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Blackberry Android Businesses Cellphones

Is BlackBerry Launching an Android Phone? 113

Posted by samzenpus from the trying-something-different dept.
An anonymous reader writes: According to a Reuters report BlackBerry may launch an Android phone with a hardware keyboard. If true, it's a definite shift in their business model. "We don't comment on rumors and speculation, but we remain committed to the BlackBerry 10 operating system, which provides security and productivity benefits that are unmatched," said the company in an email. Google declined to comment.
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Is BlackBerry Launching an Android Phone? More

Is BlackBerry Launching an Android Phone?

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  • Wow brilliant move (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    It's only what consumers have been asking for since the release of Android...

    • Really? As a developer I've only been asking that they close shop. I must admit, I haven't had to deal with any of their products in a few years. Our customers use to use them a lot though and in those days the way they handled html made IE look good. I don't really want the people who designed that making any more products that I may have to one day support.

      • The way they handled HTML? You mean beating EVERY other mobile browser, and almost every desktop browser (including the big 4) in all the HTML5 compatibility tests, and most of the HTML5 speed tests?
    • Original Droid had a slide out keyboard. That is why I went with it. After a month never really used the keyboard again. Thought I wanted it. In use did not need it.

    • It's only what consumers have been asking for since the release of Android...

      Blackberry-like keyboards on Android phones have been around for quite a while.

      Motorola has a few. They're mostly geared toward business users, but a consumer can still find them if he looks for them.

  • No, they're not (Score:3)

    by acoustix ( 123925 ) on Friday June 12, 2015 @08:29AM (#49897295)

    This rumor comes up every year. There would be no advantage to them releasing an Android device. They wouldn't get any cut of app sales, they can't control Android security (which is an absolute joke), and people still won't buy it because it's a BB.

    I'm a die hard BB fan. I've had 6 or 7 BB devices since 2004 (currently a Z10 running 10.3.1) and I'm a 10+ year BES admin. The BlackBerry 10 OS is solid, secure and fast. Give it time. A lot of time. It already runs most Android apps.

    Android is a mess. It varies wildly between phone manufacturers and it is dominated by 2 or 3 companies. Don't go down that path.

    • It wouldn't be so crazy if Google were planning to acquire BlackBerry for their security features.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gl4ss ( 559668 )

        what are these security features that you speak of?
        seriously...

        maybe they'll do a deal with some middleware to run android apps directly and do a deal with operas app store for android(nokia X series phones got moved to using that now, since nokia canceled their android line and closed their own appstore).

    • This rumor comes up every year. There would be no advantage to them releasing an Android device. They wouldn't get any cut of app sales, they can't control Android security (which is an absolute joke), and people still won't buy it because it's a BB.

      I'm a die hard BB fan. I've had 6 or 7 BB devices since 2004 (currently a Z10 running 10.3.1) and I'm a 10+ year BES admin. The BlackBerry 10 OS is solid, secure and fast. Give it time. A lot of time. It already runs most Android apps.

      Android is a mess. It varies wildly between phone manufacturers and it is dominated by 2 or 3 companies. Don't go down that path.

      I agree it's very unlikely they'd switch completely to Android. Obviously you're not aware they've been making a secure Android for certain customers for some time now (in partnership with Boeing).

      You're wrong about Android being unsecurable - there are several high-end phone manufacturers that build their own secure Androids, you just won't see them on Best Buy (the cheapest is probably the Black Phone [blackphone.ch]).

      Sections of HQ Jock and Lockheed Martin have a strict policy on electronic devices that can be brought

      • Oh, you mean this Blackphone [theregister.co.uk]? Just because somebody is marketing it as secure doesn't mean that it's actually a secure product.

        • Oh, you mean this Blackphone [theregister.co.uk]? Just because somebody is marketing it as secure doesn't mean that it's actually a secure product.

          Nothing is totally secure. Police are upset that the software (Finn Fisher?) they purchased to spy on standard Android doesn't work on the Black Phone - and no, it's not as secure as the stock Blackberry (which isn't that secure anyway).

      • Obviously you're not aware they've been making a secure Android for certain customers for some time now (in partnership with Boeing).

        I'm aware of that. BTW, how's that going? Not well.

        You're wrong about Android being unsecurable - there are several high-end phone manufacturers that build their own secure Androids, you just won't see them on Best Buy.

        You mean like the "most secure Android device" that was cracked in less than 5 minutes [ibtimes.co.uk]?

        • I'm aware of that. BTW, how's that going? Not well.

          Please share the source of your information that contradicts my experience.

          You're wrong about Android being unsecurable - there are several high-end phone manufacturers that build their own secure Androids, you just won't see them on Best Buy.

