TCL will not drop BlackBerry brand, but without announcing any clear future plan.
- So, cutting to the chase, they (TCL) have spoken quite clearly when they say they are in it for the long haul, they are not phasing out BlackBerry devices, and that BlackBerry fills a niche. The questioning posts amount to being about whether they are telling the truth. The rest of the comments that people here have written, amount to spin or speculation.10-07-19 01:17 PMLike 0
- Yeah the whole "long haul" speaking point, worked when they were trying to build something. Now that they have let things start to fall apart, it doesn't have the same ring that it once did.10-07-19 01:35 PMLike 0
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Unless "position" only refers to specs, not the price.10-07-19 08:24 PMLike 0 - I have trouble digesting the "position" below TCL brand: they offered K2 at $700, and somehow plan to offer the hypothetical K3 at below mid-tier, $300-something? Didn't people here argue the cost of building a niche device is high, hence the hefty price?
Unless "position" only refers to specs, not the price.John Albert likes this.10-07-19 10:56 PMLike 1 - This, unfortunately, is a very likely scenario. As conite always suggests, hope for the best and plan for the worst. It doesn’t just apply to old BB10 hardware but new BBAndroid hardware also. Sure Oreo 8.1 will be supported for awhile going forward compared with Jellybean 4.3 but in the end, the eventual results are the same. BlackBerry, regardless of which OEM, has definitely outlived it’s critics expectations but nothing lives forever.10-08-19 07:39 AMLike 0
- I have trouble digesting the "position" below TCL brand: they offered K2 at $700, and somehow plan to offer the hypothetical K3 at below mid-tier, $300-something? Didn't people here argue the cost of building a niche device is high, hence the hefty price?
Unless "position" only refers to specs, not the price.
TCL wants to be known for its screen technology which is somewhat at odds with the BlackBerry ethos.10-08-19 10:39 AMLike 0 -
Any indication they are out of the red and making a profit now? I really don't think that those $100 phones they are offering now are selling in enough volume to get them out of the hole they were in. BBMo sure hasn't helped their bottom line.
I put TCL below Sony and LG, and I'm not sure either of them will be in smartphones much longer. A division of TCL might make displays for others...
Bottom line TCL has been saying things for a while that don't ever happen...Laura Knotek and John Albert like this.10-08-19 11:28 AMLike 2 - It's a shame the way current smartphone manufacturing, development and cost scale works. No debate with what's been said here; just a shame we don't have a different marketplace ecosystem where more than only 2 behemoth players can reliably compete going forward.Jake2826 likes this.10-09-19 08:38 PMLike 1
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Bottom line the early bird got the worm... everyone else after 2010 was too late.PantherBlitz likes this.10-10-19 10:00 AMLike 1 - The desktop world has proven that there will only be 2 competitors, because developers don't want to support a third if they don't have to. Supporting a third ecosystem raises costs by 50% without raising the earnings potential at all.
BB had market share, and one of those 2 winning positions was BB's to lose, and that's exactly what the Storm (and especially Mike's insistence on making the screen clicky) did: it lost Verizon and pushed them into Google's arms. I suspect Google would have won eventually anyway, but the Storm sped up the process significantly. Most of the budget that Verizon had been using to advertise BB was quickly moved over to making the "Droid Does" commercials instead. But long-term, I think the result would have been the same - just minor differences in timing.
BB was completely dependent on SAF revenue, as the never made significant money selling the phones themselves, and the SAF revenue model was something that carriers actively wanted to get away from. It was BB's greatest success but also their greatest point of weakness.John Albert likes this.10-10-19 03:13 PMLike 1 - The desktop world has proven that there will only be 2 competitors, because developers don't want to support a third if they don't have to. Supporting a third ecosystem raises costs by 50% without raising the earnings potential at all.
BB had market share, and one of those 2 winning positions was BB's to lose, and that's exactly what the Storm (and especially Mike's insistence on making the screen clicky) did: it lost Verizon and pushed them into Google's arms. I suspect Google would have won eventually anyway, but the Storm sped up the process significantly. Most of the budget that Verizon had been using to advertise BB was quickly moved over to making the "Droid Does" commercials instead. But long-term, I think the result would have been the same - just minor differences in timing.
BB was completely dependent on SAF revenue, as the never made significant money selling the phones themselves, and the SAF revenue model was something that carriers actively wanted to get away from. It was BB's greatest success but also their greatest point of weakness.
========== Composed and edited on the exceptional BlackBerry VKB on my trusty Z10. Any typographic errors, misspells, or grammatical errors are likely due to my inattention and lack of interest in word-perfect communications on an Internet tech fan forum.10-10-19 04:26 PMLike 0 -
With under 1% of the new PC market, and with tiny revenues, desktop Linux really doesn't count.
There is also nothing comparable to this model in the mobile OS world.app_Developer likes this.10-10-19 05:12 PMLike 1 - Linux (for desktops) isn't even comparable from a business standpoint. Linux generates relatively no money, has a tiny share of the overall desktop userbase, and most computers running Linux started with a Windows license. Linux for desktops wouldn't even be competitive if it wasn't for all of the development work (and billions of dollars) that big tech companies have invested in it for server usage, which trickles down to the desktop versions.
