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Blackberry Handhelds

BlackBerry Looking To Quench 'Insatiable Demand' For New Smartphones 173

Posted by samzenpus from the back-in-blackberry dept.
DavidGilbert99 writes "BlackBerry is on something of a roll. It finally delivered its BlackBerry 10 platform along with the first smartphone to run the OS, the Z10 in January. This weekend saw the launch of the Q10 and there is an 'insatiable demand' for this smartphone with its physical keyboard, says BlackBerry's UK head Rob Orr."
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BlackBerry Looking To Quench 'Insatiable Demand' For New Smartphones More

BlackBerry Looking To Quench 'Insatiable Demand' For New Smartphones

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  • Um? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 29, 2013 @09:01AM (#43579797)

    Has the company a question mark?

  • has the company... (Score:5, Funny)

    by alphatel ( 1450715 ) * on Monday April 29, 2013 @09:02AM (#43579803)
    Is ? the new !
    • He's just trolling now. He must love the attention.

      Dice, do yourselves a favour; Fire all of the "editors" and hire some who are competent. The current batch are borderline literate, or just don't care.

  • They've got preorders for BOTH of them? (Score:3)

    by Overzeetop ( 214511 ) on Monday April 29, 2013 @09:04AM (#43579815) Journal

    This is as bad as Microsoft running out of Surface tablets.

    • But Blackberry is very popular amongst gangsters. Blackberry Messaging is perfect for keeping in touch with the gang, without the police being able to eavesdrop, apparently.

      All the London looting riots of summer 2011 were organised via BBM.

      It may be popular in certain corporations for much the same reason.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Except it is not true. Blackberry was being confronted for example in India and Arabia with a threat to ban their gadgets if BB wouldn't allow their local police and security forces to eavesdrop all BBM.

        BBM is not save from the police. It's a myth.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Threni ( 635302 )

      There's a lot of this in the press at the mo. They've done a good job. Handling the press, that is. They've already lost to Android and iOs. Let's just hope all those corporate sales hold out.

  • Blaance Sheets and Cash Flow statements (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 29, 2013 @09:08AM (#43579849)

    BBRY is doing quite well. Anyone familiar with balance sheets and cash flow statements knows that BBRY is not near death and has never beeen near death. The companyi s a cash generator. People need to realize this.

    People are startign to realize this. With 30%+ short interest in the stock, a short squeeze is overdue. I bought in at several price points. Lowest being around $8/ share. My only regret is not putting even more money into BBRY at that time.

    • that's not the only regret you're going to have about investing in the past...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Xest ( 935314 )

      So what you're saying is "Please please please, everyone else, just please buy Blackberry shares so I can cash out"?

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Xest ( 935314 )

          Yeah, in all honesty I'm in the camp that there is still some hope for Blackberry, people still underestimate it's presence - it still has more than double the market share of Windows Phone, and it still shifts one Blackberry for every 3 or so iPhones sold which given the volumes Apple sells and the profits they make still allows Blackberry a pretty viable business model.

          I just felt the guy I was originally responding too sounded a little too desperately like he was trying to pump their stock.

          This said, I s

    • CFAs and Wall Street people know nothing. (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I'm familiar with balance sheets, cash flow statements and accounting.

      These statements are snapshots of the past. Although, they are losing money and their margins are negative.

      The stock market trades on what is expected in the future. The markets have seen Blackberries sales decline and their market dominance get killed by Apple and Android devices.

      Be careful when reading analyst (CFA) reports. Wall Street folks are great at grasping at straws when valuing and promoting a company.

      Very few of those peopl

    • Netcraft confirms, etc.

    • Stock price fluctuates based on expectations. BBRY has dropped in value because they went from a dominant player to a minor one in a few years. They were slow to address the changing nature of smart phones. Their offerings have been lackluster, and most of their customers gave up and moved onto other platforms. I think the platform is the most secure you can get (if you use BES). But not everyone needs that level of security and the other platforms offer good enough security for the masses.

  • finally (Score:5, Insightful)

    by slashmydots ( 2189826 ) on Monday April 29, 2013 @09:13AM (#43579881)
    This might be one of those times when everyone in the market is pissing people off with features they don't want getting shoved down their throat (a gigantic, fragile screen with an impossible to type on touchscreen) then one company comes in with exactly what people want. We switched from blackberries to Android phones at my business and now we have zero control over them. There's no centralized anything. It's like a free for all. That is not how you run a business phone system. Also, our salesmen hate the phones and Activesync is a pain in the ass.

