“BlackBerry Ltd plans to introduce high-end smartphones that cater to keyboard aficionados in the coming 18 months, in an effort to win back core corporate and government clients who have shunned the company’s touch-screen devices,” Euan Rocha reports for Reuters.
“Chief Executive John Chen said in an interview that the company’s engineers have designed at least three different next-generation handsets that are being ‘kicked around right now,'” Rocha reports. “‘The focus is going to be very keyboard centric,’ said Chen, the former Sybase CEO who took the reins of the Canadian company just over four months ago.”
“He sees that strategy as the best way to reverse market share losses to Apple Inc, Samsung Electronics and other companies that make smartphones powered by Google Inc’s Android operating system. BlackBerry reported a fiscal fourth-quarter loss on Friday,” Rocha reports. “Last month, at the annual Mobile World Congress trade fair in Barcelona, BlackBerry unveiled a new ‘classic’ model with a keyboard that boasts a return of the command keys that include ‘Menu,’ ‘Back,’ ‘Send’ and ‘End’ buttons, along with a trackpad. The device, dubbed the Q20, will hit store shelves before the end of 2014… ‘It is our plan to return to profitability at some point in fiscal 2016,’ said Chen. ‘We need to generate cash and make money on a consistent basis, and it’s got to come from our big installed base of enterprise and if we can do that, then we can branch out to do a lot of other stuff.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: In related news, National Windmill Tilting Co. is hard at work on a “classic” buggy whip to be introduced in the coming 18 months.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
Just by seacrests company.. For what $2.2B?
Then they have the best of both worlds .. An iBerry..
Y’know that kid at every little league game who’s off in some corner of the field spinning in circles or eating his own boogers? Yeah. That’s Blackberry.
Well, I guess that’s better than eating somebody else’s boogers…
This story was in the Onion, right?
Wow. Will be interesting to watch this one play out.
A solution of search of an actual buying customer who cares.
A solution IN search of an actual buying customer who cares, that is.
Why would it take 18 months for that?
Does this company even have a board of directors?
An Ltd partnership may not need a Board of Directors.
Could it be because they don’t have any experience making mechanical keyboards… wait!!!
If this is thier best strategy to “reverse market share losses” they need to shutter the hardware business now. Blackberry is on no one’s wish list and never will be.
You speak truth. People did not shun Blackberry’s recent touchscreen products because they did not have a physical keyboard. People shunned them because they were Blackberries.
If people want a touchscreen smartphone, then they will buy an Apple iPhone or, perhaps, a Samsunk. Why would anyone buy a Blackberry anymore, regardless of the keyboard type?
If this story is true, then Blackberry is just throwing good money after bad.
Is this actually a journalistic slip-up where Reurter’s note was supposed to be released on April 1?
“And we discovered when we didn’t release any new products we lost less.”
MDN, I think you are onto something -because windmills can only spin so fast in High winds. if they spin too fast they will break … Sometimes even explode!
I think that a windmill that could tilt on an axis during High winds would slow the windmill turbine,hence allowing it to survive.
I work one floor above a company that makes solar panels and wind turbines. I think I will make a suggestion. thank you!!
The solar panel and wind turbine people are not on the top floor? Yes, by all means — they need suggestions!
😉
The branching out will no doubt involve the production of typewriters for those that just cant get into computers.
…mechanical or electronic typewriters…?
Closed until business picks up.
Come on, BB! Don’t do things by halves. Introduce the next Blackberry with rotary dials!
And a special corded version you can plug into your landline jack.
The idea is to go forward, not backwards. In tech, anyway.
Get one of your own.
http://www.amazon.com/Intrepid-International-Lunge-Whips-Purple/dp/B008OAZ60W/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1396039004&sr=8-1&keywords=buggy+whip