“BlackBerry is considering equipping an upcoming smartphone with Google Inc.’s Android software for the first time, an acknowledgement that its revamped line of devices has failed to win mass appeal, according to four sources familiar with the matter,” Euan Rocha reports for Reuters.
“The move would be an about-face for the Waterloo, Ontario-based company, which had shunned Android in a bet that its BlackBerry 10 line of phones would be able to claw back market share lost to Apple’s iPhone and a slew of devices powered by Android,” Rocha reports. “BlackBerry, which once dominated smartphone sales, now has a market share of less than 1 percent.”
“It is not clear whether a move to use Android would spell the end of the company’s BlackBerry 10 line of devices that were initially launched to much fanfare in early 2013,” Rocha reports. “The company, which at a 2011 peak employed 17,500 people and in February was down to 6,225, said last month that it was making further cuts on the device side, without providing any numbers.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Desperate times call for deliriously disconsolate measures, but this is least five years too late, DCW.
SIDAGTMBTTS.