    Unfortunately, Blackberry's software was memory leaking, server-controlling garbage so hopefully they fixed that this time around. If so, tough and nice to use phones with central control software and easy exchange integration would be lovely. They'll take over the business market instantly.
    • ActiveSync is Windows phone.

    • Free Trade up (Score:5, Informative)

      by mrops ( 927562 ) on Monday April 29, 2013 @09:43AM (#43580097)

      Well, looks like you need free upgrades. We did a while back. The new platform manages BB and iOS/Android devices. If you have your BES 5.0 and earlier License CALs lying around, its a free upgrade to their new BES 10.0

      https://enterprise.ecomm.webapps.blackberry.com/caltradeup/home.do [blackberry.com]

      Considering, going forward you will need to pay a monthly fee and the Trade Up program give you non-expiring licenses, I think its a worthy upgrade even if you don't intend to run BB in long run. At least you will have new CALs if you so choose to continue.

    • This might be one of those times when everyone in the market is pissing people off with features they don't want getting shoved down their throat (a gigantic, fragile screen with an impossible to type on touchscreen) then one company comes in with exactly what people want.

      There were many attempts at smartphones with physical keyboards and they were largely rejected. The size of a phone is relatively limited by the practical constraints of portability. If you put a keyboard on it, you have to take away space from something else in the design. Generally speaking a bigger screen is a more useful feature to more people more of the time than a physical keyboard. Most of what a phone it good for does not require much data input. A physical keyboard is wasted space the majorit

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by pnutjam ( 523990 )
        physical keyboard's on phones will stick around until the people who demand them die off, it shouldn't be too long.
      • Besides that, I think the Blackberry keyboard (at least on my Bold) is the most horrendous little PoS I've ever had to use (work). The keys are tiny. It's just not meant for man thumbs. I'll take a soft keyboard over that any day.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Foresto ( 127767 )

        Mostly true, yet for some of us, a physical keyboard is more important than a third day of battery life or 720p video playback. The Sony-Ericsson SK17i (SK17a in North America) did a pretty good job of combining a real keyboard with a compact form factor. I hope someone improves upon that idea in the next year or two.

        • Mostly true, yet for some of us, a physical keyboard is more important than a third day of battery life or 720p video playback.

          Three days? I'd be happy with >1 day of battery life.

      • For sperd ansd accuryacy nithimgncan beeat thenresl keyboa5d on my mOtoropla Pho5on Q 4G LTE!1

        yp'ucfe m7sta never teiwd a good keybopard beforew!

        sen4g from my Q

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by mlts ( 1038732 ) *

      For the enterprise, it essentially is a "pick your poison" choice. RIM devices and relatively expensive BES, in return for security [1] that is actually enterprise level. Or go with ActiveSync and relatively little control, other than iOS with its pushed policies. Maybe Windows Phone 8 has usable GPOs.

      It would be nice to have an ability for more Android devices to have partitions separating work stuff from home stuff. With BYOD definitely becoming more common, this will be a great thing for all parties

  • Slashdot editors need to lay off the weed...

  • Appalling writing, negligible subbing. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Ends on this corker; "and for the first time in a number of year, it looks like BlackBerry could be back at teh smartphone top table." THUD!

  • Physical Keyboard FTW (Score:4, Funny)

    by Bigbutt ( 65939 ) on Monday April 29, 2013 @09:19AM (#43579939) Homepage Journal

    Honestly, I have both an Android phone provided by work and an iPhone that I bought and the lack of a physical keyboard has driven me to fling both phones across the room more times that I care to admit (and autocorrect can die in a fire). I have two cracks across the face of my iPhone and am reluctant to upgrade to a new phone just because of the frustration of dealing with the lack of a physical keyboard. I used to have a Blackberry and really liked that it had a physical keyboard.

    [John]

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Meh, I guess it's better than nothing, but I'll wait for the version with mechanical switches. This one just isn't clicky enough for me.

    • Re:Physical Keyboard FTW (Score:5, Funny)

      by EmagGeek ( 574360 ) on Monday April 29, 2013 @09:33AM (#43580021) Journal

      "(and autocorrect can die in a fire)"

      Autocorrect can be easily disabilities by any on on either plates formed.

    • Re:Physical Keyboard FTW (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Jerry Atrick ( 2461566 ) on Monday April 29, 2013 @09:38AM (#43580063)

      My HTC G1 is sitting on my desk right now and I miss it's keyboard on my current mobile. However the market voted and Android devices with keyboards more or less vanished.

