5 ms·

Let’s say it’s January 9th, 2007 and Steve Jobs has just come off stage after the original iPhone announcement. You’re in charge of BlackBerry. What do you do d

by thom 6y ago

Let’s say it’s January 9th, 2007 and Steve Jobs has just come off stage after the original iPhone announcement. You’re in charge of BlackBerry. What do you do differently?

secfirstmd 6y ago
Go meet customers, your friends, guys in a bar, kids, your parents with a bag full of iPhones the minute you can. Whatever you do, bypass IT teams that love Blackberry and have invested their time in it and like it. Talk to consumers. IT teams and the profits from having people tied to BES etc will blind you. Make everyone watch a 20 minute video clip on both phones and ask them which was easier to use. Get them to type out XYZ thing that they hear. Give them the phones for a week and bring them back and ask them to type something else out. See how fast they can type on a screen vs keyboard. Think about what will be more useful a big screen or slightly faster typing. Then go make a iPhone version and Mac/Windows version of Blackberry Messenger. Give it away for free on all platforms. When that's done. Expand BES to control MDM laptops. Go find a small company that does music well, ideally one in Stockholm. Integrate their product into your phone and cross platform desktop offering. Use the cheap data deals you have for BES for music, it'll be expensive but will capture a young audience and will differentiate quickly from the iPod to iPhone leap many will make. Data plans are still expensive so driving down the cost will be helpful. Open source the phone code early but keep the services under your control. Find whoever is running the BlackBerry Store and fire them. Then anyone else who was involved with that. Invent a Men-In-Black memory eraser and use it wisely on anyone involved with that. Find out what the cost of the iPhone app store is, undercut it and switch the model so that the first X percent of initial sales go to the developer. Hire a couple of smart people and build a free online training course and certification to help people build apps. Treat them nicely. Give them free stuff and whatever tooling they need to build stuff. Translate it into many languages. Pick up the phone and get people from all walks of life, including dire poverty in places in Asia and Africa. Ask them what they would look for to make their life easier (hmm payments you say, hmmmm cheaper phones you say, hmmmm use BES as a sort of Free Basics). Build a decent Chinese Keyboard. Build search into your phone. Don't join PRISM, don't do some shady stuff in the Middle East and India about encryption. Build you the stuff that BES can do well. Messaging turning into productivity. Expand cloud hosting. Turn messaging into something more fun and social. Use encryption as a competitive advantage in the long run. Strike a few deals with phone companies for VOIP. Go tell the world you aren't worried about it and your main concern is Microsoft (they'll balls up mobile eventually anyway) and oh report Steve Jobs for engaging in anticompetitive contact crap for developers.
- acct776 6y ago
  Canada, too, I believe, regarding the encryption.
Scoundreller 6y ago
Double-down on what people love most about your platform: BBM and make it cross-platform. Charge $0.99 after 1 year. Apple will be too inward to be competition for that.
- 908B64B197 6y ago
  BBM's userbase was basically worthless. As soon as Facebook added chat there was a preloaded alternative on every phone. And Facebook was the first app people would install on every phone. All the real pro users of BBM still kept all important messaging on the real pro platform: Bloomberg Chat.
- iso1631 6y ago
  So basically pivot into what became whatsapp[0]? My recollection of Blackberry from that time was the "killer app" was email on the go -- hence the term Crackberry and the publicity from Obama [1] I didn't personally hear about BBM until the 2011 London riots [2] I guess blackberry was aimed at two distinct types of customers -- teenagers using BBM, and white collars wanting to read their email on holiday [0] https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-technology/952359-thoughts-about-my-free-iphone-app-whatsapp.html https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-technology/952359-tho... [1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/4207267/Barack-Obamas-BlackBerry-endorsement-worth-tens-of-millions.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/42072... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/aug/08/london-riots-facebook-twitter-blackberry https://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/aug/08/london-riots-f...
kilroy123 6y ago
I said this from the very beginning. Switch to android but skin it and lock it down as tight as possible. Port over BB messenger. Make a killer top of the line android phone with the signature BB physical keyboard.
- skinnymuch 6y ago
  Why did Android win? Why couldn’t webOS be fast tracked if it had begun development and use that instead? With a solid foundation of a user base, future prospects seem pretty good to be in control of your OS. I’m assuming in this case, the acquisition of Palm as well. BlackBerry’s market cap was pretty up there at the time, I believe. A mostly stock merger without too much dilution of Blackberry could happen.
- protomyth 6y ago
  I would have bought QNX as they did, but got it out to the hobbyist and on more platforms while picking one API and not the confusing mess they had. Android was not assured in 2007 and Google is not your friend.
protomyth 6y ago
Placate Verizon with something, but keep going on the keyboard interface, get cheaper, be the best messaging phone, and start hiring some chip designers. BBM for messages needs to be up and running.
908B64B197 6y ago
Try to find a buyer for the company. I'm completely serious. BlackBerry did try to build a touchscreen phone, the Storm, and it was a disaster. Had less features than the original iPhone, no apps and launched right after the iPhone 3G and the App Store. Tech-wise they were at least two years behind. The App Store and the iOS API would further widen the gap as it was easy to develop on iPhone (I remember high school kids getting their apps on the store) while blackberry still didn't have a stable and consistent API across it's heavily fragmented lineup.

