world, again something that tech bloggers zfail to mention, they only focus on hey this is not here that neither..bit the point is that BlackBerry has the largest growing rate in terms of apps and dvelopper commitment in the industry. They are at 1/7th of ios and android . With 10.2 this will further boost the number of android apps and boost BlackBerry world. Potted android apps that run smooth are just as great as native ones as long as it is a fluid experience. I use toshl finance daily and I am loving it.


Posted via CB10

[mmcpher]

Playbook ranting aside, I was impressed by BlackBerry Live, particularly the BBM developments (execute and deliver on time please) and the "Women in Tech" presentation which sounded pitch perfect. A lot of us have been critical of BlackBerry marketing and PR over the last few years. I was skeptical about the Alicia Keyes involvement because I worried it would be a forced and awkward attempt to buy hip cache, but the move is looking smarter by the day.

[Ashish Sanghvi]

The tree that bears the most fruits get the most stones

[alan510]

I wonder where most of the tech press us based. I am pretty sure many of them are near Silicon Valley which means they may drink or socialize with Google / Apple folks. It's human nature to be kinder to your friends. I don't think it is a conspiracy but it may have something to do with proximity.

Posted via CB10

[WillieLee]

Most of the tech press aren't technology people, they're gadget people who are loyal to their brands and for the most part just walk in lockstep with the consensus opinion. They dread stating something bold or different for fear of being wrong and being mocked for it.


Posted via CB10

[Saiga]

I dunno about the conspiracies, but in my opinion, the BlackBerry Live showing wasn't all that impressive.

Look at the things they said before the event and then look at what they actually showed us. We have Thorsten telling us we won't need our laptops anymore, and that mobile computing is the future. The BlackBerry Live website specifically stated that the Keynote would discuss the future of mobile computing. What did they show us? Another stupid connected car that isn't for sale and would cost a few hundred thousands of dollars if it was. This is what the 3rd or 4th car they've done now? It has seriously gotten old.

Thorsten said Tablets will be just as pointless as laptops soon. Yet didn't show us any reason to believe that, unless he inteds for us to use our laptop replacing Bentleys to replace those also. Speaking of tablets, they never used the word "PlayBook" once. Not once. After Thorsten recently promised to deliver a BlackBerry 10 update for the PlayBook.

We got Thorsten talking about how they returned the company to profitability and how they survived when everyone was writing obituaries. Yet they never once took the opportunity to tell us how many Z10s have been sold. Their biggest event of the year and they didn't tell us how many BlackBerry 10 devices have been sold. That kinda makes me worry. Look at what Samsung, LG, HTC and Apple do. They all talk about how many units they sell and they don't wait till they are forced to reveal that info to do it. We've already seen Samsung say that they've sold 6 Million Galaxy S4s for example.

They talked about marketing by showing a 15 second video we'd already seen, and the project green screen stuff we'd already seen. It was akward after that commercial played and no one clapped. Lol

They annouced a mid-range phone that had been leaked so much that the only new details we learned about it is the name and one color variant. The Q5 will likely flop hardcore style, especially since it is a device intended for emerging markets, where they love their cheap phones with BBM. Soon, $100 off contract Android phones with all the apps anyone could want will have BBM. Making the Q5 in serious trouble if it costs anywhere near the 299+ dollars I expect it to cost.

There really wasn't much to get excited for. The biggest thing they announced was BBM going cross platform this summer. Something that if they were going to do, they should have done years ago, when people actually cared about having BBM on iOS and Android. The biggest annoucment of the event, and in all honesty it is likely too little too late and yet another example of how slow to react BlackBerry really is. The most troubling thing is, if crossplatform BBM really takes off, it has a serious chance of costing BlackBerry tons of users.

The blogs being negative makes sense to me. I thought the show was pretty disappointing myself.

Typed on my Dev Alpha C, Posted Via CB10

[Jerry A]

Sadly, you will most likely be vilified for making excellent points.

I dunno about the conspiracies, but in my opinion, the BlackBerry Live showing wasn't all that impressive.

Look at the things they said before the event and then look at what they actually showed us. We have Thorsten telling us we won't need our laptops anymore, and that mobile computing is the future. The BlackBerry Live website specifically stated that the Keynote would discuss the future of mobile computing. What did they show us? Another stupid connected car that isn't for sale and would cost a few hundred thousands of dollars if it was. This is what the 3rd or 4th car they've done now? It has seriously gotten old.

Thorsten said Tablets will be just as pointless as laptops soon. Yet didn't show us any reason to believe that, unless he inteds for us to use our laptop replacing Bentleys to replace those also. Speaking of tablets, they never used the word "PlayBook" once. Not once. After Thorsten recently promised to deliver a BlackBerry 10 update for the PlayBook.

We got Thorsten talking about how they returned the company to profitability and how they survived when everyone was writing obituaries. Yet they never once took the opportunity to tell us how many Z10s have been sold. Their biggest event of the year and they didn't tell us how many BlackBerry 10 devices have been sold. That kinda makes me worry. Look at what Samsung, LG, HTC and Apple do. They all talk about how many units they sell and they don't wait till they are forced to reveal that info to do it. We've already seen Samsung say that they've sold 6 Million Galaxy S4s for example.

They talked about marketing by showing a 15 second video we'd already seen, and the project green screen stuff we'd already seen. It was akward after that commercial played and no one clapped. Lol

They annouced a mid-range phone that had been leaked so much that the only new details we learned about it is the name and one color variant. The Q5 will likely flop hardcore style, especially since it is a device intended for emerging markets, where they love their cheap phones with BBM. Soon, $100 off contract Android phones with all the apps anyone could want will have BBM. Making the Q5 in serious trouble if it costs anywhere near the 299+ dollars I expect it to cost.

