Too little, too late.
Sorry, but they missed this boat by four years. They are now trying to tie into Android after losing 3/4 of their user base. The departures won't stop because of this.
BlackBerry is sharing its crown jewels - BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) - with non-BlackBerry devices for the first time: and the lucky punters are Samsung fandroids in Africa. The instant-messaging app will be free, compatible with the Android-powered Galaxy range of handsets, and offer all the important BBM functionality …
I can only see fail in this direction. How does cross platforming a messaging app that was the only reason most teenagers wanted a BlackBerry device help them at all? This will only accelerate the exodus, surely?
At least now it's out on an inherently insecure platform like Android, hopefully someone can reverse engineer it and create an open source version....
Hmm.
Maybe look at it the other way - you liked you BB, but all your BBM friends have jumped ship to an iphone and now you've nobody to talk to on BBM. That's a pretty good reason to bin the BB and join them.
If your iphone buddies are using BBM and you happen to like your BB, you'll keep it, or maybe even buy a shiney new one.
Still - suspect it's all too late, and they're all on Whatsapp already.
Blackberry is heading towards one of the most reliable business products that was.
It's like if someone said black ink is not going to be made anymore because things have moved on.
We still need a good reliable mesage and mail platform, preferable one that does not need the battery charged daily but it looks like the RIM business plan has missed some bread and butter users.
Plenty of people need basic black ink if company X thinks there is no longer a market in the scale that currently suits it rework the business so there is still a viable source for black ink before all the users go elsewhere.
I feel like I'm saying "this is good for use please keep doing this" and they say "it's just not where a lot of market is going so er, no"
If we have to go smarphone we will, but probably not with RIM, we don't NEED or WANT to go smartphone from a busniess point of view but if the other options are being deprecated RIM can see us as customer-deprecated.
Most Blackberry servers connect directly to Microsoft Exchange. You can now completely cut Blackberry out of the loop and use any handset via SSL and stop paying the Blackberry network tax.
If you want an enterprise platform with full management then Microsoft / Nokia offer a good solution for less -O2 amongst others have decided to adopt it: http://www.intomobile.com/2013/07/30/leaked-document-suggests-o2-germany/
Part of this is out of my hands as the Exchange is part of the parent company and BES10 is not going to happen. I know I still could use if BES was updated, but as 10 does not support current phones in the field and there are now (many) alternative mobile device management servers the market has moved on.
Eventually the data tariff for world roaming from UK based companies should come down and so smartphones will not be the stupid risk they currently are.
I have a working set up that suits us right now but next round of phones probably won't be Blackberries.
For me that is a shame as they were one bit of the IT day I could leave alone and expect few surprises.
Why does a company give away the only thing that kept the bulk of their customers clinging on and not only that to a company that plans to roll it out to one of the few continents where Blackberry still has a fairly decent share of the market?
What does this indicate for Blackberry? For me it indicates that they have all but given up on marketing their own hardware and are looking for a partner to carry the only decent part of their smart phones, the messenger. That way they can salvage the 'enterprise' part of their business. Though how they even cover that portion of the business.
I'd be willing to bet that give it a couple of years that Samsung will make an offer for Blackberry. What better way to increase market share than to be able to market their devices carrying BBM as Blackberry devices.
Seeing as how it is Africa and Samsung only, it wouldn't affect their sales all that much. Surely RIM sees the writing on the wall that Android will own the dominant share, Apple will take its 10%, and Windows Phone will be the alternative for the few percent who hate both Apple and those hippie open sourcers.
Not much room for a 4th player, especially given that the only reason people are buying it anymore is BBM. Better to find a way to make people pay to get access to BBM before it becomes irrelevant (though I think they're already too late, as BBM only matters in a few locales these days) Presumably Samsung is paying RIM for this, and if it is successful they'll try to hit them up for it worldwide, along with the other players. Can't see Apple or Microsoft interested, but maybe Moto or HTC might be?