Tag: blackberry mobile commerce

As the company misses its predicted financial goals for the second quarter, it has launched its latest turnaround strategy.

As BlackBerry continues to watch the sale of its smartphones withering, CEO John Chen has announced that he is launching a controversial new way to draw appeal back to these mobile devices: Android.

Until now, the company has always based its smartphones on its own operating system.

This new strategy will have BlackBerry mobile device running on an operating system from another company for the first time. This will occur in the form of the upcoming Priv smartphone that will be launched later this year. That gadget is going to be built on the popular Android operating system from Google. This has been a decision that has been greatly debated at BlackBerry and that Chen has admitted is still considered to be quite controversial there.

The decision to take on Android could allow the company to overcome a main challenge to their mobile devices.

Chen explained that one of the primary reasons that people have not been picking up BlackBerry smartphones is because the operating system doesn’t allow for many of the favorite popular apps that consumers want to be able to use. Many customers and businesses wouldn’t mind the smartphones but the apps they want or need just aren’t available on the company’s operating system. However, by releasing gadgets that are based on Android, this allows the company to completely sidestep that issue.

Chen explained that “I am now going to eliminate apps as an excuse not to buy our phone,” adding that “We’ll see how it goes.”

In the middle of all the financial struggles that BlackBerry has faced over the last handful of years, the limited number of apps – and the lack of the most popular apps – has been a constant and sizeable problem that has worked against the company.

Chen attempted to partner with the Amazon Appstore in order to put that problem behind them in 2014. Amazon’s mobile app offerings are already in the thousands for Android based device users. However, the failure of Amazon’s own smartphone left Chen with less than he had hoped. Now, the goal is to show that the Priv will provide customers with everything they want and expect from the brand’s mobile devices, but with the app offerings that have been missing.

BlackBerry may find the success it needs in the mobile commerce space

BlackBerry has been having a difficult time finding traction in a changing business environment recently. The BlackBerry platform has been failing to attract consumers for some time, largely due to the difficulties associated with competing with Android, iOS, and Windows Phone platforms. In order to remain somewhat relevant, BlackBerry has been focusing more heavily on enterprise services, but this has only provided the company with a modest degree of success. Now, BlackBerry is turning to mobile payments in order to stay afloat.

EnStream and BlackBerry will work to promote mobile commerce among mobile consumers and banks

BlackBerry has entered into a three-year partnership with EnStream, a mobile commerce firm. Together, the two organizations will form a joint venture that will focus on providing secure financial services to consumers and banks. These services will primarily deal in the transfer of credit card information from a mobile device. EnStream will be using BlackBerry’s backend infrastructure in order to allow banks and other organizations to conduct NFC-based mobile transactions.

Mobile commerce competition is quite fierce and BlackBerry may not be able to keep up

The mobile commerce space is currently rife with competition and BlackBerry may find it difficult to keep up with an ever evolving market. There are a large number of mobile commerce firms competition with one another for the attention of consumers, and smaller organizations are being pushed out of the market by their larger counterparts. While BlackBerry has won favor within the enterprise sector, whether or not the platform is suitable for mobile commerce is currently unknown. Enterprise clients may not be willing to use BlackBerry for mobile payments, but other consumers may.

Mobile payments may be BlackBerry’s last and best chance to find success

Mobile commerce may be the last chance for BlackBerry to find success. The company has been facing monumental problems that have been very difficult to overcome in recent years. Without finding some sector in which to thrive, BlackBerry may eventually become something of the past, replaced by other platforms that have managed to find more success with consumers.