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BlackBerry to cut 4,500 jobs, predicts 2nd quarter loss of $950M

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Re: BlackBerry to cut 4,500 jobs, predicts 2nd quarter loss of $950M

#41

Post by alex_c »

methodin wrote: post #28

If any new phone wants a decent market share they have to start with the developers - they are the ones who will carry it along until enough 2 year contracts expire to grow the user base. Blackberry simply failed on this front so it's no wonder they are struggling. They followed Microsoft's path of screwing developers which clearly was a bad move. There is always room for new devices, though. If FF or Ubuntu develop…

>They followed Microsoft's path of screwing developers which clearly was a bad move.

Can you elaborate? From what I've seen RIM made a pretty significant effort to court developers to its platform - the users and revenue just weren't there, so it was not that tempting for developers no matter what RIM said or did.

Re: BlackBerry to cut 4,500 jobs, predicts 2nd quarter loss of $950M

#42

Post by JTon »

scrabble wrote: post #23
gummify wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What were the real problems then that led to their fall? Lack of technology innovation? badly run company and operations? lost touch with the consumer? All of the above?

There were a few key parts to this (and lots more that I'm missing). 1] OS felt dated. Failure to come closer to what customers wanted on a timely basis. 2] Poor app developer experience. 3] A lot of different hardware specs against which to develop apps. 4] Not enough apps. Missing key apps. 5] Slow to innovate after settling on major patent case. The company became very lawyer focused which slowed innovation to a c…

6] It became cool to bash BB (severe brand degradation). BB10 is competitive, but the average consumer doesn't know this and doesn't care

Re: BlackBerry to cut 4,500 jobs, predicts 2nd quarter loss of $950M

#43

Post by maxsilver »

GrinningFool wrote: post #25
maxsilver wrote: post #7

It's unfortunate, as someone who just purchased a Q10 (switched from Android), I think they've finally got their act together and released something excellent. The Q10's battery life is great, the hardware keyboard is solid and travels well. The Paratek antenna gets the best reception and data connection of any device I've ever used. The BB10 software isn't great, but it's decent. (It's certainly far better than wher…

This is frustrating - I agree that they've finally gotten their act together, particularly with 10.2. The writing has been on the wall for a while - I stopped building apps for them earlier this year. I've tried Android and iPhone and don't particularly want to return to either one. The former because of too many apps that want all the permissions under the sun while the OS offers a complete lack of fine-grained cont…

I completely agree, especially around the permissions.

I'm also worried that this is the end. Every previous company thats built decent 'prosumer' or 'power-user' phones appears to be dead or dying.

I loved my Palm Pre (WebOS), it was my first smartphone. They're dead now.

I upgraded to an HTC Arrive (Windows Phone 7), but HTC's slowly dying off, and no one makes (or Microsoft blocks?) hardware keyboards for that platform now. Windows Phone also didn't support any notifications or push notifications at the time (and 'live tiles' aren't solid enough to replace them).

I upgraded to a Motorola Photon Q. Software's ok, and there's no terrible skin. But the battery life and reception are both terrible (and the battery is sealed in, so every day it gets worse...). I knew the sealed battery was a mistake, I tried it anyway and got burned. Won't be making that mistake again.

The Q10 was my last refuge. When BlackBerry goes away, I suspect there will be literally nothing left for me to turn to.

Re: BlackBerry to cut 4,500 jobs, predicts 2nd quarter loss of $950M

#44

Post by JTon »

Touche wrote: post #26
bsullivan01 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Even Microsoft is failing at this. How much evidence does a company need to see that their strategy was doomed? The BB, Nokia, HTC etc problem is one of cash /runaway. Nokia was almost broke and how many $950M loss quarters can BB take? Not that many. Microsoft can keep bankrolling Windows Phones for a decade waiting for iPhone and Android to make mistakes and no one will even question them. Look at what they've do…

Aren't they losing money on Bing, and are basically break even on Xbox? I predict Microsoft will eventually give up on Windows Phone and probably the consumer market in general. The momentum is overwhelmingly against them, but of course they'll go down with the ship almost all the way. What they should probably do is maintain an Android fork.

As long as WP adoption is growing (which is it) why give up?

Re: BlackBerry to cut 4,500 jobs, predicts 2nd quarter loss of $950M

#45

Post by dham »

Touche wrote: post #26
bsullivan01 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Even Microsoft is failing at this. How much evidence does a company need to see that their strategy was doomed? The BB, Nokia, HTC etc problem is one of cash /runaway. Nokia was almost broke and how many $950M loss quarters can BB take? Not that many. Microsoft can keep bankrolling Windows Phones for a decade waiting for iPhone and Android to make mistakes and no one will even question them. Look at what they've do…

Aren't they losing money on Bing, and are basically break even on Xbox? I predict Microsoft will eventually give up on Windows Phone and probably the consumer market in general. The momentum is overwhelmingly against them, but of course they'll go down with the ship almost all the way. What they should probably do is maintain an Android fork.

I'm not a fan of Microsoft, but they have a reputation of throwing money at something for a long period of time and it succeeding.

Re: BlackBerry to cut 4,500 jobs, predicts 2nd quarter loss of $950M

#46

Post by thedrbrian »

GrinningFool wrote: post #27
rimantas wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alas, Q10 does not compete with iOS from 6 years ago.

