back to article BlackBerry hopes phone flinger Punkt is feeling lucky to be new licensee

BlackBerry has found another licensee for its Dolby-like licensing initiative, "Secured by BlackBerry", and expanded the venture way beyond smartphones. From now on, licensees won't need to take BlackBerry's version of OS to earn a "Secured by BlackBerry" accreditation, and potential devices could include not just smartphones …

  1. wolfetone Silver badge

    Well if the new Nokia 8110 doesn't turn up soon I might get myself that Punkt. Does look lovely, and while £175 is a bit steep, if you consider how free it is from all the prying Google/Facebook/Twatter bollocks it's not a bad price.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Updates

      One of the attractions of BlackBerry's spin of Android on the Motion, KeyOne is that you get updates. Pretty regularly. It's one of their USPs (unusual selling points; not unique - Google do it too, but few others bother).

      I'm wondering whether that's going to persist into this sort of licensing arrangement. Worryingly, the talk of working with whatever kernel the manufacturer wants to put on the phone is probably hinting that updates are to some extent down to the manufacturer, not BlackBerry. That would be a pity.

      None the less, offering "we're good at bolting Android together" as service to other manufacturers is probably a good thing to get into. It means that a phone manufacturer does not have to stand up a crack team of software devs to organise their own spin on Android. Google don't do this; they simply toss AOSP up onto a web server and leave you to get on with it.

      Currently I'm running a BlackBerry Motion; for what I want, it's very good.

  2. Christian Berger

    Hmm... looking at that phone...

    I wonder how they were not sued yet.

    The design is very "Braun"-like.

    The company logo is a straight copy from the one used by "Loewe." down to the last period.

    https://www.loewe.tv/de

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: Hmm... looking at that phone...

      The LOEWE. logo is all upper case in a thickset font with little space between letters. As such, it has more in common with the later TELEFUNKEN (another German company operating in the same areas during the same period) logo than the mostly lower case Punkt. logo, save for the inclusion of a full stop.

      That the phone itself is black and has rounded corners is not enough for it to be confused for a Braun calculator. You'd have to square off the top corners and add some brown and orange buttons to even come close.

    2. wolfetone Silver badge

      Re: Hmm... looking at that phone...

      "The company logo is a straight copy from the one used by "Loewe." down to the last period."

      It's not a straight copy of Loewe.

      It may, however, be a near perfect copy of Bench.

    3. The Sprocket

      Re: Hmm... looking at that phone...

      Not similar enough. I have the MP02 (internally advanced MP01) and a working Braun calculator right here, side by side. Close—but no cigar. And if you can live without a fondle-phone, the Punkt MP02 is brilliant.

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