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RIM Manufacturing Partner Pulls the Plug On BlackBerry Phones

Posted by samzenpus on from the one-step-closer-to-the-end dept.

zacharye writes "Toronto-based original device manufacturer Celestica on Monday announced that it will stop producing hardware for struggling mobile device vendor Research In Motion. Celestica stated that it will wind down manufacturing services related to BlackBerry devices over the next three to six months, and it expects restructuring charges to be less than $35 million."

31 of 100 comments (clear)

  1. So Sad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The rise and downfall of RIM parallel's slashdot, myspace and others in many ways.
    The early leaders that never adapted and eventually get surpassed by better, smarter competitors. The desperate and late attempts to remain relevant only to just slowly fade into obscurity.

    Really sad.

    1. Re:So Sad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      The rise and downfall of RIM parallel's slashdot, myspace and others in many ways.

      You're still here... :-)

    2. Re:So Sad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      The rise and downfall of RIM parallel's slashdot, myspace and others in many ways.

      You're still here... :-)

      His point *exactly*.

    3. Re:So Sad by larry+bagina · · Score: 2

      I've been checking Y combinator's hacker news (which has more of an emphasis on dumb startup companies) and reddit programming lately.

      --
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      These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

  2. So what does this mean? by arketh · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Are they the only manufacturer of Blackberry devices or are they just one of many?

    1. Re:So what does this mean? by mccdyl001 · · Score: 5, Informative

      From this Chicago Tribune article, it sounds like there were 4 major manufacturers and now there will be 3. Celestica apparently made the Blackberry Bold & Curve models, and the article seems to indicate that those models will be moved over to one of the other manufacturers.

    2. Re:So what does this mean? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, they're not.

      And - BGR has taken paticular interest in finding news about rim and turning into a negative thing. What manufacturer would intentionally stop building devices at contract volumes and rates? My bet is RIM pulled their business for some reason. In order words, this is a non-story that BGR is turning into a negative story about RIM.

      Ever since RIM gave all the other sites BB10 dev alpha devices and didn't give one to BGR, they've been running constant negative coverage.

    3. Re:So what does this mean? by BitZtream · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They pulled their business because NO ONE IS BUYING THE DEVICES.

      Whats difficult to understand here? No one buys these devices anymore, so they'll reducing the amount of manufacturing potential they have rather than keeping a production line ready and costing them to sit idle. This is just another part of the death spiral to everyone with their eyes open.

      --
      Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
    4. Re:So what does this mean? by RevGregory · · Score: 2

      What manufacturer would intentionally stop building devices at contract volumes and rates?

      A manufacturer that has determined that the volume of manufacturing being requested no longer justifies the base cost of tying up resources in light of opportunities to contract with other clients whose outlook isn't as bleak as RIM's currently is. Also, if they aren't one of the companies that RIM is contracting to produce their last gasp BB10 handsets or they lack confidence in BB10, they are MUCH better off repositioning themselves to work with other companies now rather than riding RIMs decline even farther. If they have ANY opportunity to enter into production for someone else right now I'd imagine they'd jump given RIMs positively slothful response to changes in a market they once dominated.

    5. Re:So what does this mean? by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 2

      And - BGR has taken paticular interest in finding news about rim and turning into a negative thing.

      OK, so how would you spin that as a positive? Yes, recent news stories about RIM and Nokia are consistently negative. Maybe that's because there's not a lot of positive to report about either company at this time.

      --
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    6. Re:So what does this mean? by bigrockpeltr · · Score: 2

      Its not about making something sound positive, its about going out of your way to make something sound negative. TFA makes it sound like celestica decided to dump rim when in fact it is the other way around. RIM seems to be consolidating and decided to drop one of their manufacturing partners which recently hasnt been manufacturing hardware for RIM anyways.

      --
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  3. RIM shut them down by tomhath · · Score: 2

    From the article it sounds like RIM decided to drop them as a manufacturer. Maybe move to China, maybe move to Android or Windows based phones, maybe go bust. We'll see.

    1. Re:RIM shut them down by ArhcAngel · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I've never owned a BB but this huge negative PR event caused me to never care about this company, ever again.

      So you already didn't care about any of the other mobile phone manufacturers because their devices were already being snooped on because their devices didn't have encryption in the first place? It wasn't like RIM didn't fight against it. It's their security that has been their bread and butter since the beginning. If data is going through a BIS/BES not even RIM has the keys to decrypt the traffic.

      --
      "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
    2. Re:RIM shut them down by Dcnjoe60 · · Score: 2

      Or maybe, because the demand for the models created at this manufacturer is declining so much, that RIM doesn't need the excess manufacturing capacity. There are 4 factories producing phones for RIM. This equates to a 25% cut in manufacturing (actually less, since the other factories can pick up some if not all of the lost capacity).

      Ford and GM close plants all the time and nobody shouts the sky is falling. The sky may very well be falling for RIM, but closing a plant and moving production elsewhere are not evidence of it.

    3. Re:RIM shut them down by thePowerOfGrayskull · · Score: 2

      Actually there was. BES can't be decrypted by RIM because the customer owns the keypairs used to encrypt the data . They've never wavered on that.

  4. RIM's got a 100-year supply anyway by swschrad · · Score: 4, Funny

    so this doesn't mean much.