That's an interesting kneejerk response that one hears variations of whenever anybody brings up any smartphone OS that is not their One True OS. Do you have particular things that it doesn't do that iOS of six years ago did?

Who cares? If bb want me to shell out 600 quid now their product has to compete with the phones of now not the ones from six years ago.

Re: BlackBerry to cut 4,500 jobs, predicts 2nd quarter loss of $950M

#47

Post by ChuckMcM »

martythemaniak wrote: post #35

I've been thinking about RIM lately and I think they basically had chances to turn themselves around, but took neither. The first was in '08/'09 - shortly after the iPhone. Some companies (Google, Samsung) saw where the industry was going, made the appropriate decisions and are now profiting handsomely. In hindsight, that was the right time for RIM to acquire QNX and start on BB10, which might have done very well had…

These are always more easily seen looking from the future into the past, than they are in the past looking to the future.

Few companies, with the market share RIM had, see threats as 'near term'. Fewer still have a deep appreciation for the entirety of the technology stack and the time it takes to move things. This is especially true of young executives but can happen to anyone.

RIM's technology stack matured over many years, from idea to business juggernaut. What that tells you is that moving the stack is also going to take years, so if you're experienced you start looking 5 - 6 years out not 1 - 2 years out.

When the iPhone hit, and Google was close behind, that was a huge signal. But Ballmer and Microsoft dismissing it, was a huge counter-signal. If you're an enterprise IT company, and the biggest company in Enterprise IT in the market place is dismissing the iPhone as a 'fad', you might be inclined to believe them rather than your own people who are saying "this is a threat".

At some point you get behind the power curve. In airplanes once you are behind the curve there is literally nothing you can do which will prevent you from eventually crashing. The same it true in companies. RIM apparently decided early on that Microsoft was a more credible indicator of the future than Apple/Google for their marketplace. And they have paid the ultimate price for that.

Re: BlackBerry to cut 4,500 jobs, predicts 2nd quarter loss of $950M

#48

Post by GrinningFool »

macrael wrote: post #36
GrinningFool wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting kneejerk response that one hears variations of whenever anybody brings up any smartphone OS that is not their One True OS. Do you have particular things that it doesn't do that iOS of six years ago did?

The point is not about wether it is better or worse than iOS from 6 years ago, that parent probably believes it is better than that, but the problem is that the choice today is about BB10 or iOS 7. It's competing against todays phones, so how much better or worse it is than the iPhone was at launch is mostly irrelevant to the current market of smartphone buyers.

Possibly; that's not how I read that response, because it that and variations upon it really are common responses when speaking of a Phone Other Than My Favorite, and your interpretation seems to be seldom how it's intended. (It's also not something you typically see as much of here, so it stood out a bit.)

To your point, though - aside from some gee-whiz features like fingerprint capture, it offers similar features and functionality as iOS. More in some ways, less in others.

The only thing it actually doesn't offer is the range apps - most importantly apps that everyone puts out by default for android and iphone. (And consequently provides additional free advertising for those platforms) Their legacy OS left a bad taste and so they never captured mindshare of mobile developers. Combine that with a complete failure of marketing, and it never had a chance at large-scale uptake.

Re: BlackBerry to cut 4,500 jobs, predicts 2nd quarter loss of $950M

#49

Post by mrtron »

pinaceae wrote: post #33
kunai wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? The problem isn't with the phones. The Z10 and Q10 are fantastic and BB10 is probably the best business-centric OS ever written. The problem is that the applications are just not there, and that people associate BlackBerry with reboots, battery pulls, and outdated, clunky software, even though that's not the case. It's an image problem, not a phone problem. They can't market like Apple used to. If they could, th…

"best business-centric OS" and there it is. same idiocy as MS. it's either user-centric or it isn't. BB catered to "business", but that meant IT. the users, managers, switched privately to iPhones. then demanded them from IT. boom, headshot. BYOD is what kills "business-centric". BB realized that, tried to position BBM as a user centric thing. too late. and schizo, as the playbook slogan "amateur hour is over" showed…

It used to be business-centric was enough.

Now user-centric is coming fast and hard to the business market.

Re: BlackBerry to cut 4,500 jobs, predicts 2nd quarter loss of $950M

#50

Post by jusben1369 »

canistr wrote: post #37
scrabble wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were a few key parts to this (and lots more that I'm missing). 1] OS felt dated. Failure to come closer to what customers wanted on a timely basis. 2] Poor app developer experience. 3] A lot of different hardware specs against which to develop apps. 4] Not enough apps. Missing key apps. 5] Slow to innovate after settling on major patent case. The company became very lawyer focused which slowed innovation to a c…

I would add culture to that whereby executive leadership and downward did not admit to problems and felt the platform was infallible. As a graduate of Waterloo, I can attest that between 2008-2011 people in the KW area were steadfast in denying the future of mobile and the underlying problems at RIM/BlackBerry.

I would agree with you. In a former life I had interactions with BB in a sales capacity. I sold into or had customers at many of the Top 50 "tech" companies. BB/Rim had one of the strangest, most insular cultures I came across. Maybe early on they felt really patronized by US/SV VC's/companies etc and so were anti US. Either way it was quite odd. I really wondered how that would end up working out for them.
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