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BlackBerry Remains Committed To Smartphone Business, Despite $670M Net Loss In Last Three Months (baytoday.ca)
AchilleTalon writes: BlackBerry CEO John Chen refuses to give up on the company's hardware business despite lackluster sales of its first Android-powered smartphone, the Priv. The Canadian smartphone maker reported a $670 million net loss in the first quarter of its 2017 financial year, but said its recovery plan for the year remains on track. Chen, who has stated the company's No. 1 goal is to make its smartphone device business profitable this fiscal year, said he expects the company's new mobility solutions segment to break even or record a slight profit during the third quarter, which ends Nov. 30, 2016. During BlackBerry's first quarter -- second full quarter to include Priv sales -- the company sold roughly 500,000 devices at an average price of $290 each, he said, which is about 100,000 smartphones fewer than the previous quarter and about 200,000 fewer than two quarters earlier. Previously, the company said it needs to sell about three million phones at an average of $300 each to break even, though Chen indicated that may change as the software licensing business starts to contribute to revenue.
Recognize their business has failed and decide to give money back to investors.
I'm LOLing at the Europeans this morning, most of whom are mourning the first of many nations to leave the EU. It's a matter of time before the rest of the EU fails, too. I'm so thankful for being a Canadian, because we are smarter and better than the Europeans and Americans.
They sold out their customers wholesale to any and all law enforcement that came calling, complete with master key. Why would anyone still want to carry one of their phones, regardless of OS?
Blackberry is running as if telcos are its customers. They aren't and Apple ended that business model and they need to get used to it.
I want the android sandbox to lie to applications.
I want a check box next to all the junk an application wants and I want to be able to tell it yes, no, lie.
I want them to fix the bugs on my Q10. The thing likes to reboot after I set it down on its screen after phone calls.
I have no intention of buying one of their Android phones. If I wanted Android, I would buy something else and I haven't.
On the plus side, I had my Q10 for a week before I ever even signed up for an account of any kind. The phone works well and running all the data over a VPN to my server is showing no leaking of data even with a "no data" sim installed. I like that but I've run my own servers for decades.
They compromised security of their devices for a few bucks when that security was one of the big selling points of their devices. The company is never going to recover from it.
It's worth mentioning that most of their loss came from a long lived asset impairment charge of 500 million, not inventory write down. Most articles are insinuating that handsets are the cause of their losses by lumping it in the same headline which is inaccurate. They did only sell around 500k devices this quarter which is low for any smartphone company. However, the CEO has gotten the cost of the handset business to be break even at 3 million phones. If you contrast that with the billions Blackberry was writing down on handsets alone a few years ago, you can see why it's not a horrible decision. Besides, it sounds like they want to start licensing out their software like the HUB and BBM to other manufacturers, and I don't know who would take them up on that unless they could prove their own users are installing/using it.
Apart from the price, you're describing the Priv exactly.
If consumers could actually buy a priv at $290, things might have turned out differently. I've never seen one for sale anywhere close to that price.
And the passport.
And I've got both a Z10 and Z30, and love them as much as my BB 5790, 6210, 6750, 7230, 8820, 9700 Bold, and 9900.
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
1. BBOS is EOL, so that would be a no go on the 'decent phone' front (with security and regular updates being pretty much inexistent).
2. The Passport does not have a slide out physical keyboard.
Apart from the price, you're describing the Priv exactly.
Sounds like I should've got one of those instead of this stupid shitty windows phone I got. Hopefully they're still around when my contract is up.
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Let's just briefly review why BBRY's stock is at 6.75 a share and plummeting.
1. Lost sight of their market. Very similar to Microsoft in this regard, although lacking the nigh-trillion dollars of off-shore reserves to recover from dumb mistakes. Both companies make all their profit from enterprises, which are usually run by older folks more comfortable with the tried and true rather than the hot new fashions. But both BlackBerry and Microsoft wanted the juicy cut of Apple's revenues that come from teenagers and young adults using sexy devices. Unfortunately they both failed to create anything sexy, so their advertisements featuring people in fedoras and summer dresses dancing to pop music on a table in joy when a new MSFT/BBRY product comes out missed the mark quite a bit, failing to bring in new audiences and alienating their current customers.
