Originally Posted by
hurds Okay. So why doesn't BB replicate google services,
This is a good idea. Free, quality PIM services and email with Active Sync support and BlacKBerry's well stablished know-how. Problem with this is adoption. It would be yet another service to get people to join, but it is not that bad of an idea really. This is as far as it goes. BlackBerry won't and shouldn't do BlackBerry+, BlackBerry Translator, BlackBerry Search and etc. Waste of time and focus.
whatever they are and give BB away for free and make money the same way Google is doing? They can't be the only one in that space right? Any extremely lucrative area should be highly contested. Why let google take all the profits.
Let's go... Google is a services/ads/data minig company. They started as a search engine. They grew on that. BlackBerry is neither. They are a smartphone manufacturer that owns their production line from end to end (both hardware and software are owned by BlackBerry). All other manutactures BUT Apple need to get their software from somewhere.
Google makes money off Android by forcing their services onto the platform. You need a google account to have proper service and access to all features. BlackBerry does not have such ecosystem, nor should they waste much time on it. I could agree with you if they actually had something like Yahoo! (which is the situation Microsoft is at - they just own the hardware, but they own the ecosystem and the software).
BlackBerry on the other hand can only make money from their hardware and software. Just let go of your idea for a moment and you'll see how obvious it is. If they give the OS away, what reason will people have to buy their hardware? Any HTC running BB10 will be at least half the price of a Q5. If BlackBerry had a strong, healthy porfolio of services besides BES/BES10, then yes, maybe they could consider it. HP made webOS open-source. Look how well that is going.
Now, I'm not against having BB10 made available to other manufactors. Pay for access, license BB10 and launch as many phones are you want - free of any costs but the licenses they have to pay to BlackBerry, no more hoping Android gets hit with another lawsuit. Fixed cost (and maybe even lower costs they are paying with law suit fees/WP licenses). That would - like I said before - get guys like HTC to make some cheap BB10 devices and that would mean BB10 marketshare (BlackBerry benefits, HTC benefits, clients benetif).
Giving things away for free gains you marketshare. There is nothing special about android other than its developper community who we all know is only there because they have a large marketshare.
Well, you just figured out why BBM is going cross-platform.
So why don't they adopt the same business model? Google makes tons of cash don't they? They are extremely well respected aren't they?
Because the are drastically different companies at radically different situations. Or did I miss BlackBerry being a top dog in the ads/service/search industry?
Any droid users have an opinion?
Maybe you should post this in Android Central.
Successful business often get copied, thats just how its always been. This could be a big new avenue for BB. We all know how important marketshare is. Why worry about profits. It doesn't seem to bother companies like facebook or google. They need more markershare, worry about money later. Isn't that they new way in tech?
They get copied when it makes sense to. Samsung did copy Apple. Heck, everybody copied Apple (and rightfully so, since Apple copied everybody). This does not mean every idea has to be copied and sorry, this is just not going to help BlackBerry ANY.
And on this brilliant "worry about money later" comment: BlackBerry could have been the new Palm. They were not only and ONLY because they managed the money they had well. Keep in mind, money is not infinite. If BB10 sales were bad, BlackBerry would have a very finite lifespan. Then we'd see assets being sold and finally PalmBerry.
Which can still happen, should they do enough wrong moves.