Tag: blackberry

The CEO of the struggling Canadian handset maker is upset with the carrier for its latest efforts.

Although aggressive traditional and mobile marketing is nothing new for T-Mobile, its latest strategy has caused a great deal of tension between it and BlackBerry.

The cellular service provider sent all of its BlackBerry using customers an email encouraging a switch to iPhone 5S.

This mobile marketing campaign didn’t take long to reach BlackBerry, where the news was far from welcome. Even its CEO, John Chen, was displeased, causing him to send a personal response to the promotion. He stated that “I can only guess that T-Mobile thought its ‘great offer for BlackBerry customers’ would be well received. T-Mobile could not have been more wrong”, in a post that he uploaded onto his blog.

Chen wasn’t the only one who was put off by T-Mobile’s mobile marketing strategy.

Despite the fact that the number of BlackBerry customers have been rapidly shrinking, to the point that they are barely a fraction of what they formerly were when they lead the market, its core loyal customer group is a very vocal one.

In response to the outcry, the Chief Marketing Officer at T-Mobile, Mike Sievert, expressed that “The passion we’ve seen from the BlackBerry Loyal over the past couple days has been amazing. I want you to know we’ve heard you.”

Chen added in his blog that he assured the disappointed and frustrated customers that they weren’t the only ones who were feeling outraged by T-Mobile’s strategy. He also pointed out that he was confused by the fact that T-Mobile didn’t even bother to speak with BlackBerry before going ahead and launching a promotion that was “clearly inappropriate and ill-conceived.”

T-Mobile has since attempted to make amends for its decision, offering a $200 credit for any customer who would trace in a working BlackBerry device, which will be bumped up to $250 if that credit is to be used against the purchase of a new BlackBerry Q10 or Z10 device. Clearly, this has greatly changed the tone of this mobile marketing promotion when it comes to that particular brand of mobile devices.

The Jakarta handset is expected to be unveiled at the Mobile World Congress 2014.

The partnership between BlackBerry and Foxconn, which was first announced in December of last year, is about to produce its very first release of mobile devices, which will be debuted at the MWC 2014.

This answers the question that many people had about the next BlackBerry 10 based device.

According to Terry Gou, the chairman of Foxconn, when asked about the newest mobile devices from the struggling manufacturer, “We are working with them to design a new device, and we will showcase multiple devices at the trade show in Barcelona in February.” The specs regarding the handset have not been revealed, as it appears that the companies are attempting to keep them secret until the official launch.

The prediction is that the mobile devices will be lower end, and will be the BlackBerry Jakarta.

This lower end gadget will not be featuring a physical keyboard, as has been desired by many of the most loyal among the last lingering BlackBerry device owners. Instead, it will have a much more cost effective full touchscreen display. The goal is predicted to be to provide consumers with a new option to be able to purchase a touchscreen smartphone without a large price tag.

Many have been greatly interested in the fact that it seems that Gou has been talking about several mobile devices, and not a single gadget. This has spawned a great deal of speculation as to whether this means that BlackBerry will be launching more than one new handset, or if there will be more that are being manufactured by Foxconn, which could also suggest that Firefox OS gadgets will also be working their way into the mix.

It is believed that the “Jakarta” mobile devices will be slated to hit the emerging markets midway through the spring, this year, in April or May. This will still be at least a couple of months after its initial unveiling at the massive international technology news event. This description of the expected gadgets aligns well with the direction that the partnership had intended to take throughout 2014 and into the future.