[Dave Bourque]

T-Mobile:

Before the promo: Z10's and Q10's were not available in most stores, Z30 wasn't available at all, only the Q10 was available online
During the promo: Z10's and Q10's were not available in most stores, Z30 wasn't available at all, Z10's and Q10's were available online, free expedited next day shipping was provided free of charge
After the promo: 10.2.1 released to Z10's and Q10's

AT&T:

Before the promo: No Z30
During the promo: No Z30
After the promo: No 10.2.1

Sprint:

Before the promo: No Z10 or Z30
During the promo: No Z10 or Z30
After the promo: No 10.2.1

T-Mobile did budge. AT&T and Sprint, while being professional, quietly did *nothing*. Is that better?

Oh I wonder why BlackBerry would pull "support". Support my ***.

Z10STL100-3/10.2.1.2141

[texazzpete]

Sure. That's how you want it to be interpreted. This doesn't translate well in a public tweet...

Z10STL100-3/10.2.1.2141

That's the only translation, period. '$TMUS' is the stock symbol for Tmobile. The question the Tmobile CEO responded to referenced this stock symbol and was wondering aloud any revisions to the stock price following the announcement.

I suggest you revisit that screenshot and re-read it carefully.

[Clanked]

This Tmobile CEO is a real attention who.re eh?....What a clown....these types of guys burnout their goodwill quickly.

Posted via CB10

[eddy_berry]

From anecdotal evidence here on CRackberry, it's not like AT&T and Verizon stores are brimming with stock of Blackberry devices either. Sprint doesn't even carry the Z30 or the Z10. So by your logic, BB should part ways with Sprint too, for example?

That's true, but I don't think he was saying that is the only reason for BB cutting ties with T-Mobile but rather the extra reasoning for making such a decision. Either way, I haven't seen Sprints CEO poking fun at their business partners on social media lately. I wonder why?

[cbvinh]

Either way, I haven't seen Sprints CEO poking fun at their business partners on social media lately. I wonder why?

He's too busy figuring out how to make enough money to cover the $15+ billion dollar deal with Apple.

[wincyUt]

BlackBerry reduced their current and potential subscribers US national carrier choices by 25% with a single press release. Not sure how that can be turned into a positive.

Guess what? Sometimes relationships don't last forever and live goes on. My question to you is, how can this turn into a negative? Have all the BB subscribers on T-Mo been satisfied with the level of service they've been getting? It's good that BlackBerry cut its losses and quickly find alternative solutions than bury its head in the sand and pretend everything is fine.

[eddy_berry]

T-Mobile did budge. AT&T and Sprint, while being professional, quietly did *nothing*. Is that better?

Definitely not better for their own customers, but their respective CEOs didn't go burning bridges on a business level and very publicly at that. Being late to the OS update party is not surprising from US carriers. Are people on Sprint and AT&T still waiting for 10.2.1? How sad.

[TGR1]

Then when 99% of those new phones were not BlackBerry phones, which was bound to happen considering they only sold them online anyway, he decided it was best to shove that statistic in Chen's face. Is that really how a CEO should act? I don't think so. How he continues to carry himself and his business is, well, some would say brash or bold, but it is also unprofessional.

Wasn't that an internal TMo memo? I don't think Legere mentioned the 1% until today. Could be wrong.

Be that as it may, it takes two to tango. IMO, this public and manipulative hissyfit is something I would expect of Legere, who is nothing if not flamboyant, but not of Chen. I don't think either come out particularly good.

[TGR1]

If I were a shareholder, I'd be more upset as their chances at grabbing a large (security conscious) corporate account just got severely hindered.

Unless they always had negligible interests here (pure speculation on my part) making it irrelevant. I like TMo for their plans but, oh my, their coverage and EDGE speed hurt.

[sandysan]

I dont know what AT&T or sprints plans are but if they follow suit, T-mobile comes out of this smelling like a rose comparitively by its customers because if the CEO's want to get into a whizzing contest that's fine, so long as they dont keep their BB customers stuck on 10.1.

The only way I think this gets worse is if T-mobile starts actively restricting BB devices on its network, which I really think is unlikely ( but who knows?).