          You mean like the "most secure Android device" that was cracked in less than 5 minutes [ibtimes.co.uk]?

          I guess your lips got to sore to read that old article in full. Or maybe DSD and AFP should be hiring you - 'cause the desperately want to break that particular device in the investigation of several recent murders.

          Does cherry picking pay well?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by joerdie ( 816174 )
      Android is not a mess. As usual, you get what you pay for. There are many really high quality choices from 4 or 5 manufacturers. That's a great place to be in. It breeds competition and so the hardware will get better. This is the same debate we have been having for year in the PC space. When you try to compare a free or $99 device with one that costs $700, your not comparing apples to apples.

      • The biggest problem is the lack of updates for devices. This happens across all phones, regardless of how much you pay for them. The other thing to mention is that there are some really decent phones for $100 - $200. Stuff like the Moto G and E are actually quite good devices. They lack a few features of the higher end phones, You shouldn't need to spend $700 on a phone to get a decent experience. There are phones out there that prove you don't have to. There are phones like the Lumia 635 [engadget.com] that are $30 w

    • This rumor comes up every year. There would be no advantage to them releasing an Android device. They wouldn't get any cut of app sales,

      So? It's not like they're making anything now from their own app store; they lose absolutely nothing by throwing away their own store (which they won't necessarily have to do anyway) and using android stores.

      they can't control Android security (which is an absolute joke),

      They can quite easily sandbox it. Android is only a subsystem after all. It already runs as a subsystem in BB 10 OS.

      and people still won't buy it because it's a BB.

      I'm a die hard BB fan. I've had 6 or 7 BB devices since 2004 (currently a Z10 running 10.3.1) and I'm a 10+ year BES admin. The BlackBerry 10 OS is solid, secure and fast. Give it time. A lot of time. It already runs most Android apps.

      I'm not a die-hard BB fan - hell, I'm not even a fan at all. I own a BB Passport, and without a doubt it has the best hardware I've ever used (phonewise, that is). Going from an iPhone6 to

    • It varies wildly between phone manufacturers and it is dominated by 2 or 3 companies. Don't go down that path.

      BB10 varies even more from stock Android, so what is your point?

    • Actually, you're dead wrong, except for the fact that Blackberry is probably way too late for this to make a difference.

      Blackberry should have released an Android phone YEARS ago instead of dumping tons of money into BBOS 10. If they would have instead spent that money on Android by adding working full device crypto and out of the box BES support, they would have dominated the enterprise market and also been able to move into consumer by touting the privacy features.

      Instead, they wasted all their time and r

    • This rumor comes up every year. There would be no advantage to them releasing an Android device. They wouldn't get any cut of app sales, they can't control Android security (which is an absolute joke), and people still won't buy it because it's a BB.

      Do LG and Samsung get a cut of the app sales? No. They seem to be doing just fine compared to Blackberry.

  • From the moment I heard that they were going with QNX I knew that they were making a massive mistake. But when I said this all kinds of people jumped on me and got all buthurt defending QNX. I thought that Android was the way to go from the moment iPhone started to eat their lunch. My main problems with QNX were that the only person that I knew who loved it was a complete tool. Plus why not do effectively what Apple did when they adopted BSD as the core. Pick something that works and run with it. Apple had

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Karlt1 ( 231423 )

      Apple had their old creaky OS, had just failed doing a deal with another OS company and then just jumped into BSD.

      Huh?

      Around '96 Apple was internally working on a new OS that was a failure and bought NeXT started by this guy you may have heard of named Steve Jobs. They then ported NeXT to PPC, replaced Display Postscript with Quartz, added a few classic MacOS technologies and the Carbon API to make developing apps compatible with OS X and classic Mac OS.

      OS X. Is based on the internally written NuKernal wit

      • Huh?

        Around '96 Apple was internally working on a new OS that was a failure and bought NeXT started by this guy you may have heard of named Steve Jobs.

        He's referring to the fact that Apple had, at one point, considered buying Be, Inc. and using BeOS as the foundation for what would become OS X. However, Jean-Louis Gassée wanted too much money, made some shitty comments in the press about sticking it to Apple, and Apple decided to buy NeXT instead.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jbolden ( 176878 )

      Plus why not do effectively what Apple did when they adopted BSD as the core. Pick something that works and run with it.

      You are contradicting themselves that's what they did do with QNX. They had a core that worked well. The core i.e. low level OS was never the problem.

      But I still think that BB doesn't know what their customers really want. They are still trying to please the IT departments, the telcos, and their enterprise customers.

      Enterprise and government are their customers. As for trying to pl

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I knew BB was dead the moment the iphone came out.