    --
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    1. Re:RIM's got a 100-year supply anyway by h4rr4r · · Score: 2, Funny

      I bet they won't even sell all 100 devices in that time.

  5. If RIM were a passenger jet... by Sponge+Bath · · Score: 5, Funny

    The stick would be shaking and an artificial voice would be warning: "pull up, pull up".

    1. Re:If RIM were a passenger jet... by masternerdguy · · Score: 2

      They can still salvage the platform.

      --
      To offset political mods, replace Flamebait with Insightful.
    2. Re:If RIM were a passenger jet... by CohibaVancouver · · Score: 2

      The LAST thing to do in that situation is pull up.

      He may be confusing TCAS warnings although I think TCAS would say "TRAFFIC CLIMB CLIMB CLIMB"

    3. Re:If RIM were a passenger jet... by spire3661 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      We dont want them to. We want them to suffer from their hubris and stupidity. Blackberry SUCKS. In the face of competition they thumbed their nose at their customer, instead of rising to meet the challenge. RIM deserves to die because they thought they could ride secure email until the end of the mobile revolution.

      --
      Good-bye
    4. Re:If RIM were a passenger jet... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      We dont want them to. We want them to suffer from their hubris and stupidity. Blackberry SUCKS. In the face of competition they thumbed their nose at their customer, instead of rising to meet the challenge. RIM deserves to die because they thought they could ride secure email until the end of the mobile revolution.

      That depends on your point of view. My employer is now contemplating the option of either banning personal phones for all employees and mandating Blackberry phones or forcing them to install some security suite on their personal phones that gives our MCSEs "complete control over all devices with company data" including the ability to brick then remotely. So if you are fond of a North Korea like IT infrastructure where all employees use phones and laptops that are under complete company control via some Active Directory like system and where the user is not blessed with admin rights the Blackberry ecosystem is heaven.

  6. Obviously... by IGnatius+T+Foobar · · Score: 5, Funny

    Clearly the decline of RIM is at the hands of Microsoft, whose Innovative(tm) Windows Phone brings consumers all of the Innovative(tm) features they've been looking for; once they had a taste of Innovative(tm) Windows Phone(tm) there was no further demand for Blackberry.

    It is rumored that Apple and Google also have products in this space but they are irrelevant.

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    1. Re:Obviously... by h4rr4r · · Score: 4, Informative

      Truth be told, it was MS who killed RIM. ActiveSync, the mobile syncing software used in Exchange and several other commercial mail servers, made BES unnecessary for a lot of companies. I know at my company only devices with ActiveSync support are used. We shut down our BES over a year ago and were glad to see it go.

      RIM should have had ActiveSync on BB devices as soon as it started to be popular, instead they kept wanting that BES licensing money and it led to their own demise.

    2. Re:Obviously... by davester666 · · Score: 2

      Was it? Or was it RIM themselves, which said, well, sure, you've got this fancy, expensive Exchange mail server, but if you want that mail on this RIM phone, you are gonna have to buy some nice expensive software, and some nice expensive hardware, to send that email to our servers, where we will then forward it to your phone.

      Meanwhile, everybody else went, we'll got our fancy expensive phone, and it talks directly to your fancy expensive Exchange server, and you don't have to pay extra for it.

      --
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    3. Re:Obviously... by h4rr4r · · Score: 2

      That was pretty much how it worked. Making it worse for them they had some outages on their servers which made all blackberries in the country useless and IT depts left to angry users that they could do nothing about this.

      RIM should have made ActiveSync an option on the devices. At least that way when people turned off their BES end users might still buy the devices.

  7. Microsoft will buy them by rogueippacket · · Score: 2

    This is a precursor to the official announcement.

    1. Re:Microsoft will buy them by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 2

      No, the First Rider of the Apocalypse is an ex-Microsoft executive moving in as the new CEO. The Second is his retinue of more ex-Microsoft executives, who conquer important operating executive posts. The Third is the announcement of the new Windows Phone strategy.

      The Fourth, is reading the obituary on Slashdot.

      --
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  8. Inaccurate Headline RIM is dropping Celestica by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    This headline is designed to give the impression that Celestica is dropping RIM rather then the other way around. This is about RIM moving manufacturing from one plant to another because it makes business sense and has implications with regard to the continued viability of the business model.

    When will the American media stop bashing Canadian companies into the ground. RIM is sitting on a billion in cash and has no debt. Yes there sales and marketshare are slipping but you'd think that the company was about to go under any minute the way it's reported in the media. The fact is activesync may be good enough for consumers... It isn't good enough for all use cases and the primary use case for the blackberry is corporate/government communications where security, and archival communications logs are important. These are areas where android/iphone/winphone/facephone??? can't even make the grade for inclusion for an RFP let alone proceed to an RFQ stage. As for BEZ licensing... get a better carrier or better procurement team. We haven't paid for a BEZ license directly in a while. The carrier supplies it with the unlimited data plan.

  9. RIM Executives... by DarthVain · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Hey, at least we're not Nokia!" :)

  10. I'd buy one of these ... if by Skapare · · Score: 3, Funny

    ... if it were fast enough, had enough RAM (4G) and storage (32G), and had a fully open architecture ... and priced $1 each.

    --
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