What's the deal with BB10 and Qualcomm drivers?

Chen has been reported saying Qualcomm drivers are too expensive to invest in for BB10 and this is why they basically released rebanded phones (classic and leap) with old tech so they don't have to spend more money and this is probably why there are no more bb10 devices on the horizon.

So what is the deal with these drivers and how much investment is required? I know BB10 devices are halted right now and possibly forever but it seems to me that offering the same handset with an option for either BB10 or Android is a larger piece of the pie with no extra investment on hardware (only software/drivers). But it would seem BlackBerry feels the RoE is simply not worth it and is putting everything in android right now

It's not just the custom drivers... it's a combination of drivers, extended support for BB10, extended developmental cost, extended licensing fees that blackberry has to pay for software and maybe even hardware..

We simply have no clue what BB10 really cost... but unlike many here that belive it's good enough right now. I don't. I don't think you can release new products without being fully invested in updating the software.

While I do imagine that the custom drivers were expensive... I don't belive they would have cost more than a few hundred thousand, say a million dollars on the high end. I think the Classic and the LEAP were casualties of over ordering for the Z10.... they had a contract to fulfill


All we really know if that if Chen can make money with Android... he'll stay in the hardware business, if he can't they will exit hardware.

The deal with all this is very simple and has been clear for some time now. BlackBerry has decided, even if they haven't stated it explicitly, that they won't be making any more BB10 phones.

Posted via CB10

Originally Posted by DamianWarS

But it would seem BlackBerry feels the RoE is simply not worth it and is putting everything in android right now

That's pretty much the deal right there, isn't it?

If the driver work was outsourced, then he is telling the truth. Outsourced work is not cheap, you have to pay in the 5 digits and fill out lots of paperwork to have a text string edited.

Originally Posted by Technarch

If the driver work was outsourced, then he is telling the truth. Outsourced work is not cheap, you have to pay in the 5 digits and fill out lots of paperwork to have a text string edited.

And if internal then it's cheap?

Originally Posted by Technarch

If the driver work was outsourced, then he is telling the truth. Outsourced work is not cheap, you have to pay in the 5 digits and fill out lots of paperwork to have a text string edited.

So no more than 100k? If true then what Chen probably is saying is bb10 devices don't make money so we're not investing in them even if the investment is low. This is like throwing a drowning person a boulder.

Edit: Misread the line about 5 figures for a simple edit. If that is true then it would costs millions for outsourced drivers. I'm not sure if anyone really has a good idea of how much this stuff really costs

Originally Posted by DamianWarS

So no more than 100k? If true then what Chen probably is saying is bb10 devices don't make money so we're not investing in them even if the investment is low. This is like throwing a drowning person a boulder.

Edit: Misread the line about 5 figures for a simple edit. If that is true then it would costs millions for outsourced drivers. I'm not sure if anyone really has a good idea of how much this stuff really costs

There have been discussions on CB about what this "should" cost. The key fact, though, is that parts of this work are on Qualcomm. Qualcomm does a lot of work to make sure Android works well on their chipsets, because that's how they sell these things. Getting BB10 to work well is obviously not important to Qualcomm since it adds very little to what they really care about, which is selling hundreds of millions of their SoC's.

I'm guessing at some point they presented a massive bill to Chen and said ok, if you want to pay this much then we can make the effort to support you on this BB10 thing. Otherwise it's time to move on.