With under 1% of the new PC market, and with tiny revenues, desktop Linux really doesn't count.
There is also nothing comparable to this model in the mobile OS world.
There are tens of millions of active users for dozens of distributions of Linux, and a huge dev community supporting it. That's pretty much what most BlackBerry fans dream of having for mobile.
Ubuntu alone has about twenty million daily users, which is probably 20-40x the number of us BB10 users.
If Linux desktop was irrelevant it would not get so much mainstream dev support from the likes of Google, DropBox, Mozilla, Spotify, and many other major vendors. And, when it comes to data science and scientific computing Linux is often the preferred desktop platform.
The reality is that most desktop computer users could switch to Linux with almost zero loss of productivity. The important exceptions are MS Office power users and Adobe creative types. MS Office scripts and macros pretty much require windows, and Adobe products still work best on the Mac.
Globally, ChromeOS and Linux together are estimated to be about 5% of users (75 million installs), and more than a quarter of professional developers use Linux desktop, according to the 2019 Stack Overflow developer survey.10-10-19 07:30 PMLike 0 - I'm well aware of desktop Linux's status (I've got a Mint machine), but, again, commercially, it's a non-entity. No company could sustain a business selling only Linux desktop computers, in other words. We're talking about profit-generating business models here.
Google, for example, pours money into LInux development because they want to make sure Linux users can use Google's paid services as well as their "free" ad-supported services - and because Google uses Linux on the vast majority of their own internal desktop machines. But Google can easily take that loss, because it's a drop in the bucket compared to their net profits.app_Developer likes this.10-10-19 09:09 PMLike 1 - I'm well aware of desktop Linux's status (I've got a Mint machine), but, again, commercially, it's a non-entity. No company could sustain a business selling only Linux desktop computers, in other words. We're talking about profit-generating business models here.
Google, for example, pours money into LInux development because they want to make sure Linux users can use Google's paid services as well as their "free" ad-supported services - and because Google uses Linux on the vast majority of their own internal desktop machines. But Google can easily take that loss, because it's a drop in the bucket compared to their net profits.
https://puri.sm/
But in fairness they also sell other Linux hardware, not just desktops.
The secret to a successful business model is having a product consumers (by which I mean any type of consumer--personal, business, large enterprises, etc.) want to buy and effectively marketing that product so those consumers know its capabilities and how to get one. No more, no less.10-10-19 09:20 PMLike 0 - Oh I don't know...these folks seem to do all right:
https://puri.sm/
But in fairness they also sell other Linux hardware, not just desktops.
The secret to a successful business model is having a product consumers (by which I mean any type of consumer--personal, business, large enterprises, etc.) want to buy and effectively marketing that product so those consumers know its capabilities and how to get one. No more, no less.
After that, it's all about feature set, pricing, and support.10-10-19 10:36 PMLike 0 - Troy was referring to desktop sales of Linux. But my point holds for smartphones as well. If people want to buy your product, the ecosystem will follow, as the iPhone proved.10-10-19 10:44 PMLike 0
- That might have been the case in the beginning. But the barrier to entry now for a third ecosystem is essentially insurmountable.10-10-19 10:45 PMLike 0
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Amazing how many people say things are "insurmountable" that actually end up happening with the right vision and passion behind them.10-10-19 11:07 PMLike 0 - https://arstechnica.com/information-...-market-share/
Amazing how many people say things are "insurmountable" that actually end up happening with the right vision and passion behind them.
Today, two of them make up 99.9%, which means developers can reach basically every human being using a smartphone with only two apps. There is no impetus to change that, nor can anyone else afford to go up against either of those juggernauts even if the developers weren't dead set against it (as they are).10-10-19 11:13 PMLike 0 - Yes, but those times were different, with many ecosystems vying for market share.
Today, two of them make up 99.9%, which means developers can reach basically every human being using a smartphone with only two apps. There is no impetus to change that, nor can anyone else afford to go up against either of those juggernauts even if the developers weren't dead set against it (as they are).
If people react to the world, they make no progress. All progress depends on those who make the world react to their vision.
Posted via CB1010-10-19 11:34 PMLike 0 -
Demand for tech revolution there but now both desktop and mobile have oligopoly status. Next OS if, big if, would have to replace Android/iOS, either one because of binary economic nature. Same as Betamax, VHS only getting displaced from DVD and streaming.10-10-19 11:54 PMLike 0 - I'm well aware of desktop Linux's status (I've got a Mint machine), but, again, commercially, it's a non-entity. No company could sustain a business selling only Linux desktop computers, in other words. We're talking about profit-generating business models here.
Google, for example, pours money into LInux development because they want to make sure Linux users can use Google's paid services as well as their "free" ad-supported services - and because Google uses Linux on the vast majority of their own internal desktop machines. But Google can easily take that loss, because it's a drop in the bucket compared to their net profits.10-11-19 05:57 AMLike 0 -
It's not hard to imagine a strong and sustainable mobile FOSS niche of 1-5% active users emerging as mobile matures. Google know this, which is why Android is still free, to prevent a Linux "jailbreak" from Google's control.10-11-19 06:08 AMLike 0
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