      Microsoft, having defeated Palm, was asleep at the wheel and doing what they do when they abandon a product line. (Despite having near 90% of the early smartphone market they just sat and made dumb jokes when the iphone launched)

      People accuse me of stating the obvious now but holy shit did I catch flack back then for even suggesting that BB would anything rule the message and business oriented portable market for now and all eternity. (Go look back in time o

      • Blackberry was always crap, but they were ingrained in business due to their encryption and email integration. I figured they'd stick around for awhile since businesses never change their infrastructure radically unless they have no choice. In this case, the employees forced the choice and apple decided to work with them, so blackberry went down. The only thing good about blackberry hardware or software was the keyboard, so it makes sense they'd make an android phone with that built in. I'd strongly consid

      • I knew BB was dead the moment the iphone came out

        It must feel good to be right about one thing....

  • One of the most difficult things to get your head around at a proud, faltering, legacy company is that the things that use to work for you are no longer selling. The idea of an OS that is more secure than iOS or Android has some appeal in circles such as this, but market share is driven by the Muggles.

    Have an open mind. Embrace a new strategy. The Blackberry OS was 1% of market share in 2014. (Android >75%)

    Take care of your greatest remaining asset: your people. That priority can be best accomplished w

    • A 1% market share of a huge global cell phone market still means they sell a lot of phones. They sold 8 million phones in 2014. That's nothing to laugh at. There are companies who are very profitable who wish they could sell 1/10 as many units. What BlackBerry did wrong was to simply hire too many people. They had over 19000 employees when they were popular. They are now around 4000 employees. That is still too many people. It should not take that many people to do what they do. They could remain profi

      • Sure, they'll fire a bunch of staff, but management will somehow miraculously come out unscathed.

  • This could work well for them (Score:3)

    by countach44 ( 790998 ) on Friday June 12, 2015 @10:58AM (#49898155)
    I think people would be surprised how many users still want a decent android phone with a keyboard. I still have my droid4. It is not uncommon for me to get comments from strangers like "wow, I wish I still had a phone like that" whenever I'm typing away. Good on BlackBerry if they can pull it off, I know I'm not alone in hoping this isn't a rumor.

    • The problem is that most general users that long for a keyboard phone are the type that also want a phone that "is just a phone."

      I'm not saying you are like that, but I bet half those who come up to you are missing the old days where phones were simple.

      I'd be willing to bet half of the remaining half simply feel that way out of nostigla but would never actually buy or want a phone like that.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • ...is that if Blackberry pulls it off, Apple should also do the same thing and release an Android phone. Then Google should make their next Nexus phone have Windows 10. And the Microsoft version of Nokia should release a webOS phone too.

      And Intel should release a MeeGo phone

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by JazzLad ( 935151 )
      I would *totally* buy a Nokia WebOS phone ...

  • Hardware keyboards are overrated (Score:3)

    by linuxguy ( 98493 ) on Friday June 12, 2015 @11:22AM (#49898297) Homepage

    I have owned Blackberry devices in the past and currently own an Android phone. I have always loved hardware keyboards and for the longest time insisted on phones with hardware keyboards including Android phones. However, over time, I have observed that software keyboards have improved a lot. And I mean a lot. To the point that I no longer wish to dedicate precious real estate on my phone to a hardware keyboard.

    Hardware keyboard is an idea that is now dead on mobile phones. It will never (I usually advise my kids to never say never but I am making an exception here) be popular on mobile phones again. It takes too much space and many can type faster on a software keyboard. Speech recognition function has also come a long way. And usually, for me, that is the fastest way to enter text.

  • If BB released a landscape slider phone running BB10, I'd be interested! BB10 intrigues me, but the hardware they've released so far doesn't; hard to justify a downgrade from an LG G2 just for an different OS. I want a keyboard, but not that badly.

    If BB released a landscape slider phone running Android 5.x, I'd be even more interested! We need some hardware differentiation between OEMs. Right now, all Android phones are rectangular slabs with touchscreens. Whoop-de-doo! Bring back the hardware innovation, O

  • I hung onto my WebOS Pre 3 phone until I could no longer find any more Verizon devices on ebay (the last one I cannabilized two broken ones into one working one). For the last few years I was trying to find a suitable replacement. I tried iOS, Android, and Windows phones but none could match the elegance of WebOS (yes, I know that all stole many features from it over the years). I ended up with a BB10 device which provides a well thought out design. It feels like it might be what WebOS would be if devel

  • Qt5... not! (Score:3)

    by paugq ( 443696 ) <pgquiles&elpauer,org> on Saturday June 13, 2015 @04:54AM (#49902931) Homepage

    They are not committed to BlackBerry 10. Proof is they stopped development in Qt5 for BBX half a year ago. They are stuck with Qt4, which is out-of-support already. Smells bad.

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