Blackberry Moves Non-Handset Divisions Into New Business Unit

First time accepted submitter BarbaraHudson (3785311) writes The CBC is reporting that Blackberry has made preparations to abandon the phone market by spinning pieces of the business off into Blackberry Technology Solutions. From the article: "The unit ... includes QNX, the company that BlackBerry acquired and used to develop the operating system that became the platform for its new smartphones, and Certicom, a former independent Toronto-area company with advanced security software. BTS will also include BlackBerry's Project Ion, which is an application platform focused on machine-to-machine Internet technology, Paratek antenna tuning technology and about 44,000 patents." When you have less market share than Windows Phone, it's time to throw in the towel ... or as they say in the new "lets not admit we screwed up" vernacular, "pivot to take advantage of new opportunities."

Comments

Looks like some editorializing by the submitter

[hyades1]

I read TFA, and saw nothing about Blackberry supposedly trying to spin a screw-up as anything else. And I heard one of CBC's tech people discuss this move on CBC Radio 1 today. Again, there was nothing about Blackberry throwing in the towel, even on its handsets. In fact, the new one was reported to be garnering a fair bit of positive feedback. I have no idea whether that's true or not, but that is what was reported on CBC.

I'm not a Blackberry fanboi by any stretch of the imagination, in fact, my current and former phones are Samsung, but the summary offered above is dishonest...plain and simple.

Re:Looks like some editorializing by the submitter

[hyades1]

The summary is inaccurate from the first sentence on. There's a difference between "shifting focus" and "abandoning the market", even in the euphemistic language of business PR types. And the transition Levy was talking about was to a focus on business applications and away from general public, except in certain markets.

Re:Looks like some editorializing by the submitter

[theshowmecanuck]

Missed the market shift? No, they pulled a Novell. They got too big for their britches and assumed because they were number one, they could dictate how things should be. They stopped innovating and became relatively stagnant. Meanwhile others went around them and delivered stuff that the market wanted and before they knew it, they weren't number one any more. I call anything like this Novell Syndrome.

Re:Moving valuable assets into one division will h

[narcc]

Blackberry: Gone in a year since 2010

Their demise, I presume, will coincide with the year of the Linux desktop and strong AI.

Re:BarbaraHudson is an absolute idiot

[PapayaSF]

Time to throw in the towel when it's the first time in years the company is making a profit? Why the fuck would BlackBerry want to do that?

Because it's the first time in years the company is making a profit? Won't that mean they'd get more for it?

Yes, people have been predicting doom for Blackberry for a while, but it's hard to see some big turnaround on the horizon, with millions of people abandoning Apple and Android.

(My, how times change. The first iPhone came out a little over seven years ago, to widespread mockery: "It has no keyboard!" "It's too expensive!" "Businesses and government will never abandon their Blackberries!" And now Blackberry is a shadow of it's former self, and we're arguing whether they're totally doomed or not....)

Re:Yes BarbaraHudson is an absolute idiot

[hyades1]

Thanks for that. I'm not used to seeing Slashdot submitters who are outright liars.

The thing is, I happened to be home today, so I heard everything CBC had to say about this story, and I read what they put up on their site, too. Sock Puppet BarbaraHudson's summary simply did not match what was reported. It did, however, bear a close enough resemblance to make it obvious the deception was not accidental.

Re:Moving valuable assets into one division will h

[ClaymoreZA]

I think .5 is the US market share, not global. In many countries, they have significant market share. In South Africa, for example, they're just behind Samsung, with 5-10 times Apple's market share. It's similar in places like Indonesia. Also, market share is not the whole story. They have devices and software in some very influential areas - most of the G20 governments, and most leading companies in certain markets.