“BlackBerry Ltd is ‘very much alive, thank you,’ Interim Chief Executive John Chen affirmed in an open letter on Monday in which the smartphone maker committed itself to rebuilding as a niche player concentrating on the enterprise market,” Reuters reports.
“Chen took over as CEO a month ago after BlackBerry abandoned a plan to sell itself,” Reuters reports. “‘Our ‘for sale’ sign has been taken down and we are here to stay,’ he wrote in the letter that was addressed to ‘valued enterprise customers and partners.'”
“BlackBerry, once the market leader in on-the-go email, has suffered a drastic loss of market share to Apple Inc’s iPhone,” Reuters reports. “Its new smartphones have so far failed to win back customers, as Chen acknowledged in the letter.”
“BlackBerry has laid off thousands of workers over the last two years and in September it said it would shed more than a third of its global workforce and refocus itself on the enterprise market – large business and government clients – that vaulted it to prominence in the 1990s,” Reuters reports. “‘We’re going back to our heritage and roots, delivering enterprise-grade, end-to-end mobile solutions,’ said Chen.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Make that “delivering enterprise-grade, end-to-end mobile solutions for Apple’s iOS while continuing to dramatically downsize operations” and you might have a slim chance of surviving as a niche player.
Still, this rudderless, unstable mess of a company has been making a lot of promises and not delivering ever since being run over by the iPhone steamroller, so it’s going to take a lot for the enterprise to consider whatever beleaguered BlackBerry is trying to peddle this week instead of just going with Good Technology or whatever established company is already doing whatever Amateur Hour Inc. daydreams about dabbling in at the moment.
Related articles:
Three execs ousted from beleaguered BlackBerry as new CEO tries to salvage what’s left of company – November 25, 2013
Pfizer dumps beleaguered BlackBerry phones for Apple iPhone, Android phones due to company’s ‘volatile state’ – November 15, 2013
Beleaguered BlackBerry plunges after sale to Fairfax falls through; CEO Heins out – November 4, 2013
Ha! I needed a laugh. Thanks! Love these humor articles. Keep it up.
Blackberry who? Even IT dufus crowd is changing mindset… If this was 2008 maybe have a chance.
It seems the entry criteria for a Blackberry CEO is breath taking arrogance and a detachment from reality.
“Our for sale sign has been taken down” = We tried to borrow enough money for the take over but the banks and financial institutions (BlackBerry’s core audience) laughed at us.
No need for bombastic accusations of arrogance — Companies have been turned around before. Give him a chance before dumping on him.
Yes, and they have an iCEO like Apple did, so that’s a good start!
I think you are being naive, the problem with Mr Chen’s (and why he is being doubted & lambasted) declaration is that it is simultaneously outrageous and hollow.
It is outrageous in that they are rapidly colapsing were just trying to sell themselves off, but now they are “business as usual” You need to at least seem like you aren’t arrogant and clueless to gain any traction
And his announcement was hollow, in that he was “business as usual” and are are going back to our same away of doing things. Hello? Isn’t that exact ally why collapsed you ?
So, based on his announcement I think TimD’s take is spot on. If you want to be taken seriously become serious, not arrogant and bombastic.
I suspect that no one actually wanted to buy them beyond paying loose change.
I’ve heard there’s a TV show called “The Walking Dead.”
I’m guessing it’s about Blackberry?
Reminds me more of Monty Python’s “Bring out your dead” bit. Blackberry insisting “I’m not dead yet” isn’t convincing anyone.
‘We are here to stay’ until we aren’t, which is like, real soon.
Hope they turn it around, competition is good
I think their target “niche” should not be enterprise; it should be the “anti-iPhone.” Basically, every smartphone sold these days is an iPhone, or an imitation iPhone. BlackBerry should focus on creating a smartphone that is intentionally designed to NOT be an iPhone. THAT is going back to RIM’s “roots.”
Create a noticeably smaller less-expensive smartphone that has a physical keyboard, and a reasonable-sized, but not overly large, non-touch screen. Make it run for a week, under typical use, without need for a recharge. That’s basically RIM’s original concept for a smartphone, and it was not a bad design; everyone else copied BlackBerry before iPhone…
There are still smartphone customers who would prefer such a phone, if they had a viable alternative to iPhone and Android. It would be a small subset of current smartphone customers, but Apple’s not going there, and Android copies Apple, so BlackBerry would have that group of customers mostly to itself.
He is going to be taking it on the Chen.
why do these morons want to stay and make a fool of themselves, they should cash in and hide away
Join the Jokesters at Jokia Dingleberry.
John Chen was also heard to say that they are selling well across the globe. Just this weekend, we sold several hundred phones in Indonesia.
So I guess the new “well” just means a handful.
BB should concentrate on software for iPhones and iPads and avoid the hardware R&D costs.
I love blackberries. They are great in pies.
Hey, this is Mac Daily News, not Blackberry Daily News.
The reason I visit MDN daily is because it has news about both Apple and its competitors.
Sport fans follow their team intently, but also all potential opponents, to make for a delicious brew of emotions come the final clashes.
Does this really need to be explained?
“We are here to stay . . . until we go bankrupt, put ourselves up for sale, or otherwise blow away in the wind.”
I understand MDN wants to show blackberry failing…but do they always have to put beleaguered in front of blackberry. just gets annoying to read….probably being a bit picky though. I mean, everyone understands their failing…so why keep kicking a dead horse ya know?
It harks back years to when Apple was labelled “beleaguered” at every turn. We’re just getting our own back!
The dead horses keep piling up like the cavalry at Pickett’s Charge and Little Big Horn. Both events descended from the decision making of highborn exemplars of strategy and cunning — proud bearers of prestige won the hard way. They were doomed by their flawed assessment of their opponents and their narcissism.
It’s an old, old story…one that never gets old.
yes
too bad.
sent from Mayberry Shazam
Sound more like Apple few years back when they are almost broke….
“We’re going back to our heritage and roots,”
That would be like Apple going back to their roots by bringing back the Apple II.
That plan has success written all over it. 😉
“and refocus itself on the enterprise market”
You mean sell to companies too dumb to know what they are spending money on.
Yea, that pretty much sums up my former employer.
The only people still using Blackberrys are teenage girls who find their ancient keyboard tech phones easier to type on with long nails. interesting that they are cutting them out of their future now. Gonna be fun.
We are here to stay!
Until we are not.
Some dumb companies interested to buy some of their intellectual product recently when they were up for sale ( it’s Microsoft and Apple )……