Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!


Fall of BlackBerry
New on LowEndTalk? Please Register and read our Community Rules.

All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.

Fall of BlackBerry

jbilohjbiloh Administrator, Veteran

As many of you might know already BlackBerry has agreed to terms of a buyout effort to take the company private. The company was once valued at roughly 90 billion dollars at its peak and this week agreed to a buyout of around 5 billion.

That's a pretty stunning fall from grace.

I've never used a crack berry but I'm curious to know whether anyone here still does and also what you think about BB10.

What do you think will come of Canada's largest tech company?

«13

Comments

  • Their main selling point before is push based email, right?

  • AnthonySmithAnthonySmith Member, Patron Provider

    Yeah to be honest I never really got the BB thing to begin with, I just saw it as something that made what people can do with anything else just a bit more simple, they never really developed beyond that and went the hard way around everything like BES for windows exchange which was just NOT needed so that made it an almost instant fail for business when android and IOS came on to the market additionally they stuck with clunky proprietary hand sets that could never offer the feature set of IOS or android and frankly even Nokia was doing better when it came to delivering functionality.

    After about a year of being on the market I could already see this coming frankly I am surprised it took this long.

    They obviously had a CEO/Director pushing the company in 1 direction while paying no attention to anything going on around them or honestly watching the market from a consumer perspective all the while surrounded by yes men no doubt.

    Shame but not unexpected and you know.. I had similar thoughts about BurstNET about 18 months ago and they still seem to think they have a unique service despite the fact performance wise it hardly stacks up against even some of the summer hosts here. I hope they don't rely on the VPS market or adapt because they dont really seem to fit any customer needs above and beyond any other hosts right now, beging cheap is not enough in the same way simply being a blackberry was not enough to self perpetuate the market for blackberry.

    /My view

    Thanked by 1nocom
  • Blackberry's strength was in the pre-iPhone days. Steve Jobs introduced a device that made a lot of Blackberry owners jealous. Since then, it's been downhill for Blackberry.
    But, before the iPhone, it was a Blackberry world. ;-)

  • Blackberries, they were popular because carriers launched prepaid BIS plans before doing the same for the other devices.

  • SpiritSpirit Member
    edited September 2013

    But, before the iPhone, it was a Blackberry world. ;-)

    But never really in Europe. In Europe was era of Nokia and Ericsson (and partially even Siemens and Sagem) but never Blackberry.

  • @Spirit said:
    But never really in Europe. In Europe was era of Nokia, Ericsson.. partially even Siemens and Sagem but never Blackberry.

    Blackberry had some very good years in The Netherlands.

  • @ztec competitive to Nokia and (old) Ericsson?

  • It had a good run in the UK as well with almost every carrier doing Blackberry promotions and now you don't see many at all.

    I guess with older iPhone's becoming cheaper like 4/4s people moved onto them.

  • jimpopjimpop Member
    edited September 2013

    @Spirit said:
    But never really in Europe. In Europe was era of Nokia, Ericsson.. partially even Siemens and Sagem but never Blackberry.

    Forgive me, I wasn't trying to imply that it was a Blackberry-only world, there were a lot of other good devices out there, but Blackberry stood out above the rest in terms of productivity marketing.

  • Indonesia is still a big market for Blackberry, surprisingly due to their Blackberry Messenger. They came before Whatsapp, Line, WeChat, etc., and is now become normal business practice. Online shop displays BBM contact on their site/offers, heck even a friend of mine who is working in a big investment firm is obligated to have a Blackberry.

  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran
    edited September 2013

    When blackberry was big all I could get anyone to tell me about what made it better were things like contacts, calendars, email, etc. All things that my first Nokia crap phone could do. When I finally got one I found it was just a bulky phone with a bunch of possibilities that it couldn't live up to. This was probably about 12 years ago but it pretty well set my opinion of the product for life.

    Android and iOS did in less time what blackberry spent years failing at.

  • I had a blackberry for five years. As soon as the first iPhone was released, I switched to it. Why?

    • Blackberry had issues displaying html e-mails with images, opening various attachments
    • Difficult to navigate and use
    • More expensive data plans
    • Too technical to synch content (photos, videos, music, etc.,)

    For the few reasons above and more, the blackberry has failed.

    Finally, let's not forget about Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync which in the corporate world meant that you did not have to buy, maintain, license fees for a separate blackberry server. Blackberry will be a good learning example for future business adventures and success.

  • prometeusprometeus Member, Host Rep

    I considered (and used) BB when I had to replace my loved Nokia e71/e72. They were good, but the bis/bes mess never convinced me, so I moved to android even if at the time battery wise BB was a real winner...

  • ztecztec Member
    edited September 2013

    @Spirit said:
    ztec competitive to Nokia and (old) Ericsson?

    I remember the choices were a blackberry or a Nokia n95 (or something). I never owned a blackberry though. I had one of those sony ericson phones with a huge camera.

  • PatsPats Member
    edited September 2013

    @prometeus said:
    my loved Nokia e71/e72.

    haha... e72 is still my second love (e71 phased out..) with Samsung Android in the 1st command...

    never had BB due to its high data plans.. though it has come down now but so has BB :P

    but its still sad how things or technology goes to dust... when it doesn't keep itself uptodate with the change...
    i also felt not good when Siemens mobile had gone for good...

