I scratch my head sometimes at the motives of BlackBerry. I analyze the news that comes out of the Waterloo, Ont.-based smartphone vendor and wonder what are they trying to accomplish.
Are they trying to provide real innovation in the mobility market or are they looking at ways to break up the company? Or sell the company outright. Maybe play the Dell card and go private. Lay off staff at unprecedented rates? My question here is where’s the focus? What does BlackBerry want to be? What do they want to accomplish? If it’s providing innovative products to the market place then they really accomplished something with the release of the Z30.
I was shown seven or eight BlackBerry prototypes late last year. Frankly, those prototypes made me bullish on the company’s future success. But where are all those products? Why has it taken BlackBerry so long to release a 5-inch smartphone or phablet?
I spoke to one noted solution provider CEO about BlackBerry who has a soft spot for the company and he said that there is a large base of customers who have legacy investments in BlackBerry in hopes of these new products.
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CIOs of large enterprises have a large base of BlackBerry that are getting long in the tooth and their preferences is not to move to Apple, Android or Microsoft. What these CIO’s want is to stick with BlackBerry mainly because of the products top-notch security.
These customers are waiting for BlackBerry to innovate and then they will shift to the newer models. Why did BlackBerry make all these customers wait for the Z30? I guess only Thorston Heins can answer that question.
The BlackBerry Z30 is an innovative product with features such as Natural Sound, a new technology exclusive to BlackBerry OS 10.2 that promises to make BBM Voice and BBM Video chats sound more natural and realistic.
The Z30 also sports a new antenna technology that tunes reception for better connectivity in low reception areas, as well as faster data transfers and few dropped calls. It also includes a 2880 mAh battery, the largest ever for a BlackBerry, promising up to 25 hours of mixed use.
The device itself features a 5-inch super Amoled display and is powered by a 1.7 GHz processor with quad core graphics.
This smartphone finally gives enterprise customers an alternative to the android devices like the Samsung Note, HTC Butterfly, Sony Xperia and the LG Optimus.
But more needs to happen for BlackBerry. The company should be releasing new form factors at least every quarter. It keeps them in the news on a positive level and it also tells the marketplace that the company is trying to be innovative.
Two quick hits before I go. Burnaby, B.C.-based General Fusion continues to attract the top minds to its board of directors. The company named Jacques Besnainou formerly the CEO of Areva and Frederick W. Buckman of MIT to its board.
PaaS provider Jelastic appointed technology veteran John Derrick as its new CEO. Derrick was the CEO of Storage Acceleration and the COO of MIPS Technologies.
The problem is Blackberry has no idea what it is trying to accomplish. The CEO Thorsten Heins is no Steve Jobs and it shows. He has no real innovative thought no ability to think the next BIG thing or even the flash or presence needed to a launch. The Z10 launch was like a 7 course meal of Cream of Wheat.
He plods along firing stuff against a wall and hoping something sticks, he and Tim Cook from Apple should join forces and create a new company called “STBM” or Striving to Be Mediocre”
Loved the z10 interface…then I saw the IO7 interface…time for another update BB.
Blackberry, if you want to come ahead – come out with a phone that has features people desire, that other phones still don’t have….it’s too late for incremental changes, you need to catch up before you go back to making incremental changes.
Ideal Phone
1) Fingerprint Reader (Enterprise user’s would love this)
2) Gorilla Antibacterial Glass (Look into it)
3) Wireless Charging
4) 25h minimum battery life – my current z10 lasts about 5h – I am a heavy user to be fair..
5) Metallic casing (Gun Metal Gray maybe?)
6) More Gestures
7) Screen Share – provide Remote control as well (Enterprise IT Admins would love this)
8) Come up with Enterprise Software to manage/monitor servers
9) 3D Camera
10) 3D Screen
11) Built in Projector (Business users would love this)
12) Integration with Office 2013, to allow you to control slides/view next slide on your phone – basically extending your phone as a second screen
NetFusion Designs