[The Big Picture]

My question was what did they have to offer T-Mobile? Not what do they have to gain or lose.

TMO started it by creating a promo specific for BlackBerry users to change to iphone. If you had any honour at all you wouldnt do that to a business partner you've worked with for over 10 years. Besides as he said they were only 1 percent of them left anyway, why did TMO have to make a scene of it? It just shows the TMO leadership have no class and are all about the money. Do you see the other carriers running the same promo even though they may or may not have less than 1 percent BlackBerry userbase?

Blackberry may not have much to offer to TMO at this time but this is a question of ethics.

Would you drop someone who's has proven to be a good business partner for many years before just because some trouble arises? For a one percent difference?

And even if you did it, take it like a man, dont try to spin things around, people are not stupid, things like this happen but it was done in very bad taste.

Would YOU be a friend to this guy?

Would YOU stand around and be made a fool of?

Do you see john chen making snide remarks and low blows?

Money is not everything in this world. BlackBerry has some pride and dignity, they did after all create the smartphone for the masses. They are a company which means a collection of actual human beings not machines. Times change but principles should not.



Q10SQN100-3/10.2.1.2228, Z30, Z10, iP5, SGS3

[eddy_berry]

Wasn't that an internal TMo memo? I don't think Legere mentioned the 1% until today. Could be wrong.

Be that as it may, it takes two to tango. IMO, this public and manipulative hissyfit is something I would expect of Legere, who is nothing if not flamboyant, but not of Chen. I don't think either come out particularly good.

The 99% was the number of people who took their apologetic offer of a discount on any new phone for an old BB phone trade-in that did not buy another BlackBerry. Which was made harder by the fact that they did not stock stores with BB10 devices anyway which means when people came in to trade-in their old BB phones they would be pushed to other devices. Making it public probably brought out a whole bunch of people with old BBOS devices in their closet looking to get a discount on a new device.

The 1% was just Legere talking about the number of BB users in total with T-Mobile.

I do agree that it didn't look all that great on Chen at first, but he did accept the apology and he left it at that. He also has not gone on about the exact reasons why they cut ties with T-Mobile or made a big deal about it. He left it as a business decision and wiped his hands of the whole mess. Legere is the only one still going on about it. And I guess us at CB are still going on about it. I'm done here. It's simple. Be humble and be professional. Treat all your friends and partners with equal respect whether they are big or small. It can go a long way in business.

[crackbrry fan]

Interestingly enough their (TMO)stock price is down 0.23% BlackBerry Stock price is up 1.36% . Legere is an a**. He is making a fool of himself and TMO, he has mishandled this entire affair and continues to do so.

Posted via CB10

[birdman_38]

It's good that BlackBerry cut its losses and quickly find alternative solutions than bury its head in the sand and pretend everything is fine.

I supposed when BlackBerry drops its next US carrier (likely Sprint) you'll again say everything is fine.

[fabio1]

This guy is the biggest clown going, carriers are the bain of BlackBerry, have been trying to destroy us from the start

Will be switching to Vodafone when contract expires!

X

[eddy_berry]

I supposed when BlackBerry drops its next US carrier (likely Sprint) you'll again say everything is fine.

Yeah that would be pretty bad. Don't see that happening though. The only thing they are guilty of is annoying their own customers. lol.

[Rello]

You don't understand. If he's so worried about the customers, it wouldn't matter the amount. You either care about the customers or just like every other ceo yoh care about profit. He's trying to make himself sound different but he's not

From zee coolest flicking smartphone ever

Lol I just don't see it like that. Where does he specifically say he doesn't care about BlackBerry customers? Some people in here say he dissed BlackBerry in them tweets....where lol?

He says BlackBerry took away the customers choice....thats true. Dude said there should be revisions at Tmobile to account for BlackBerry not renewing the contract and he said that it wouldn't effect anything because BlackBerry customers only account 1% of their customer base....thats true. until he says that he does care about BlackBerry customers then I won't say he said it but yeah I can imagine that he truthfully isn't sweating losing BlackBerry as a customer. I honestly wouldn't either. If 1% of your customers are buying only BlackBerry and the rest is between iPhone android and windows phone, then it seems like his customers already have plenty of choice.

