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BlackBerry Back In Profit
An anonymous reader sends word that BlackBerry, hit hard over the past several years by the emergence of smart phones, has come back to profitability.
BlackBerry has been fighting an uphill battle to stay relevant in the world of mobile devices. It has lost market share to Apple, companies like Samsung that offer gadgets running on Google's Android operating system, and Microsoft. But John Chen, who took over as CEO in November, has injected new life to the company. Chen, who says BlackBerry is getting close to breaking even on its hardware business, has steered the company's focus more towards software. He's made several product announcements that Wall Street has cheered. Last month, the company launched its Project Ion, an initiative to develop more connected devices ... a trend dubbed the Internet of Things. On Wednesday, BlackBerry reached a deal with Amazon that will let users of BlackBerry's newest operating system access Android apps in Amazon's appstore later this fall.
Blackberry may make a comeback as the "big business smartphone". All the other smartphones are slaves to Apple or Google or a carrier. Blackberry phones are slaves to the enterprise Blackberry server, and Blackberry itself doesn't see phone traffic. Blackberry is the only major vendor serious about security and encryption. Everybody else is into advertising revenue.
The CEO cut his way to profitability. Its an old cheap trick that usually helps only the CEO's bonuses/compensation and in the meantime, hurts the company's long term prospects.
The deal with Amazon? Pfft. BFD.
RIM/Blackberry will be back in the red by year end.
RIM is mostly dead and even Miracle Max can't help them.
I recently got back from a trip to Latin America. Blackerries were *everywhere,* with everyone BBMing like mad. iPhones were almost non-existent, with a smattering of older Android devices. I think we tend to take an America / Western Europe approach when in fact it's apparent that BB remains strong in 'emerging' markets.
Were those BBs new? Or were they referbs or hand me downs - like the clothing that ends up down there from all those clothing drives by charities that just won't stop leaving those bags on my porch.
Look at all the smartphones you see nowadays. The last popular Android smartphone I saw that had a keyboard was a Droid 4 -- the rest have followed the Apple cult ideology of "thinner is better."
I doubt touchscreen only BlackBerrys do/would sell well.
Does anyone really think Blackberry has any chance of long-term survival in its current form? A true turnaround can't occur if your revenues are in death spiral and businesses avoid you like a leper.
I used Blackberries for a while for work, but last last smart phone purchase was an Android. It's a great mini computer, very flexible and handy to have. However, Android sucks at being a phone. I've tried several Android phones and they are all terrible for typing, making calls, accepting calls, dealign with touch-tone situations.... I want my smart phone to be a phone first and mobile computer second. This is an area where Blackberry seems well suited. Blackberries, especially ones with physical keyboards, are nicer to type on, handle making/receiving calls better and are more security focused. For these reasons I will probably go back to BB when my current Android phone hits its end of contract.
and not the Boxster, with the top down, and on his BB phone, on the freeway
Canada's new IT department (Shared Services Canada) has mandated BlackBerry-Only. So even though companies across the world are saving billions with promoting BYOD, SSC has gone back to the early 2000's.
Right. Super serious about security, enough to give the decryption keys to any country that asks. I feel very safe knowing the Indian and Saudi governments can read any of my messages.
The slashdot headline says "..Back in Profit." Unfortunately not so.
The original article is informative. Under Chen's leadership Blackberry has
increased their profitability so they are no longer losing so much money.
They are, however, NOT PROFITABLE. Their loss prior to some accounting
tricks (that will make the number worse) is $0.11/shr. That means an
investor holding 1000 shares just lost $110 (if he/she sold them).
While profitability as a measure of how well a company performs is good,
and acknowledging that LOSING MILLIONS is a lot better than LOSING
HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS (see e.g. Radio Shack)... Blackberry has a
long long way to go.
The article ends with the two avenues Blackberry is pursuing: hardware and
software (how inventive, right?)
- Hardware: they're going to try and create Internet enabled gadgets. As
Blackberry's core hardware competence has always been its bundled
business services this is a big departure. They fight uphill against
Samsung watches, Apple gizmos, Google's Nest, etc.
- Sofware: They bought the right to allow their product to access the
Amazon Play Store (android apps from Amazon only). The win here
is they prove their product REALLY CAN run android apps. The lose
is that instead of opening it up to the Google Play store (most
android apps) they've allowed a limited (by Amazon) subset of apps,
and most designed to siphon extra $$$ and hand them off to Amazon.
This is something we can expect to see Amazon touting as a win in
it's 10Q.
I wish them well. I was surprised by the headline. BlackBerry is
doing well to reduce loss, and less loss is higher profitability, but
they're still chewing threw their cash and unless they stem and
correct that they will be gone.