  • I think the iPhone and the Android really took BlackBerry's roadmap to the wilderness.

  • agentmishraagentmishra Member, Host Rep

    i believe blackberry should join in android team, and revive themselves...

    i may sound silly, but had it been my brand, i would do any thing to save it and to regain the market-share joining in with the market giants...

  • eric1212eric1212 Member
    edited September 2013

    I live in "Canada's Technology Triangle", where the Blackberry Ltd. headquarters is... I can say there are MANY new companies trying to absorb the ex-employees of BB.

    Motorola (Google) and Square are two of the more well-known companies doing this.

    I expect to see a lot more "tech" around here pretty soon.

    Nice to see the BB company staying in Canada though.... I guess? Don't see much changing with them though. Apple FTW?

  • On my experience, mobile carriers strongly pushed Blackberry on the enterprise market; the push has completely vanished now.

    At the zenith of the BB era, I negotiated a 50 subscriptions contract with the biggest mobile operator in my country and the business choice was pretty obvious: the BB email/data/phone contract was almost half the price of any comparable solution. BES server had nice automation/provisioning capabilities, and users mostly loved BB phones. The BES license fee was totally absorbed by the telco, even the BES installation was free.

    Fast forward to last year, and everything was the other way around. The mobile operator asked a hefty premium for the BB contract and explicitly suggested to drop the platform. Again, the switch to a different solution has been a no brainer decision.

    My guess is that BB was the preferential carrier choice when the cellular network had limited data capabilities, and enabled them to sell more data plans avoiding infrastructure upgrade. Today, the BB infrastructure with its limited data comsumption model and the low roaming cost is pulling in the opposite direction of the mobile carrier interests.

    I hope well for this company, but I foresee a Nortel-like death.

    Thanked by 1Abdussamad
  • jbilohjbiloh Administrator, Veteran

    Is anyone actually using a phone today, blackberry or not, that has a physical keyboard?

  • SpiritSpirit Member
    edited September 2013

    @jbiloh said:
    Is anyone actually using a phone today, blackberry or not, that has a physical keyboard?

    I still like my Nokia n97 mini. Whatever I buy I am always back to old n97. It just don't want to die.

  • @jbiloh said:
    Is anyone actually using a phone today, blackberry or not, that has a physical keyboard?

    Yes, Droid Pro here. It's perfect.

  • I still have a BB for work... they don't want IOS or Android because they can't lock it all the way down the way they can BB.

    The device is clunky, writing email is painful and slow and, about 20% of the time, I don't even get my work related email. The device works with Outlook, except that it never maintains a decent sync on my contacts and I can't empty the trash on Outlook so after some time on the road, my inbox hits it's quota and the system automatically prevents me from sending more email.

    I really love my BB and the never healing sore on my ass...

  • Blackberry is still huge in the corporate world, but that too is shrinking. I carried a blackberry when I worked in a corporate IT department. Honestly, I always like it for what it was a decent phone that was great at email and messaging. I could crank out long technical replies with no effort with the physical keyboard, without ever looking down. I don't know if it is just my skills, but I can't do that on my iPhone. BB will be big in the corporate world for a while because of one main reason, Security. The ability of IT to lock down a phone with BES is just can't be matched on iOS or Android YET.

  • nunimnunim Member
    edited September 2013

    @pcan said:
    On my experience, mobile carriers strongly pushed Blackberry on the enterprise market; the push has completely vanished now.

    From what I have seen Blackberry is still quite popular in the enterprise market, they're simple to use for non-techies with is a major bonus for executives. And I'm not aware of many name brand Android phones without cameras, although I'm sure they exist.

    I honestly don't understand why it's so hard to find a modern Android phone with a QWERTY keyboard, am I the only person who still likes having physical buttons?

    I really loved the Nokia N770, N800, N900 Series, I hope they make something similar under Microsoft.

  • I honestly don't understand why it's so hard to find a modern Android phone with a QWERTY keyboard, am I the only person who still likes having physical buttons?

    No, not at all. I actually think where to get few N97's just in case...

  • jbilohjbiloh Administrator, Veteran

    @Spirit said:

    What OS does your phone run? Is it android with the manufactures skin/theme on it?

  • android for me

  • @jbiloh Nokia never ran android, it's old Symbian OS v9.4, Series 60 v5.0
    Yes, I know... and I own also new Samsung Galaxy S4 Active but I simply can't get used to it. I write text message with N97 QWERTY keyboard atleast 3x faster and easier than with any pure touch screen phone.

  • @klpowell said:
    Blackberry is still huge in the corporate world, but that too is shrinking. The ability of IT to lock down a phone with BES is just can't be matched on iOS or Android YET.

    This is why they were popular in the enterprise market. Anyone with proprietary/confidential information on their phone from e-mails, calendars, etc if they lost their phone you could push out to the phone to remove all the sensitive data and lock the phone. I am sure there is someone with a way around it, but for the most part it makes having a phone stolen or lost a lot less of a stresser for companies. As of yet I am not aware of a platform that is as secure and provides these options. I am sure there are some iPhone and Android apps that try to compare, but as I understood this was one of the main attractions big business had to this platform.

    Cheers!

Sign In or Register to comment.