      I don't believe there are enough of us hard keyboard lovers to sustain a mass market and BB are about to discover that. BB probably already have all the users this might attract.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Skater ( 41976 )

      I've found I'm just as fast and accurate on my BB Bold's physical keyboard as I am with the iPhone and Android keyboards (I use all three regularly - BB is for work, the iPhone is my retired 3GS that I still use for a couple things, the Android is my current phone). But, the physical keyboard on my BB takes up space that could be used for displaying things when I'm not typing, so I much prefer even my 3GS over my current BB. Word on the street is that work is switching from BBs to iPhones this year. I'm

    • You can have an Android with a physical keyboard: both my Androids do, it's a feature I insist on. iPhone, you're kinda stuck, yeah.

      • Yes, but you can't get one with a good screen size and a recent Android version. I am aware of precisely ONE Android phone with a keyboard that runs JB 4.1 and 0 that have 4.2.

        I believe there's a grand total of 11 that even run ICS, and half of those are Sprint/Verizon CDMA2000 devices.

    • I used to be all for physical keyboards ... preferred to actually press on buttons and can cancel phone calls in my pocket without looking and no accidental swipes or such ... however I did envy the touchscreen users for their much larger displays!

      I had a BB 9105 Pearl and then got myself the Z10 as the Pearl was feeling it's age and I've not looked back since! The Z10 is really easy to use and quick. Typing with the Z10 is amazing - all my friends actually like how you can flick words up and string full s

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by SIGBUS ( 8236 )

      I have a Galaxy S Relay, and it's too bad the phone is already discontinued, because I love having the slide-out keyboard. I wouldn't mind a bit bigger screen or a higher-resolution camera, but it's smooth and responsive, and there's no substitute for a real keyboard.

      I wouldn't mind seeing an S4 with a slide-out, but that's not bloody likely. The lack of a physical keyboard is the only thing that makes me think twice about trading up.

    • I, too, am a phone thrower. I have been super impressed with the durability of my iphone in the $30 apple bumper (that is not sarcasm, but $30 is ridiculous). I have absolutely throttled the thing at the ground more than once. I will stop doing that from now on. Promise! But, I digress.

      The onscreen keyboard is fine... in landscape mode. In portait mode, it makes me want to murder people. You have to be like 4 years old to use a keyboard that size. I haven't owned a phone with a physical portait keyb

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by horza ( 87255 )

      I have had a range of phones, but my favourites were with keyboard. In some ways my old Nokia E71 was one of the best phones I owned: long battery life, thin and light, proper keyboard, good software including an on-board answer-phone (something my €700 Galaxy Note 2 doesn't even have). I use my phone as much for social as business, so I love the screen of the Note2, but having played with the new Blackberries they are superb. Even the touch-screen one is so intuitive to use. Unlike the rather tired an

  • Physical keyboard? Really? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I guess I don't understand the physical keyboard. I've seen those BB's with the micro buttons that you can only press with a toothpick and can't image using them. I guess I look upon physical keyboards on a phone like people who get new online reporting ability and then ask how to print it out. It just doesn't make sense.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by anagama ( 611277 )

      I once had a cheap feature phone with a physical keyboard -- it's way easier than you think it is. The issue with touch screens is that you need to look at the keyboard while you type. This leads to typos going unnoticed until after hitting send. Throw in some auto-corruption and touch screen typing is a real slow down. With a physical keyboard, you can type while looking at the screen which is faster and more accurate, because your sense of touch gives you information. A flat plate of smooth glass is

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by swalve ( 1980968 )
      The tiny buttons work fine. Our fingers are much more sensitive than a touchscreen. Or something like that. When you hit a touch "key" you are just mashing a circle and the OS has to best-guess which letter you meant. When you type in a BB keyboard, your fingertips can feel the ridges of the different keys and your brain can figure out where to direct the pressure to hit the right one.

      Some people have less pointy fingers than others, and I suspect that's where the preference lies. Pointy fingers can u
  • Come on Slashdot editors. In the last week I have seen summaries with such poor spelling, grammar and content that an 8 year old would be embarrassed to submit them. Is a 30 second proof-read too much to ask? I am beginning to get disenchanted.

  • Hey, this interests me - I've got a BB for work and I like it, and I never understood all the BB hate. I can almost type out a message without looking on that physical keyboard, and can't with my Android. So I clicked on the article ... ... which doesn't really say what the summary does. In fact, it looks more like a creative press release with a statement by a guy who is predicting insatiable demand, not identifying it.