2. Compromised security. They might have won a few government contracts by bragging about backdooring their devices in order to assist law enforcement, but they lost just about everybody else interested in security and privacy (for business or state reasons).
3. The Priv. My gosh, what a shitty device the Priv is. More expensive than the Galaxy S6 and the iPhone 6s on release, but with a cheap plastic slide-out keyboard that makes an uncomfortable grinding sound and abysmal camera. Pass.
4. Slow transition to Android. Developers want to push their stuff onto the Apple Store and Google Play Store because that's where the money is; BB10 is an afterthought *at best*. BlackBerry was really, really late to the party on this one; they got Android apps in 2014, but through a compatibility layer through the Amazon Appstore, so with a shitty selection and axed performance. And their first Android device was shite (see #3).
5. Internet shills. Nothing wrecks your credibility faster than paying people to astroturf for you.
It's a shame because BlackBerry had a lot of good things going for them. The physical keyboard and social communications hub are still unmatched. It's unfortunate that they had such crummy executive management.
How the hell do these things retail for $900 (CAD) when they sell wholesale for $290? No wonder there's a cell phone shop around every corner... I knew Apple's hardware cost was in the ~$200 range, but I never imagined they were selling to retailers for anything like that price.
In related news... market remains committed to not buying BlackBerry products.
Chen is still the highest paid executive in Canada.
Perhaps such a great salary is justified, however. After all, you're hiring someone to skipper the Titanic and bury their career into the silt.
Make a decent phone, decent price, slide out physical keyboard, long battery life and goddam headphone jack and there you go, Try to imitate the iphone and they will fail.
Um, didn't they already do that? (Try to imitate the iPhone and failed?)
Blackberry was known, and popular, for their hardware keyboards....
There are numerous dedicated fans of Android sliders.
There are NO Android sliders left on the US market, and the last few like the Droid 4, Photon Q, LG Mach/Optimus F3Q (which sell used for abnormally high prices) are all getting decrepit and with out-dated OS versions.
It seems like a no brainer for Blackberry to bring back the Android slider.
Instead they make the Priv, which has a tiny keyboard that slides out in portrait mode (not landscape like all other sliders), and is more expensive than the highest-end flagship phones from the most popular manufacturers, and an order of magnitude more expensive than entry-level Android phones. This after the failure of their similarly crazy (square) Passport.
Blackberry's current business model seems to involve heating their headquarters by burning $100 bills in the furnace. They're determined to either beat Samsung and become a huge name again, or else die trying, and the later is more or less the foregone conclusion. If, instead, they'd introduce what many people want, but is currently unavailable in the market, they would have an instant niche all to themselves.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Congratulations... You're ranting about a company's current and recent products based entirely on something they likely designed 5+ years ago, which is not representative. This is the problem they had at every step of the way during their attempts to roll out newer platforms. Of course the fact they they were "nice" and didn't make *any* attempts to push the marketing message of "Our new stuff isn't like our old stuff" certainly didn't help.
Seriously, to make a computer analogy, its like claiming "Apple Sucks!" in the era of MacOSX 10.11, because you had some bad experiences with the clumsiness of trying to use System 7 in 2004.
It is truely wild how widespread this problem is. I discovered the business card fix on my own after running into a restarting phone. I ended up just putting the business card flat on the back of the battery, not on the far edge and it worked fine. Anyway, complete insanity that these phones made it through quality control.
No, he isn't - $89 million of _share value_ that isn't available to him for ~5 years does not count as salary. You can't just take shares given when a person is hired, multiply by current stock price and add it on to someone's salary. I think his annual cash compensation is around $300,000. If BB goes bankrupt, those shares aren't worth anything.
This is a fabulous device. Seriously. What's tragic is that Rim seems unable to market a fire hose to a man in a burning building.
For years and years, I see people posting here lamenting about missing a good physical keyboard wanting a good touch screen, and to mitigate crap security on Android. After a series of halfway decent Android phones, I bought the passport and was extremely pleasantly surprised. Android support, a great keyboard, surprising innovation with touch support across the keyboard surface and exceedingly good build quality. On top of all that, a default configuration that includes mildly sandboxed Android with much better security. Not quite the detailed control I wanted, but a damn sight better than you get with default Android without rooting.
