BlackBerry's Keyboard is Coming Back for One Last Dance (bloomberg.com)

BlackBerry has officially stopped making its own phones, but the company has one last treat for die-hard fans: a new phone sporting its trademark physical keyboard. According to Bloomberg: Chief Executive Officer John Chen had hinted at the phone in September, but hadn't confirmed it until Thursday, when he spoke to Emily Chang in an interview on Bloomberg TV. "We have one keyboard phone I promised people," Chen said. "It's coming." Under Chen, BlackBerry has gradually shifted from smartphones to software and said in September it would completely stop producing, stocking and distributing its own phones. Instead, it will license the BlackBerry brand to outside companies to put on phones they build themselves. The physical keyboard is BlackBerry's best-known smartphone feature, with many former users still lamenting its absence as they clumsily tap out e-mails on their iPhones and sign off with words like "pardon the typos."

Comments

Re:Shut it down. Turn off the lights already.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi!

Blackberry Chief Innovation Officer here. Yeah, we have 3 full time and 8 part time employees. Not only do I innovate (can't you tell), I run the mailroom, mop the floor and I do some Uber pickups when things get slow around the office. That's getting more and more frequent, as you can imagine. You know how a lot of manufacturing companies have big signs that say "This facility has gone X days without a work related injury"? Well, ours says "This facility has gone X weeks without a customer order"

We already turned off the lights. Johnny boy said he can't afford the light bill anymore.

Have a nice weekend!
- Blackberry