5 ms·

Blackberry had so much right. All they had to do was keep focused on their actual demographic (high-end office workers), allow their other demographic (drug de

Blackberry had so much right. All they had to do was keep focused on their actual demographic (high-end office workers), allow their other demographic (drug dealers / buyers), and let everyone else worry about consumers. Always refine the keyboard, unquestionable notifications, ignore the “single pane of glass” trend, and definitely not even a single phone with Android. Their user-base would be “small”, but so what. Noone needs 8 Billion users. 100M is plenty to sustain R&D.

throwawayboise 6y ago
I never had a Blackberry but everyone I know who did says it was the best phone they ever had.
- qsi 6y ago
  I loved my Blackberries, and hung on to the last one as long as possible. I think I had to give it up around 2012... but even within the Blackberries, there were differences. Some keyboards were better than other, or at least, suited me better. Having said that, I am not sure they could have withstood the app revolution without participating in. I do think they made major mistakes in their strategy at critical points, but simply focusing on their core business demographic might not have been enough. The get corporate IT on board, IIRC, you had to run a Blackberry Enterprise Server (?) for security and corporate connectedness. This was not cheap. That was becoming increasingly problematic as the iPhone and Android infrastructures caught up security-wise. In the end the cost to maintain the Blackberry servers was no longer justifiable as many people wanted the shiny new phones with all the apps.
  - joshspankit 6y ago
    I agree with much of this, but consider this: If they had “weathered the storm” and kept on course while people were fascinated by the iPhone, by the time the fad faded a bit they would have had the best keyboard, the longest battery life, solid security, and corporations with unquestionable trust in the delivery of messages to employees. You’re right about the BES requirement but they could have easily gone SAAS-optional when the industry shifted to the cloud.
- snowwrestler 6y ago
  I carried a BlackBerry for work for years and was an early tester of the iPhone for my employer. They issued the iPhone 4 to a few volunteers to test out with our email system etc. I found it to be way better than the Blackberry. If they had forced me back to the BlackBerry I probably would have found a new job. And, a huge number of colleagues who saw me using it at work got excited and put in requests for their own iPhones. It was just so much easier and more pleasant to read on the iPhone.
LVB 6y ago
My only mildly successful mobile app was on Blackberry. It offered encrypted notes and was predominantly purchased by wall st traders and... users from Indonesia. The market for it was always a curiosity to me.
nielsbot 6y ago
Office workers would eventually want all-screen Android and/or iPhone for personal use, which forced companies to adopt those for office workers. (edit: clarity)
- joshspankit 6y ago
  Blackberry also started chasing “features” which took them away from reliability. Imo they made a big mistake by doing “what people want” To use an old adage: If Henry Ford had asked people what they wanted, he would have given them a faster horse.
  - nielsbot 6y ago
    Yes, of course you must maintain reliability while competing. But I think that analogy proves my point. If Blackberry asked people what they wanted before they saw iPhone, they'd say "better physical keyboard phone" (faster horse). But after the iPhone took off they pointed to that instead (wait.. cars are better).
    - joshspankit 6y ago
      You’re equating the BB keyboard with horses and the single pane of glass with cars, but I would argue against that quite a bit. Single pane of glass is nice, and has benefits, but it’s a definite tradeoff as the on-screen keyboard is no longer tactile
Phillipharryt 6y ago
Sadly phone companies cannot exist in a vacuum. In the book "Losing the Signal" there's great evidence that Blackberry faced far more pressure than merely losing market-share. Their push-based email service (the back end) previously existed as the only of its kind for phones, then Microsoft updated their version in 2006 so all other phones could have it. Blackberry lost a key differentiator. Then there was Verizon pushing them to release phones that would work well on their new 4G networks, while Blackberrys were being optimised for 2.5G as one of their CEOs was determined to preserve the selling point of great battery life. The companies they relied on were not letting them fall into a niche product-producer role. They would have been pushed out of the market, not even by their competitors, by their partners.
- ayewo 6y ago
  "Losing the Signal" sounds like an interesting read, so adding to my reading queue. Thanks for mentioning it.
goatinaboat 6y ago
All they had to do was keep focused on their actual demographic (high-end office workers), allow their other demographic (drug dealers / buyers), and let everyone else worry about consumers If they had opened up BBM, WhatsApp would never have happened.
- joshspankit 6y ago
  Ooooo right! I had forgotten about BBM! It was just at exactly the right point in history: it was better than the rest in some ways, had great FOMO, SMS was super expensive, and I don't think anyone else had real-time messaging on mobile when they first did. Yes: I think they could have eaten the market until the iPhone, and Apple would have been playing catch-up to BB.