Then I picked up a Priv. It's a different set of trade-offs and certainly far from perfect. But it's pocketable, fast, great screen, and carries many excellent features over including a decent version of Hub. And the keyboard is very good, if a little small.
What I find most telling is that my kids want it. These are the same teenagers who referred to the Windows phone as "the punishment phone" and have been very picky about their other Android devices. A surprising majority of their school work is now completed and submitted through Google Docs, so this device totally fits the bill.
How the hell you market to this weird amalgam of people who want a serious piece of hardware that doesn't look like a frosted iPastry is Beyond me. But clearly the money and desire is out there, it's just that RIM is unable to communicate or put their hands on it.
I think not...(*poof*)
Make a decent phone, decent price, slide out physical keyboard, long battery life and goddam headphone jack and there you go, Try to imitate the iphone and they will fail.
Apart from the price *and the battery life*, you're describing the Priv exactly.
There, FTFY.
I busted my phone a couple of months back (low-slung car and closing doors, don't ask), so I figured I'd take a venture on the Priv, since I like pretty much everything about BB except the paucity of apps when compared to the Android ecosystem.
I had it for approximately 24 hours, then brought it back (and thanked goodness my provider had a 'love it' guarantee on new phones!). The battery life was...less than optimal. I unplugged it in the morning the day after I received it (approximately 7:30 AM) and by 10:00 the battery was at 40%. That's AM, not PM. Yes, I was pretty much using it constantly over those 2.5 hours, trying out some features, but mostly just reading DYAC and other casual web browsing: no video streaming or other typically battery-intensive tasks. Sorry, if I wanted to have to charge my phone twice or three times a day, I'll go back to 2002.
That being said, I had absolutely no complaints with the OS or any other features: the keyboard was easy to use, keyboard shortcuts were great, etc. The phone was maybe a bit off-balance with the keyboard extended, but with practice it wouldn't have been an issue. It seemed responsive and snappy, easy to configure and find things. There were a lot of things that I liked quite a lot about the phone...but I just couldn't handle the battery life. My new S7 may be full of Samsung bloatware, but at least she lasts 2 to 3 days between charges, even if I decide to spend a couple of hours reading DYAC...
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
Yeah, but that doesn't mean they won't try again.
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I had it for approximately 24 hours
You're an idiot if you think that is enough to properly gauge battery life. The battery sensors are not even calibrated at that point.
There are hundreds of screenshots by people easily lasting 3 days with their privs (and that is my personal experience as well). Screen on-time is less and varies, obviously, but it is perfectly reasonable compared to the competition.
Yeah, but that doesn't mean they won't try again.
You're right; because they have already demonstrated that they don't have a single original thought in their heads.
With the release of smartphones I didn't even think Blackberry was still in the game! If they design a new line a phone MAYBE they could make a dent in the market, but I highly doubt it.
I had it for approximately 24 hours
You're an idiot if you think that is enough to properly gauge battery life. The battery sensors are not even calibrated at that point.
There are hundreds of screenshots by people easily lasting 3 days with their privs (and that is my personal experience as well).
I did go through a full charge/discharge cycle the previous evening, which is when the apparently rapid battery use first caught my eye (as in, when it died in my pocket while at a restaurant). That's why I was watching the battery closely the second day, to see how it performed during moderate use on wi-fi, not (maybe) searching for cell signals or something.
Funny how my Samsung (and my Sony before that) had absolutely no problem lasting 2-4 days right out of the box (2 days with moderate usage and setup, then 4 days easily on 'light' usage, i.e. texting and email only), no 'battery sensor calibration' needed. Perhaps I had a faulty battery in the Priv, but when I looked a little deeper into the reviews, they just seemed a little...frenetic in denying that there's anything wrong with the battery life. I mean seriously, methinks the lady doth protest too much.
Screen on-time is less and varies, obviously, but it is perfectly reasonable compared to the competition.
Sorry, I don't even know what you mean here. Do you mean if you minimize the screen-on time the battery life is longer? Well yes...as is the same for every smartphone. Differentce is, if I go into super-battery-scrimping mode on my S7, I can squeeze out 5 days or more, but even on regular ol' usage, I still get two days minimum. I tried using the Priv just like I've used any other smartphone I've owned, and it simply failed the longevity test.
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant