@BlackBerry, The end Of An Era?

Posted on October 1, 2016 Updated on October 1, 2016

At this past Wednesday’s earnings call @BlackBerry made it official that they are exiting the hardware business. That is they will no longer design and manufacture phones. For anyone paying attention, even remotely, to the goings on with BlackBerry this should not come as a surprise. The first glaring clue should have been the #Dtek50. That was BlackBerry telling us without telling us. One other piece of item that should not be forgotten is that John Chen is a software guy so should the path BlackBerry is on really surprise anyone?
BlackBerry will continue to put out phones only they won’t be the one making them. Let’s not forget the #Dtek60 is around the corner and the ‘mercury’ I assume at some point in early 2017. This of course means nothing because after their announcement all you could read were headlines with ‘quit’,’bailed’,’ending’,end of an era’,’no longer’ and on and on and on.. why? Because haters gonna hate.

This announcement certainly garnered a lot of reaction and emotion… some of it even anger. I am a proud Canadian and proud to support a Canadian icon like BlackBerry. I am first and foremost a BlackBerry supporter. It’s a business and I have come to terms and understand that John Chen had to do what he had to do to ensure BlackBerry didn’t go away. Am I angry that BlackBerry will no longer manufacturer the phones? No. Am I sad? Yes. It does make me sad. Interestingly enough I think BlackBerry has always been about software but let’s face it when u hear ‘BlackBerry’ your first reaction will always be hardware; the cell phone. For me BlackBerry has always been about gorgeous ‘look and feel’ and quality phones. Name me a BlackBerry phone that didn’t have quality behind it? That’s what I worry will happen with outsourcing. Take a look at the #DTEK50.. I had a chance to look at one up close and personal and in hand I don’t feel that quality. I understand it’s a low end phone but still. The ‘powers in the know’ are reassuring the BlackBerry faithful that BlackBerry will continue to have a say and QA input with these future outsourced phones. Let’s hope so.

The Passport SE one of the best examples of what quality is..

So is it the end of an era? Well ya I kinda think so… but is it a new beginning as John Chen put it? It certainly is.

http://crackberry.com/john-chen-its-start-new-chapter-rather-end-era

http://crackberry.com/john-chen-blackberry-keyboard-will-live

http://crackberry.com/blackberry-announces-plans-end-all-internal-hardware-development-will-outsource-partners-here

http://utbblogs.com/blackberry-isnt-dead-yet-2/

http://utbblogs.com/blackberry-isnt-dead-yet-2/