[DaveyBoy71]

So, now that we know the rubber meets the road in September what could BlackBerry realistically accomplish within the next 5 months that would justify continuing on with hardware? If there's a plan in place what could it possibly be? If you had 5 months to pull hardware out of Old Scratch's death grip what would you do? I keep racking my brain trying to come up with some kinda miracle maneuver but I'm coming up short.

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[TgeekB]

There would actually have to be a plan to "pull hardware out of old scratch's death grip".......which there isn't.
Blackberry is no longer concerned with being in the hardware business.

[anon(9607753)]

The rubber was supposed to hit the road in April. Now its hitting the road in September. Sales dropped again. But sales targets keep changing. Sounds to me as if they are looking for reasons to stay in the hardware business, not get out of it. LOL.

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[DaveyBoy71]

The thing that doesn't make sense to me is why on earth would Chen even make the Priv. If he really wanted out of Hardware why not just stop making bb10 phones and do another coming soon song and dance until he liquidated old stock

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[DaveyBoy71]

And then just vanish into the world of software.


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[Taigatrommel]

I have been wondering the same and I guess a lot of people do. Let's get the facts straight:
The Priv, their virtually best horse to bet on, is getting six months old soon, that is quite a bit in the fast pacing mobile world. What makes it worse the first 2016 flagships like the S7 or G5 are hitting the shelves or are available already. If that wouldn't be worse enough, BlackBerry still hasn't adjusted the price. A Galaxy S7 offers more modern components (PKB aside!) at just a slightly higher price, the G5 does the same at a similar price. That also means last year devices like the S6, Z5 or Motorola X are being sold much cheaper than the Priv, offering similar performance (again PKB aside) for much less money.

One thing BlackBerry could do would be an adjustment of the price. I think it is somewhat too late to ramp up the marketing, they missed that moment and doing it now won't help much IMHO.

So I guess hardware sales won't simply go up or even explode by themselves without BlackBerry taking any action. Sure the Priv got released to more countries and/or carriers since earlier this year, but I somehow doubt we'll see doubling sales of that unit.

Looking at the BB10 situation, I don't think the sales will get better, actually I expect them to fall rapidly. Especially with business customers, I guess existing customers will keep their BB10 fleet for now, but I somehow doubt they'll get any new companies to deploy BB10 at a good rate.


What's left? They could release a new device, they could've done so at MWC, but that didn't happen. It's five to six months till September, quite a short timeframe getting a new device out if you ask me. Besides launching and releasing one in summer isn't the best idea either.


To me it seems like John Chen is just sitting back and see how it goes, I wouldn't be surprised if he already gave up hardware internally, the many layoffs we have seen in the past month back that theory up. He just doesn't want to do it officially when they still have stock of devices like Priv, Passport, Classic or Leap.

[JeepBB]

The rubber was supposed to hit the road in April. Now its hitting the road in September. Sales dropped again. But sales targets keep changing. Sounds to me as if they are looking for reasons to stay in the hardware business, not get out of it. LOL.

Sounds to me as if they are looking for reasons to prolong the revenue stream from gullible buyers willing to believe that the hardware decision hasn't already been made.

[DrBoomBotz]

You mean emptying the channel right?

[DaveyBoy71]

I have been wondering the same and I guess a lot of people do. Let's get the facts straight:
The Priv, their virtually best horse to bet on, is getting six months old soon, that is quite a bit in the fast pacing mobile world. What makes it worse the first 2016 flagships like the S7 or G5 are hitting the shelves or are available already. If that wouldn't be worse enough, BlackBerry still hasn't adjusted the price. A Galaxy S7 offers more modern components (PKB aside!) at just a slightly higher price, the G5 does the same at a similar price. That also means last year devices like the S6, Z5 or Motorola X are being sold much cheaper than the Priv, offering similar performance (again PKB aside) for much less money.

One thing BlackBerry could do would be an adjustment of the price. I think it is somewhat too late to ramp up the marketing, they missed that moment and doing it now won't help much IMHO.

