Tag: blackberry smartphone

On the heels of an announcement of an exit from the in-house hardware market, it unveiled a new device.

CEO John Chen recently announced that his company would no longer be manufacturing hardware, following up with an announcement that BlackBerry branded smartphones are on the way. The company has revealed to upcoming launch of a new physical keyboard phone release. This new mobile device will hit the shelves within the next six months.

This announcement was made by a top sales executive at BlackBerry within an interview with the BBC.

Alex Thurber, the senior vice president of global device sales, explained that he was aware that the company’s withdrawal from in-house hardware production would make headlines. He added that they were counting on the headlines to draw attention to the company. Then, he explained that BlackBerry branded smartphones would continue to be produced. They will be manufactured by third party suppliers.

The next smartphone to wear the company’s logo will feature its distinctive physical keyboard. In a market where many devices look exceptionally similar, BlackBerry continually tries to stand out.

The next BlackBerry branded smartphones will have the physical keyboard many users love.

The company will rely on its partners to produce the new keyboarded smartphone. It had previously been leaked that BlackBerry was designing a couple of additional devices. When John Chen announced the end of the company’s hardware manufacturing, it looked like those smartphones were scrapped.

According to Thurber, Chen didn’t discuss those models during the previous announcement as final decisions had not yet been made. He didn’t know if they would be brought to market. Now it appears that the decisions have been made. “There will still be a keyboard-based BlackBerry device, designed and distributed within the next six months,” said Thurber.

He pointed out that the keyboards in the BlackBerry branded smartphones will set them apart from Samsung and Apple. Those industry leaders offer exclusively touch screen keyboards. “think there’s a demand for keyboard phones. As we’ve been showing mockups of what we’ve been working on, to our carrier and distributor partners, they are very excited about this,” explained Thurber.

This Android based smartphone may very well be the company’s last attempt at this type of device.

The BlackBerry Priv, the latest device from the struggling Canadian company and the first that is based on Google’s Android operating system, has now been on the market for its first weekend and the question has now been raised as to whether or not consumers have responded well and what it will mean for the future of the company.

CEO of the handset maker, John Chen, has suggested that this may be a defining product for the company.

Chen has previously indicated that whether or not the company will continue to make handsets may depend on whether or not the BlackBerry Priv ends up being successful. That said, by the time of the writing of this article, the company had not yet released its numbers with regards to the sales that it experienced during its first launch weekend. This device also represents the first time in years that the company has turned its attention to reaching out to mainstream audiences once again, instead of smaller niche markets.

The most notable difference in the BlackBerry Priv has to do with the Android operating system powering it.

Until now, the company has always used its own BlackBerry operating system. However, it is hopeful that by changing to the Android OS, it will become considerably more appealing to consumers who value a very large number of mobile app options for their devices.

John Chen has stated that it is vital that the hardware division at BlackBerry become profitable before the close of the current fiscal year, which will occur on February 29, 2016. If that does not happen, it is very likely that the company will choose not to continue to make smartphones and will redirect its attention to focus on its security software development.

Chen’s calculations state that in order to meet its goals to continue in hardware, the company would need to sell five million phones throughout the current fiscal year. That would be the break-even point. Considering that the company has already reached the halfway point in that time and it still needs to sell three million devices to reach that goal, it is clear that the future of that part of the company is highly dependent on the success of the BlackBerry Priv.