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.
A new report from BerryReview has stated that this new device is currently in the works by the handset maker.
Blackberry Ltd is, according to a recent BerryReview report, currently testing out a new design for a device that has a storable keyboard and that uses a pivoting smartphone cover in order to achieve this purpose.
The report indicated that a device of this nature may actually be launched notably sooner than expected.
In fact it is quite likely that the BlackBerry device that is currently under review could potentially be launched within the second quarter of 2015. Its code name is currently Visa and Victoria. The new feature with the storable keyboard was revealed when it was discovered that a patent for it (#8,830,667) had been filed on September 9 with the United States Patent Office.
BlackBerry has been known for its practical smartphone keyboards that are considered one of their best features.
The patent pointed out that the smartphone keyboard element can move freely from a position where it is, to where it is not deployed. It explained that “A cover pivotally couples to the housing and is configured to at least partially cover the keyboard portion when the keyboard portion is in the non-deployed position and to reveal the keyboard portion when the keyboard portion is in the deployed position.”
There are three rows in the keyboard that is described by the patent filing, which may be comparable to that of the upcoming square Passport smartphone from that manufacturer. With this keyboard element, when it is displaced, one row will be left behind for use as a trackpad and will reveal a small number of important keys.
That said, it is unknown what true benefit will be added by shifting the keyboard, as removing it will not provide any greater screen size. That said, there were no further details of that nature revealed in the patent filing. This patent is being taken quite seriously in the mobile technology news world and is believed by many to be another device that is in development as a part of the latest strategy by the company’s CEO John Chen, to claw the business back into serious relevance.
