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BlackBerry Looking To Quench 'Insatiable Demand' For New Smartphones

DavidGilbert99 writes "BlackBerry is on something of a roll. It finally delivered its BlackBerry 10 platform along with the first smartphone to run the OS, the Z10 in January. This weekend saw the launch of the Q10 and there is an 'insatiable demand' for this smartphone with its physical keyboard, says BlackBerry's UK head Rob Orr."

23 of 173 comments (clear)

  1. Um? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Has the company a question mark?

    1. Re:Um? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Most consumers has a ? about BlackBerry, and the company's future has in ?, and they may even has cheezeburger ?, but I'm not sure if the company has ?.

    2. Re:Um? by gadzook33 · · Score: 4, Funny

      No no, it's a mad lib. Like has the company underpants.

    3. Re:Um? by fellip_nectar · · Score: 3, Funny

      The submitter accidentally the whole summary.

      --
      Worst. Signature. Ever.
    4. Re:Um? by NatasRevol · · Score: 4, Funny

      Next week?
      Next year?
      Tomorrow?
      The future?
      A porn star?

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
    5. Re:Um? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      They'll have problems stealing market share from Windows Phone 8. Microsoft Windows Phone 8 is the best phone I've ever used, slick and professional yet friendly, warm and welcoming. Windows Phone 8 is the phone for me bar none, and it should be the phone for you.

      RIM may make good phones, but why would you buy anything but a Windows Phone 8, it's so clever, so smooth so intuitive and so beautiful!

      Have you tried it yet?

    6. Re:Um? by mccrew · · Score: 3, Insightful
      --
      Hey, Windows users, there is no such thing as "forward" slash, there is only slash and backslash.
  2. has the company... by alphatel · · Score: 5, Funny

    Is ? the new !

    --
    When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
  3. Blaance Sheets and Cash Flow statements by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    BBRY is doing quite well. Anyone familiar with balance sheets and cash flow statements knows that BBRY is not near death and has never beeen near death. The companyi s a cash generator. People need to realize this.

    People are startign to realize this. With 30%+ short interest in the stock, a short squeeze is overdue. I bought in at several price points. Lowest being around $8/ share. My only regret is not putting even more money into BBRY at that time.

  4. finally by slashmydots · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This might be one of those times when everyone in the market is pissing people off with features they don't want getting shoved down their throat (a gigantic, fragile screen with an impossible to type on touchscreen) then one company comes in with exactly what people want. We switched from blackberries to Android phones at my business and now we have zero control over them. There's no centralized anything. It's like a free for all. That is not how you run a business phone system. Also, our salesmen hate the phones and Activesync is a pain in the ass.

    Unfortunately, Blackberry's software was memory leaking, server-controlling garbage so hopefully they fixed that this time around. If so, tough and nice to use phones with central control software and easy exchange integration would be lovely. They'll take over the business market instantly.

    1. Re:finally by ArhcAngel · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Android talks to exchange though the OWA web API.

      Not if it isn't enabled on the server it isn't! In our organization it's either BES or ActiveSync (for either Android or iOS). You can access OWA from a web browser but the API is locked down so even Outlook can't use it on the company issued laptop.

      --
      "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
  5. It's really clear. by goombah99 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Has the company a question mark?

    What he is saying is that the company has finally.

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
    1. Re:It's really clear. by brabo · · Score: 4, Funny

      Has the company a question mark?

      What he is saying is that the company has finally.

      I agree with the.

      --
      --- 'Pain heals, chicks dig scars... glory... lasts for ever!' -- "Footstep" Falco
  6. Physical Keyboard FTW by Bigbutt · · Score: 3, Funny

    Honestly, I have both an Android phone provided by work and an iPhone that I bought and the lack of a physical keyboard has driven me to fling both phones across the room more times that I care to admit (and autocorrect can die in a fire). I have two cracks across the face of my iPhone and am reluctant to upgrade to a new phone just because of the frustration of dealing with the lack of a physical keyboard. I used to have a Blackberry and really liked that it had a physical keyboard.

    [John]

    --
    Shit better not happen!
    1. Re:Physical Keyboard FTW by EmagGeek · · Score: 5, Funny

      "(and autocorrect can die in a fire)"

      Autocorrect can be easily disabilities by any on on either plates formed.

    2. Re:Physical Keyboard FTW by Jerry+Atrick · · Score: 3, Interesting

      My HTC G1 is sitting on my desk right now and I miss it's keyboard on my current mobile. However the market voted and Android devices with keyboards more or less vanished.

      I don't believe there are enough of us hard keyboard lovers to sustain a mass market and BB are about to discover that. BB probably already have all the users this might attract.

    3. Re:Physical Keyboard FTW by narcc · · Score: 4, Insightful

      a horrible OS. It's slow, and the native web browser horrible times ten.

      Sorry, are you from the past?

      The browser is demonstrably the best on the market. It even has the best HTML5 support of any browser, scoring higher than every desktop browser. You find that even sites that use Flash or WebGL run smooth.

      As for the OS being slow, you'd be the first reviewer to suggest such a thing.

      I haven't tried BB OS 10 yet.

      Well, that explains it!

  7. Re:Appalling writing, negligible subbing. by cc1984_ · · Score: 3, Funny

    Give them some credit. They were probably writing it on a BlackBerry keyboard.

  8. Free Trade up by mrops · · Score: 5, Informative

    Well, looks like you need free upgrades. We did a while back. The new platform manages BB and iOS/Android devices. If you have your BES 5.0 and earlier License CALs lying around, its a free upgrade to their new BES 10.0

    https://enterprise.ecomm.webapps.blackberry.com/caltradeup/home.do

    Considering, going forward you will need to pay a monthly fee and the Trade Up program give you non-expiring licenses, I think its a worthy upgrade even if you don't intend to run BB in long run. At least you will have new CALs if you so choose to continue.

  9. They've finally reached the step... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...just before Profit!

  10. Re:Not really what it says by swalve · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I think it's two things. One, Blackberry is not "cool". It seemed to be for like one summer when all the celebrities were carrying around Bold 9000s, but besides that, the Blackberry is more tool and less of a toy. So people who want toys hate them. Secondly, for the longest time, Blackberries were old/cheap/broken pieces of shit people got through their work. So everyone hated them because they were reminders of their job sucking.

  11. Re:TFA sounds like part of a shareholder presentat by schnell · · Score: 3, Interesting

    business users are a much better prospect than consumers

    Unfortunately not so much anymore. That is/was BlackBerry's whole problem. Five years ago, smartphones were purely business tools, and "BlackBerry" was a synonym for "smartphone." But after the iPhone arrived, consumers started buying smartphones. Now, not only is the consumer smartphone market bigger than the business market, BYOD behavior is pushing some businesses to accept the user's choice of devices - which is almost invariably not a BlackBerry.

    BlackBerry's current woes all result from a classic strategic mistake - they kept building products to address their core market, then somebody went and changed the market dynamics on them. I remember reading an interview with a RIM engineer about how they laughed when the iPhone was launched. They said "this thing doesn't have a keyboard, battery life isn't great, there's no corporate administration capability built in... who will ever buy it?" They only realized belatedly that the dynamics had changed a couple years later, and then discovered that they were very poorly positioned to meet the new market's needs.

    --
    "95% of all Slashdot .sig quotes are incorrect or completely fabricated." -Benjamin Franklin
  12. Re:They've got preorders for BOTH of them? by narcc · · Score: 3, Informative

    Except it is true. Blackberry can't give away to keys fro BES users because they don't have them. Blackberry offers the only secure solution if you want to keep your messages private, away from authorities.