by thom 6y ago

Let’s say it’s January 9th, 2007 and Steve Jobs has just come off stage after the original iPhone announcement. You’re in charge of BlackBerry. What do you do differently?

secfirstmd 6y ago

Go meet customers, your friends, guys in a bar, kids, your parents with a bag full of iPhones the minute you can. Whatever you do, bypass IT teams that love Blackberry and have invested their time in it and like it. Talk to consumers. IT teams and the profits from having people tied to BES etc will blind you. Make everyone watch a 20 minute video clip on both phones and ask them which was easier to use. Get them to type out XYZ thing that they hear. Give them the phones for a week and bring them back and ask them to type something else out. See how fast they can type on a screen vs keyboard. Think about what will be more useful a big screen or slightly faster typing. Then go make a iPhone version and Mac/Windows version of Blackberry Messenger. Give it away for free on all platforms. When that's done. Expand BES to control MDM laptops. Go find a small company that does music well, ideally one in Stockholm. Integrate their product into your phone and cross platform desktop offering. Use the cheap data deals you have for BES for music, it'll be expensive but will capture a young audience and will differentiate quickly from the iPod to iPhone leap many will make. Data plans are still expensive so driving down the cost will be helpful. Open source the phone code early but keep the services under your control. Find whoever is running the BlackBerry Store and fire them. Then anyone else who was involved with that. Invent a Men-In-Black memory eraser and use it wisely on anyone involved with that. Find out what the cost of the iPhone app store is, undercut it and switch the model so that the first X percent of initial sales go to the developer. Hire a couple of smart people and build a free online training course and certification to help people build apps. Treat them nicely. Give them free stuff and whatever tooling they need to build stuff. Translate it into many languages. Pick up the phone and get people from all walks of life, including dire poverty in places in Asia and Africa. Ask them what they would look for to make their life easier (hmm payments you say, hmmmm cheaper phones you say, hmmmm use BES as a sort of Free Basics). Build a decent Chinese Keyboard. Build search into your phone. Don't join PRISM, don't do some shady stuff in the Middle East and India about encryption. Build you the stuff that BES can do well. Messaging turning into productivity. Expand cloud hosting. Turn messaging into something more fun and social. Use encryption as a competitive advantage in the long run. Strike a few deals with phone companies for VOIP. Go tell the world you aren't worried about it and your main concern is Microsoft (they'll balls up mobile eventually anyway) and oh report Steve Jobs for engaging in anticompetitive contact crap for developers.

acct776 6y ago
Canada, too, I believe, regarding the encryption.

Scoundreller 6y ago

Double-down on what people love most about your platform: BBM and make it cross-platform. Charge $0.99 after 1 year. Apple will be too inward to be competition for that.

908B64B197 6y ago
BBM's userbase was basically worthless. As soon as Facebook added chat there was a preloaded alternative on every phone. And Facebook was the first app people would install on every phone. All the real pro users of BBM still kept all important messaging on the real pro platform: Bloomberg Chat.
iso1631 6y ago
So basically pivot into what became whatsapp[0]? My recollection of Blackberry from that time was the "killer app" was email on the go -- hence the term Crackberry and the publicity from Obama [1] I didn't personally hear about BBM until the 2011 London riots [2] I guess blackberry was aimed at two distinct types of customers -- teenagers using BBM, and white collars wanting to read their email on holiday [0] https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-technology/952359-thoughts-about-my-free-iphone-app-whatsapp.html https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-technology/952359-tho... [1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/4207267/Barack-Obamas-BlackBerry-endorsement-worth-tens-of-millions.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/42072... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/aug/08/london-riots-facebook-twitter-blackberry https://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/aug/08/london-riots-f...

kilroy123 6y ago

I said this from the very beginning. Switch to android but skin it and lock it down as tight as possible. Port over BB messenger. Make a killer top of the line android phone with the signature BB physical keyboard.

skinnymuch 6y ago
Why did Android win? Why couldn’t webOS be fast tracked if it had begun development and use that instead? With a solid foundation of a user base, future prospects seem pretty good to be in control of your OS. I’m assuming in this case, the acquisition of Palm as well. BlackBerry’s market cap was pretty up there at the time, I believe. A mostly stock merger without too much dilution of Blackberry could happen.
protomyth 6y ago
I would have bought QNX as they did, but got it out to the hobbyist and on more platforms while picking one API and not the confusing mess they had. Android was not assured in 2007 and Google is not your friend.

protomyth 6y ago

Placate Verizon with something, but keep going on the keyboard interface, get cheaper, be the best messaging phone, and start hiring some chip designers. BBM for messages needs to be up and running.

908B64B197 6y ago

Try to find a buyer for the company. I'm completely serious. BlackBerry did try to build a touchscreen phone, the Storm, and it was a disaster. Had less features than the original iPhone, no apps and launched right after the iPhone 3G and the App Store. Tech-wise they were at least two years behind. The App Store and the iOS API would further widen the gap as it was easy to develop on iPhone (I remember high school kids getting their apps on the store) while blackberry still didn't have a stable and consistent API across it's heavily fragmented lineup.