In John Chen's recent Empire Club fireside chat, he mentioned his surprise at the historic lack of support from both Canadian carriers and consumers during Blackberry's recent well known challenges.
He also mentioned Nortel as another domestically abandoned iconic Canadian market leader, which is now typically mentioned by the media in conjunction with Blackberry's fall from prominence. Are Canadians maintaining our famous polite indifference or displaying our well known national low self esteem ? Here we are today greeting the announcement of Blackberry's exit from designing and manufacturing hardware with silent resignation as we watch another Canadian point of pride is driven out of a marketplace they helped create.
One can understand when ICE (U.S. Immigration) elected to move wholesale to Apple, in part to channel taxpayer funding to support their domestic player and (I'm sure) comply with the very vocal local Congressmen to do the patriotic thing and buy American. Nothing wrong in that. However, I've not heard one Canadian voice or institution stand up and a show any concern or support for this home grown innovative company whose brand is known around the world. Where are our politicians giving tangible support to keep this company able to compete internationally by supporting it at home?
I can only surmise that John's "surprise" comes from knowing this type of national indifference would never happen in the U.S. or for that matter in China.