So I guess hardware sales won't simply go up or even explode by themselves without BlackBerry taking any action. Sure the Priv got released to more countries and/or carriers since earlier this year, but I somehow doubt we'll see doubling sales of that unit.

Looking at the BB10 situation, I don't think the sales will get better, actually I expect them to fall rapidly. Especially with business customers, I guess existing customers will keep their BB10 fleet for now, but I somehow doubt they'll get any new companies to deploy BB10 at a good rate.


What's left? They could release a new device, they could've done so at MWC, but that didn't happen. It's five to six months till September, quite a short timeframe getting a new device out if you ask me. Besides launching and releasing one in summer isn't the best idea either.


To me it seems like John Chen is just sitting back and see how it goes, I wouldn't be surprised if he already gave up hardware internally, the many layoffs we have seen in the past month back that theory up. He just doesn't want to do it officially when they still have stock of devices like Priv, Passport, Classic or Leap.

+1 but I think there must be someone on the board of directors that is championing the hardware division. BlackBerry has had plenty of opportune moments to pull the plug and they didn't... and I don't think that's by Chen's design. Someone is still fighting for hardware.

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[DaveyBoy71]

That's just my opinion of course...


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[JeepBB]

To me it seems like John Chen is just sitting back and see how it goes, I wouldn't be surprised if he already gave up hardware internally, the many layoffs we have seen in the past month back that theory up. He just doesn't want to do it officially when they still have stock of devices like Priv, Passport, Classic or Leap.

Excellent reasoning!

I couldn't have said it better myself.

It surprises me that more don't see it as it's not a particularly devious or subtle strategy: BB have inventory they need to sell. BB need the revenue to support their transition to software. Few people will buy phones from a company that has declared they are done with hardware.

So, the answer is simple, spend nothing further on hardware and instead use a few well-chosen public statements to pretend that the decision on hardware is yet to be made in the hope that a few more sales can be had from those willing to "believe".

It might work - I'm sure there's no shortage of gullible people in the world. I wonder how many of them will buy a Priv between now and September when Chen will announce the decision he's already made!

An even better strategy would be to announce in September that the decision is still in the balance (it really isn't!) and that he'll finally decide on Hardware's future next April. That way BB get a whole year to practice on the gullible.

[jr4941]

I'm still not sure why the hardware division wasn't put up for sale if they don't want to continue it.

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[JeepBB]

I'm still not sure why the hardware division wasn't put up for sale if they don't want to continue it.

Any transaction involves a seller ... and a buyer.

Who would buy the BB Hardware division?

Possibly BB could throw in a licence for BB10 to sweeten the deal?

[anon(9607753)]

Sounds to me as if they are looking for reasons to prolong the revenue stream from gullible buyers willing to believe that the hardware decision hasn't already been made.

Not a big fan of conspiracy theories but go ahead, knock yourself out.

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[DrBoomBotz]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnotology

My theory is that the more people get bombarded with the ignorance ray the more susceptible they are to it.

[JeepBB]

Not a big fan of conspiracy theories but go ahead, knock yourself out.

You think it's a conspiracy theory that BB have significant unsold inventory that they want to sell?

Okay, knock yourself out.

[anon(9607753)]

You think it's a conspiracy theory that BB have significant unsold inventory that they want to sell?

Okay, knock yourself out.

And how exactly do you know how much unsold inventory they have? Oh that's right, you don't.

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[early2bed]

One thing BlackBerry could do would be an adjustment of the price. I think it is somewhat too late to ramp up the marketing, they missed that moment and doing it now won't help much IMHO.

There's absolutely no way that the low-volume competitor wins on price. That truly is "marketing 101." The fact that John Chen is even considering this means that he thinking short term about how to unwind the hardware operations. Just how do you become profitable by lowering the profit margin on your handsets?