E
Just use Snap to get full access to Google's Android app store. It's unofficial, but works great. Not all Android apps work, but plenty do. http://redlightoflove.com/snap...
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
Blackberry sales actually went up this quarter. Revenue was only down a few million from last quarter which is absolutely great considering they have been consistently been losing 20% revenue every quarter.
They're still king in enterprises. Guaranteed, they are now facing competition in the enterprise space but handsets represent the majority of their losses. John Chen is now using foxconn to offset inventory risk. He's a business man and knows exactly what he's doing whereas you sound like you have no idea. I think maybe you should actually look into their upcoming products and software instead of spouting off FUD spread by the media.
And finally, what financial engineering are you talking about? Maybe it's the spending of money in the right areas (nanthealth, android app compatibility) and cutting them in the places (destitute app store, handset inventory) that have been making none. Sounds like a good CEO to me.
Oh, yes. Companies like Blackberry, Apple, Microsoft, et. al. should all be "digital anarchists" and rebel against the governments of the countries they sell products and services in because you say so.
How about you put your ass on the line against those governments?
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
BTW, that happens to include "friendly" governments like those of the UK, US, Canada, and Australia.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
That's unpossible
"A 'person' is smart. 'People' are dumb, panicky animals and you know that."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The slashdot headline says "..Back in Profit." Unfortunately not so.
The original article is informative. Under Chen's leadership Blackberry has
increased their profitability so they are no longer losing so much money.
They are, however, NOT PROFITABLE. Their loss prior to some accounting
tricks (that will make the number worse) is $0.11/shr. That means an
investor holding 1000 shares just lost $110 (if he/she sold them).
While profitability as a measure of how well a company performs is good,
and acknowledging that LOSING MILLIONS is a lot better than LOSING
HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS (see e.g. Radio Shack)... Blackberry has a
long long way to go.
The article ends with the two avenues Blackberry is pursuing: hardware and
software (how inventive, right?)
- Hardware: they're going to try and create Internet enabled gadgets. As
Blackberry's core hardware competence has always been its bundled
business services this is a big departure. They fight uphill against
Samsung watches, Apple gizmos, Google's Nest, etc.
- Sofware: They bought the right to allow their product to access the
Amazon Play Store (android apps from Amazon only). The win here
is they prove their product REALLY CAN run android apps. The lose
is that instead of opening it up to the Google Play store (most
android apps) they've allowed a limited (by Amazon) subset of apps,
and most designed to siphon extra $$$ and hand them off to Amazon.
This is something we can expect to see Amazon touting as a win in
it's 10Q.
I wish them well. I was surprised by the headline. BlackBerry is
doing well to reduce loss, and less loss is higher profitability, but
they're still chewing threw their cash and unless they stem and
correct that they will be gone.
E
haven't heard much about them since the Iphone and Samsung smartphones came out. was wondering what happend to Blackberry. thanks for posting the news.
Selling phones below cost and major cost cutting doesn't turn into a positive long term trend. It just gets the CEO paid well for a while, nice golden parachute and lines them up for a job with a company that actually has a chance of surviving.
I like blackberry. Good solid hardware. The OS is far better than ios or android, at least until recently. The security is excellent.
But they rested on their laurels too long and everything they're doing now is too little, too late. I'm sure that certain verticals will keep using their stuff for a while, but the world has moved on.
Of course they're back to profitable. They fired everyone in customer support.
Opinions are like assholes.
You forget about the CarrierIQ scandal? Only because they were caught.
This means nothing, they can see your actual mac address once it connects to an AP.
Actually, they can't read all messages. Even RIM can't read all messages.
There are two modes a Blackberry can work in - BES mode and BIS mode. BES mode is when your Blackberry is attached to a Blackberry Enterprise Server machine. What happens in this case is all traffic between your phone and BES is encrypted with a per-device key known only to BES and your phone. While your phone forwards traffic to RIM (or a country server), that traffic is encrypted using that key, and no one handling the traffic between your phone and BES can see it. Basically your phone sends data to RIM, and RIM forwards it onto your BES server, but RIM cannot see the traffic as the keys are held by BES and the phone.
In BIS mode (Blackberry Internet Service, I think) which is the "consumer" mode of operation, RIM etc., hold the keys. Your traffic is encrypted by the phone and decrypted by RIM before being sent on the general Internet (unencypted). The only people who cannot see the traffic is the carriers and gateways between the carrier and RIM.
The country servers that do the decryption can decrypt in this mode as well, for obvious reasons.
It's a fairly secure setup, as long as you're attached to BES. The phones you buy from a carrier and you enter your POP or IMAP information into? Not so much.