    I'm unimpressed. But I'm still hoping for BB to come back to life. I think they mak

    • Re:Not really what it says (Score:4, Insightful)

      by swalve ( 1980968 ) on Monday April 29, 2013 @10:33AM (#43580573)
      I think it's two things. One, Blackberry is not "cool". It seemed to be for like one summer when all the celebrities were carrying around Bold 9000s, but besides that, the Blackberry is more tool and less of a toy. So people who want toys hate them. Secondly, for the longest time, Blackberries were old/cheap/broken pieces of shit people got through their work. So everyone hated them because they were reminders of their job sucking.

  • Yes, lets make "touch" gaming even shittier than it already is.
    Cannot wait for the gamers to be punted back into the main menu because they inadvertently entered a gesture. First thing I had to disable on the Ipad...

  • Wouldn't a Z81 be better than the Z10?

  • The only people struggling more in the phone market is Microsoft.

    Nobody walks onto the sales floor at verizon and asks for a blackberry. BB is the phone you are issued at work.

    A few months with a new product are not enough to turn BB around. IT and telephony departments everywhere are moving away to other platforms.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Spudley ( 171066 )

      Nobody walks onto the sales floor at verizon and asks for a blackberry. BB is the phone you are issued at work.

      That was always the case with blackberry. Their core market always was business users, and they did pretty well out of it.

      I'm sure they're very keen to eat some of Apple's consumer market share too, but don't confuse a lack of consumer sales with a lack of sales in general. In fact, when it comes to making a profit out of users, business users are a much better prospect than consumers, so if blackberries are still the phone you get issued at work, as you suggest, then BB should be laughing.

      • their other core market was kids who wanted a secure messaging platform, apparently this is the killer feature everyone wants as its also more of a group messaging thing rather than a one-to-one text approach (ie so keeping in touch with a load of mates is easier, like the IRC chat version of sms text messages).

        I don't think BB is the only choice of work phone anymore as you can get secure message apps for Android or iPhone nowadays, but now they're back,maybe IT depts will not bother to look for alternativ

      • business users are a much better prospect than consumers

        Unfortunately not so much anymore. That is/was BlackBerry's whole problem. Five years ago, smartphones were purely business tools, and "BlackBerry" was a synonym for "smartphone." But after the iPhone arrived, consumers started buying smartphones. Now, not only is the consumer smartphone market bigger than the business market, BYOD behavior is pushing some businesses to accept the user's choice of devices - which is almost invariably not a BlackBerry.

        BlackBerry's current woes all result from a classic strategic mistake - they kept building products to address their core market, then somebody went and changed the market dynamics on them. I remember reading an interview with a RIM engineer about how they laughed when the iPhone was launched. They said "this thing doesn't have a keyboard, battery life isn't great, there's no corporate administration capability built in... who will ever buy it?" They only realized belatedly that the dynamics had changed a couple years later, and then discovered that they were very poorly positioned to meet the new market's needs.

    • Lumia is doing really well in a lot of countries.

  • at least googles eric schmidt will be able to ditch his old blackberry for a new one.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/mar/21/eric-schmidt-blackberry-user [guardian.co.uk]

  • Depends on your interpretation of insatiable (Score:3)

    by scotts13 ( 1371443 ) on Monday April 29, 2013 @10:24AM (#43580463)

    As in, unable to sate. they built 100, and have 150 customers.

  • Microsoft has dropped the ball big time by offering not compelling enterprise device on the Windows 8 platform, phone, tablet, or otherwise.

    Apple is dropping the ball with the iPhone, failing to invest any effort into innovating the platform which has become stagnant after 5 years.

    So there is room for growth with the new Blackberries.

    Realize that a lot of iPhone users were once Blackberry addicts, the Q10 might provide the right kind of nostalgia to bring back some of those customers who start to remember h

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      Realize that a lot of iPhone users were once Blackberry addicts, the Q10 might provide the right kind of nostalgia to bring back some of those customers who start to remember how nice it was to use a real physical keyboard rather than the sado-masochistic on screen keyboard experience that Apple offers.

      The thing is...

      And the fanboys are absolutely going to slam me for this.

      is that the OSK on the Iphone is terrible compared to other OSK's. The stock OSK on Android 4.2 is vastly superior to IOS with both traditional typing (hunt and peck for most users) and "swype"-like gesture typing. This is the stock KB, there are alternatives that suit specific typing styles better but the stock is the best KB I've used for speed and a multitude of typing styles.

      The Iphone on the other hand (4s on the last two

  • It would have been nice if HP had actually done something with WebOS. *sigh*

  • "With more devices due to be revealed in May, has the company ?""

    I was quite worried that the reporting standards on this site would change when it was last sold. It's good to see that they haven't.

  • While the new Blacberry is outside my current price range, I would really like to see RIM survive as a company. I do believe they can add something of value to the smartphone market if they can find a way to right their ship.

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