+1 but I think there must be someone on the board of directors that is championing the hardware division. BlackBerry has had plenty of opportune moments to pull the plug and they didn't... and I don't think that's by Chen's design. Someone is still fighting for hardware.

I doubt it. John Chen has mentioned that there are still people in the organization (practically anyone left from the good old days) that are focused on hardware, probably, because their jobs depend on it.

[Troy Tiscareno]

I'm still not sure why the hardware division wasn't put up for sale if they don't want to continue it.

There's not much of a "hardware division" left. Most have been laid off, and others have been reassigned. For the last 2 years, most phones have had their designs mostly done by their OEM partners in addition to the actual manufacturing. There's likely little more then a skeleton management crew remaining. The same is true of the OS portion of the "hardware division". BB10 is likely being worked on by less than a dozen people at this point, and the Android team is likely no more than 50.

What is there really to sell, and as others have pointed out, who would buy it? I could see buying the smartphone-related patents, but the employees? What would they be able to do that others couldn't? More likely, if someone was interested, they'd offer contract positions to key BB employees for a year for a knowledge transfer, and maybe offer a few of them jobs.

[Taigatrommel]

There's absolutely no way that the low-volume competitor wins on price. That truly is "marketing 101." The fact that John Chen is even considering this means that he thinking short term about how to unwind the hardware operations. Just how do you become profitable by lowering the profit margin on your handsets?



I doubt it. John Chen has mentioned that there are still people in the organization (practically anyone left from the good old days) that are focused on hardware, probably, because their jobs depend on it.

How do you keep selling your products and keep your inventory moving if people just stop buying your produced phones? As already said, the Priv has a difficult stand in competing with current products. Now I don't want to say nobody is going to buy the Priv anymore, in fact I still would, but people who don't actually *need* a physical under all circumstances will compare prices and reconsider their options. Just in terms of local Euro it is questionable if one should spend an additional 250 bucks just for the keyboard.

That's the problem in the Android world: Phones lose their initial value pretty fast and competition is tough.
IIRC he mentioned he is looks at the price again, on the CNBC interview he also stated the high price is one of the most major drawbacks of the otherwise well received phone. That is something he could control if he wants to.

[JeepBB]

And how exactly do you know how much unsold inventory they have? Oh that's right, you don't.

Let's keep this simple.

Can you buy a Priv or Passport, today?

Are there stores near you holding stock of BB phones?

Multiply that situation by all the stores not near where you are.

Can you buy a Priv or Passports directly from BB?

That's "unsold inventory".

There's a lot of it.

BB want to sell it.

Or, is that a conspiracy?

[anon(9607753)]

Let's keep this simple.

Can you buy a Priv or Passport, today?

Are there stores near you holding stock of BB phones?

Multiply that situation by all the stores not near where you are.

Can you buy a Priv or Passports directly from BB?

That's "unsold inventory".

There's a lot of it.

BB want to sell it.

Or, is that a conspiracy?

It's OK, you don't have to explain again...I get it. You don't know. And by the way, 'conspiracy' refers to your asinine theory that BlackBerry has already decided to kill the hardware division and is lying to its customers only so they will keep buying phones. A factless assertion based on extreme prejudice. But I won't go there. I've wasted enough time with you already. Good day!

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[JeepBB]

I've wasted enough time with you already. Good day!

LOL

Come back anytime. I'm happy to help.

[pdizzle27]

To me it seems like John Chen is just sitting back and see how it goes, I wouldn't be surprised if he already gave up hardware internally, the many layoffs we have seen in the past month back that theory up. He just doesn't want to do it officially when they still have stock of devices like Priv, Passport, Classic or Leap.[/QUOTE]

I agree 100%. The idea that they're going t keep trying until September is a fallacy. For them, it's putting on a front to sell the remaining stock. If they can't sell phones though, are they going to be any better at marketing software?

[khlover520]

LOL

Come back anytime. I'm happy to help.

He's kind of right lol let's give Chen the benefit of the doubt and see if what he believes can be achieved by this September.

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