Amid a dwindling revenue base and
shrinking profit, the company’s chief
executive, Thorsten Heins (in case you
don’t know, he took over the management
of the company in 2011 after its founders
were ousted by angry and disappointed
investors who were no longer confident in
their leadership) announced some days
back that the company intends to shed
4,500 of its staff in a bid to cut costs and
channel resources into areas that are likely
to rescue the company from the throes of a
takeover or a fold up. It is a figure that
represents nearly half of its global
workforce and it is coming barely months
after another wholesale layoff in which the
company parted ways with a lot of workers.
Perhaps, one of the areas which Heins and
co. intend to channel their resources into is
their popular Blackberry Messenger service.
On September 21, Blackberry Ltd. released
its Blackberry Messenger service on iOS and
Android platforms and within two days it
had recorded over 1.1 million downloads
worldwide. It was a last-ditch effort to
salvage the troubled company with its
flagship service. The warm reception to the
move from the smartphone community
shows that there is still life in the
Blackberry franchise after all, but that did
not come without its own glitches as they
were forced to halt the roll-out after an
unofficial version of the BBM for Android
app was posted online.
In a period that has seen Finnish giants,
Nokia, sell its phone manufacturing unit to
USA’s Microsoft, one can only but wonder
if Blackberry is doomed to go the “Nokia
way” or fizzle out like Motorola before it.
But what happened to Blackberry? A lot of
things went wrong with Blackberry, but it all
boils down to three major things.
Blackberry Messenger
Blackberry Messenger was once upon a
time Blackberry’s numero uno feature.
Years (or even months) ago, if you didn’t
have a BBM pin, you were either not
buoyant enough to get yourself a
Blackberry and rub shoulders with the
business elite or you were simply not
interested the whole smartphone craze.
But today, it has become a waterloo of
sorts for the Waterloo, Ontario-based firm.
Previously touted as the world’s most
flexible and secure social networking
platform for messaging (which was a top
draw for the phone’s customers until late
2011 or early 2012), the emergence of
Whatsapp and other instant messaging
services has ensured that it is no longer “if
it’s not BBM, then you must be joking”.
Smartphones from other companies now
come with their own messaging platforms
and there are thousands of mobile
messaging apps available for download on
the internet.
The fact that BBM is now available on rival
platforms, iOS and Android might just spell
the end of the road for Blackberry as
smartphone makers. They could as well
now bid goodbye to the smartphone
industry and focus on developing software
for other companies to use.
No variety whatsoever:
Blackberry made no efforts to treat its
customers with variety, which they say is
the spice of life, until the recent release of
the Blackberry Q10 which came rather too
late. It’s astonishing how Blackberry failed
to learn from the very mistake that made
rivals, Nokia, go under. Blackberry releases
new phones constantly, but the problem
with that is that the phones are not quite
new. They may be brand-new, but nothing
is new about them beyond the model name
and the price. One new release after the
other, we ended up with basically the same
phone over and over again with barely-
noticeable differences here and there. It’s
like a James Bond franchise with the same
plot and characters over and over again.
Why would I want to replace my old
Blackberry with a new one if the new one
has exactly the same features and looks as
the old one, but costs nearly twice as
much?
Tecno, Samsung, Apple and others:
The emergence of the Hong Kong-based
Tecno as major players in the budget
smartphone niche has really put BB out of
its element. Blackberry’s share of the
smartphone market it once dominated is on
an ever-increasing slide. In emerging
markets, it is on a losing battle with budget
smartphone makers Tecno (Africa) and
Samsung (Asia). In developed markets, it is
battling with high-end products from
Samsung (again) and, of course, Apple. The
acquisition of Nokia’s mobile phone
manufacturing unit by Microsoft piles
further misery on the Canadian company as
it could slide further down from its
position (behind Samsung and Apple) to
somewhere behind Microsoft-Nokia. Other
companies like Huawei, LG, ZTE and Sony
are lurking in the shadows and they are not
far behind in the race.
http://observerreports.com/2013/09/what-
went-wrong-with-blackberry/
shrinking profit, the company’s chief
executive, Thorsten Heins (in case you
don’t know, he took over the management
of the company in 2011 after its founders
were ousted by angry and disappointed
investors who were no longer confident in
their leadership) announced some days
back that the company intends to shed
4,500 of its staff in a bid to cut costs and
channel resources into areas that are likely
to rescue the company from the throes of a
takeover or a fold up. It is a figure that
represents nearly half of its global
workforce and it is coming barely months
after another wholesale layoff in which the
company parted ways with a lot of workers.