This was not a diss to BlackBerry at all in my opinion....i can go to the Verge or BGR any day of the week and see something 100x worse than this lol

Posted via CB10

[sandysan]

I think its easy to look for a scapegoat and dont like legere's Tweets, but its not like T-mobile is printing money right now. Assuming that T-mobile was getting 2X the commision for selling BB devices in its retail stores over samsung and apple.
Whats 2X 0 ?

Tmobile stopped selling BB handsets in retail stores like 6 months ago, that coupled with Chen's insistence that they wanted to focus on enterprise first ( and that t-mobile is weak in that arena) its not surprising that the relationship came to an end. Right now BB is 1% of T-mobile's clientele and all indications are that this is not likely to trend upward anytime soon.
If t-mobile wants to expand its consumer base and chen wants to focus on enterprise, I can see why their visions would clash.

[dbmalloy]

Do not understand the comotion so to speak... looks like a business dicision pure and simple... does not appear there is much US carrier support for consumer models... T-Mobile obviously does not see a market to BB in their future.... combine no support with minmal sales... not suprising something had to give.....

[A895]

Not really dissing.

[TGR1]

It's time for the obligatory "Dear John" letter (or tweet for the 21st century, and whichever John is the author, you decide):
"It's not as if we don't still love one another but we've drifted apart..."

[LuvULongTime]

I supposed when BlackBerry drops its next US carrier (likely Sprint) you'll again say everything is fine.

I've read a few of your posts and just want to comment. Overall this is not good for BB or TMO. Both have one less partner to do business with. But from BB's perspective, I do understand why they did it. With only 45,000 active BB users on TMO, did it really make sense for them continue pouring money into the relationship? Those dollars are finite and can be better focused on Verizon and AT&T. I have a feeling this was in the works for a while now, and it is what prompted TMO to try and entice current BB users to switch over to an iPhone. This negotiation didn't start and end last week. This had to have been an ongoing discussion for the last quarter at least.

[Rello]

I've read a few of your posts and just want to comment. Overall this is not good for BB or TMO. Both have one less partner to do business with. But from BB's perspective, I do understand why they did it. With only 45,000 active BB users on TMO, did it really make sense for them continue pouring money into the relationship? Those dollars are finite and can be better focused on Verizon and AT&T. I have a feeling this was in the works for a while now, and it is what prompted TMO to try and entice current BB users to switch over to an iPhone. This negotiation didn't start and end last week. This had to have been an ongoing discussion for the last quarter at least.

I feel like though no matter how people look at it though, it's now 30+ million people that BlackBerry no longer has access to. If Verizon barely promoted their exclusive Z30, I just find it hard to see any BlackBerry device being really promoted. Tmobile customers still have plenty of "choice" when it comes to phones to buy though. I'd love to hear from Chen though how this actually benefits them though. Give me a legit reason straight from the man running the show and I'm willing to listen lol


Posted via CB10

[Dave Bourque]

I feel like though no matter how people look at it though, it's now 30+ million people that BlackBerry no longer has access to. If Verizon barely promoted their exclusive Z30, I just find it hard to see any BlackBerry device being really promoted. Tmobile customers still have plenty of "choice" when it comes to phones to buy though. I'd love to hear from Chen though how this actually benefits them though. Give me a legit reason straight from the man running the show and I'm willing to listen lol

Posted via CB10

You seriously still don't get it ? T-mobile didn't give any choice when it came to BlackBerry devices... that "deal" to get off the platform certainly helped BlackBerry alot.

Z10STL100-3/10.2.1.2141

[Alberto8]

Your device should continue to function until it dies. T-Mobile (unlike sprint and verizon) is an open network. If your device supports the frequency bands they use, then you are allowed to use it. All you need is an active sim card and an unlocked device. We have a few Z10s and Z30s on our account and all will continue to have service. Its not like they will throw a kill switch or anything like that. Now for legacy devices, I think they are killing BIS so that may hurt the users. BB10 users should be unaffected by all this except that the Z30 will never get wifi calling.