There really wasn't much to get excited for. The biggest thing they announced was BBM going cross platform this summer. Something that if they were going to do, they should have done years ago, when people actually cared about having BBM on iOS and Android. The biggest annoucment of the event, and in all honesty it is likely too little too late and yet another example of how slow to react BlackBerry really is. The most troubling thing is, if crossplatform BBM really takes off, it has a serious chance of costing BlackBerry tons of users.

The blogs being negative makes sense to me. I thought the show was pretty disappointing myself.

Typed on my Dev Alpha C, Posted Via CB10

Posted via CB10

[West Coast Flavor]

Maybe it's because they screw over their customers.

I'm still salty about the Bold 9650 costing me $200. When it was basically a tour with a track pad.

No way that phone should have been priced the same as an Evo.

[geoffsdad]

Frankly, between the tech blogs, the stock market shorts, and carrier indifference it has been an embarrassment here in the US. But, nobody said this was going to happen overnight.

Posted via CB10

[FFR]

Frankly, between the tech blogs, the stock market shorts, and carrier indifference it has been an embarrassment here in the US. But, nobody said this was going to happen overnight.

Posted via CB10

Rim purchased QNX on April 9, 2010.

It's been 3 years.

[monil11]

Let's see. It started when blackberry was on top and news was just neutral. Then came iPhone and in about 2 years iPhone offered interesting features and decent adoption and tech blogs saw a different way of using phones wondering if they would ever get some thing similar in BlackBerry. In the next few months iPhone grew with many apps and the 'cool people' got behind it. And really if the cool people love it, tech blogs have got to love it.

All this while BlackBerry was extremely slow to react and did not do anything interesting at all for about 3 to 4 years. The growing frustration that BlackBerry was not more iPhone like started to get the tech blogs really mad. It was mainly Blackberry's fault since didn't innovate even in a reactive way and partly the tech blogs fault for not seeing that BlackBerry was still great at what it did and many people don't just want what they (tech blogs) think they (people) want.

This soon turned into 'oh we don't care bout BlackBerry and what it does but die BlackBerry die' attitude. Every piece of news then had a negative spin on it to support their personal attitude towards bb.

Almost every tech blog that I read predicted during the last couple of years that bb would be dead or sold in a matter of months.

Now that BlackBerry is pretty much back on track with profit, with a bigger stockpile of cash compared to last year, great devices, brilliant new OS and an app eco system with decent momentum, accepting any of this as good news would mean accepting they were wrong and biased.

Posted via CB10

[w0lfgang]

I've often wondered the same....perhaps in the past there was a big press event and Balsillie and Lazaridis got all their girlfriends drunk and had their way with them for an orgy-filled weekend of depraved debauchery....I'm thinking in the tangled mass of human flesh, Geller at BGR might have accidentally been mistaken for a woman (not hard to do really and is probably quite common) and...well.....you know....got his "feelings" hurt...his posterior "feelings." So I don't know if he is genuinely hurt, or just hoping for another weekend with BB execs....you know what they say about a woman...errrr....I mean a Boy Genius scorned

[stanwest31]

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/05/...ast-advantage/


Cnn biased too?

Posted via CB10

[colectionarul]

Last episode today, article about Blackberry vs Typo trial, this one : BlackBerry Ryan Seacrest lawsuit: Judge validates 2 BlackBerry patents | BGR

One comment about old article where they said Typo is great ,good keyboard, awesome typing etc : Typo iPhone keyboard reviews: Good keyboard still has flaws | BGR
And when Q10 whas reviewd they said that "The hardware keyboard actually adds way more frustration that it alleviates" : BlackBerry Q10 review | BGR





Some guy says " so much for the impartiality and useful review ". Comment was not aproved

BGR sucks!

[donnation]

Because for years BB churned out devices that were subpar with what the rest of the industry was making.

Because they were constantly late with product launches and release dates.

Because they released a tablet that was dubbed the "first professional tablet" which was far from it and charged a ridiculous price for it.

Because they released the Storm and dubbed it as an iPhone killer and charged a ridiculous price for an awful phone.

Because they released BB10 full of bugs and with rebooting issues that were never publicly addressed by the company.

Because BB said numerous times that they were going to release BB10 for the Playbook and then said "sorry, we changed our minds."

Because they publicly said that touchscreens a were a fad and that the only way to get work done was with a physical keyboard.

I'm not saying that it's all justified, but some of it is. It's not like BB hasn't given the media SOME reasons to hate them. I think that it should be let go, but negative press sells better than painting a rosy picture of a company's outlook.

[Skidoo583]

Yes something is definitely going on. I was just looking At some Tech reviews and as usual they are still slamming blackberry. But then you read the reviews that the consumers leave and it's totally the opposite. I don't care what brand of phone is your favorite blackberry is the only phone maker that has actually came up with fresh os for a phone and it actually works. One tech site review Evan went to say that the new blackberry phone was pack to full of useless eye candy I mean really What do you call the Samsung touch wizz talk about a bunch of useless eye candy.

Posted via CB10

[Wiki Cydia]

Yes something is definitely going on. I was just looking At some Tech reviews and as usual they are still slamming blackberry. But then you read the reviews that the consumers leave and it's totally the opposite. I don't care what brand of phone is your favorite blackberry is the only phone maker that has actually came up with fresh os for a phone and it actually works. One tech site review Evan went to say that the new blackberry phone was pack to full of useless eye candy I mean really What do you call the Samsung touch wizz talk about a bunch of useless eye candy.

Two things. One, punctuation is the reader's frind. Two, how do you know the same reviewer didn't refer to the Samsung UI in a similar fashion? Would you mind posting a link to the offending review?