Perhaps, one of the areas which Heins and
co. intend to channel their resources into is
their popular Blackberry Messenger service.
On September 21, Blackberry Ltd. released
its Blackberry Messenger service on iOS and
Android platforms and within two days it
had recorded over 1.1 million downloads
worldwide. It was a last-ditch effort to
salvage the troubled company with its
flagship service. The warm reception to the
move from the smartphone community
shows that there is still life in the
Blackberry franchise after all, but that did
not come without its own glitches as they
were forced to halt the roll-out after an
unofficial version of the BBM for Android
app was posted online.
In a period that has seen Finnish giants,
Nokia, sell its phone manufacturing unit to
USA’s Microsoft, one can only but wonder
if Blackberry is doomed to go the “Nokia
way” or fizzle out like Motorola before it.
But what happened to Blackberry? A lot of
things went wrong with Blackberry, but it all
boils down to three major things.
Blackberry Messenger
Blackberry Messenger was once upon a
time Blackberry’s numero uno feature.
Years (or even months) ago, if you didn’t
have a BBM pin, you were either not
buoyant enough to get yourself a
Blackberry and rub shoulders with the
business elite or you were simply not
interested the whole smartphone craze.
But today, it has become a waterloo of
sorts for the Waterloo, Ontario-based firm.
Previously touted as the world’s most
flexible and secure social networking
platform for messaging (which was a top
draw for the phone’s customers until late
2011 or early 2012), the emergence of
Whatsapp and other instant messaging
services has ensured that it is no longer “if
it’s not BBM, then you must be joking”.
Smartphones from other companies now
come with their own messaging platforms
and there are thousands of mobile
messaging apps available for download on
the internet.
The fact that BBM is now available on rival
platforms, iOS and Android might just spell
the end of the road for Blackberry as
smartphone makers. They could as well
now bid goodbye to the smartphone
industry and focus on developing software
for other companies to use.
No variety whatsoever:
Blackberry made no efforts to treat its
customers with variety, which they say is
the spice of life, until the recent release of
the Blackberry Q10 which came rather too
late. It’s astonishing how Blackberry failed
to learn from the very mistake that made
rivals, Nokia, go under. Blackberry releases
new phones constantly, but the problem
with that is that the phones are not quite
new. They may be brand-new, but nothing
is new about them beyond the model name
and the price. One new release after the
other, we ended up with basically the same
phone over and over again with barely-
noticeable differences here and there. It’s
like a James Bond franchise with the same
plot and characters over and over again.
Why would I want to replace my old
Blackberry with a new one if the new one
has exactly the same features and looks as
the old one, but costs nearly twice as
much?
Tecno, Samsung, Apple and others:
The emergence of the Hong Kong-based
Tecno as major players in the budget
smartphone niche has really put BB out of
its element. Blackberry’s share of the
smartphone market it once dominated is on
an ever-increasing slide. In emerging
markets, it is on a losing battle with budget
smartphone makers Tecno (Africa) and
Samsung (Asia). In developed markets, it is
battling with high-end products from
Samsung (again) and, of course, Apple. The
acquisition of Nokia’s mobile phone
manufacturing unit by Microsoft piles
further misery on the Canadian company as
it could slide further down from its
position (behind Samsung and Apple) to
somewhere behind Microsoft-Nokia. Other
companies like Huawei, LG, ZTE and Sony
are lurking in the shadows and they are not
far behind in the race.
http://observerreports.com/2013/09/what-
went-wrong-with-blackberry/
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