throwawayboise 6y ago

I never had a Blackberry but everyone I know who did says it was the best phone they ever had.

qsi 6y ago
I loved my Blackberries, and hung on to the last one as long as possible. I think I had to give it up around 2012... but even within the Blackberries, there were differences. Some keyboards were better than other, or at least, suited me better. Having said that, I am not sure they could have withstood the app revolution without participating in. I do think they made major mistakes in their strategy at critical points, but simply focusing on their core business demographic might not have been enough. The get corporate IT on board, IIRC, you had to run a Blackberry Enterprise Server (?) for security and corporate connectedness. This was not cheap. That was becoming increasingly problematic as the iPhone and Android infrastructures caught up security-wise. In the end the cost to maintain the Blackberry servers was no longer justifiable as many people wanted the shiny new phones with all the apps.
- joshspankit 6y ago
  I agree with much of this, but consider this: If they had “weathered the storm” and kept on course while people were fascinated by the iPhone, by the time the fad faded a bit they would have had the best keyboard, the longest battery life, solid security, and corporations with unquestionable trust in the delivery of messages to employees. You’re right about the BES requirement but they could have easily gone SAAS-optional when the industry shifted to the cloud.
snowwrestler 6y ago
I carried a BlackBerry for work for years and was an early tester of the iPhone for my employer. They issued the iPhone 4 to a few volunteers to test out with our email system etc. I found it to be way better than the Blackberry. If they had forced me back to the BlackBerry I probably would have found a new job. And, a huge number of colleagues who saw me using it at work got excited and put in requests for their own iPhones. It was just so much easier and more pleasant to read on the iPhone.

LVB 6y ago

My only mildly successful mobile app was on Blackberry. It offered encrypted notes and was predominantly purchased by wall st traders and... users from Indonesia. The market for it was always a curiosity to me.

nielsbot 6y ago

Office workers would eventually want all-screen Android and/or iPhone for personal use, which forced companies to adopt those for office workers. (edit: clarity)

joshspankit 6y ago
Blackberry also started chasing “features” which took them away from reliability. Imo they made a big mistake by doing “what people want” To use an old adage: If Henry Ford had asked people what they wanted, he would have given them a faster horse.
- nielsbot 6y ago
  Yes, of course you must maintain reliability while competing. But I think that analogy proves my point. If Blackberry asked people what they wanted before they saw iPhone, they'd say "better physical keyboard phone" (faster horse). But after the iPhone took off they pointed to that instead (wait.. cars are better).
  - joshspankit 6y ago
    You’re equating the BB keyboard with horses and the single pane of glass with cars, but I would argue against that quite a bit. Single pane of glass is nice, and has benefits, but it’s a definite tradeoff as the on-screen keyboard is no longer tactile

Phillipharryt 6y ago

Sadly phone companies cannot exist in a vacuum. In the book "Losing the Signal" there's great evidence that Blackberry faced far more pressure than merely losing market-share. Their push-based email service (the back end) previously existed as the only of its kind for phones, then Microsoft updated their version in 2006 so all other phones could have it. Blackberry lost a key differentiator. Then there was Verizon pushing them to release phones that would work well on their new 4G networks, while Blackberrys were being optimised for 2.5G as one of their CEOs was determined to preserve the selling point of great battery life. The companies they relied on were not letting them fall into a niche product-producer role. They would have been pushed out of the market, not even by their competitors, by their partners.

ayewo 6y ago
"Losing the Signal" sounds like an interesting read, so adding to my reading queue. Thanks for mentioning it.

goatinaboat 6y ago

All they had to do was keep focused on their actual demographic (high-end office workers), allow their other demographic (drug dealers / buyers), and let everyone else worry about consumers If they had opened up BBM, WhatsApp would never have happened.

joshspankit 6y ago
Ooooo right! I had forgotten about BBM! It was just at exactly the right point in history: it was better than the rest in some ways, had great FOMO, SMS was super expensive, and I don't think anyone else had real-time messaging on mobile when they first did. Yes: I think they could have eaten the market until the iPhone, and Apple would have been playing catch-up to BB.