12 ms·

An Open Letter To Customers

gum_ina_package 13y ago
Sounds like they're going to become a niche company even more so than they already were.
- robg 13y ago
  It's a multi-billion dollar niche.
  - lostlogin 13y ago
    They are losing money hand over fist. http://www.cnbc.com/id/101065804 http://www.cnbc.com/id/101065804
    - contextual 13y ago
      That's a September article, and a little context is in order. The writedown was in inventory and not cash. It was for product that had only been in the retail channel for a few months. Good product like the Z10. It was a strategic move to lower the price of the corporation so it could be taken private. They were trying to make BlackBerry as affordable as they could, as quickly as they could.
astrodust 13y ago
It won't be long until you say Blackberry phone and people will say "What?" This company will be a case study in how deep in the sand you can stick your head. You'd think they'd have studied the spectacular downfall of Palm, and prior to that, Iomega, when trying to chart their own course.
- moron4hire 13y ago
  It's corporate schizophrenia. So few corporations avoid it. The only ones I can think of in technology are IBM and Motorola. They seem to have been able to reinvent themselves enough times to avoid crapping out entirely. Sure, they aren't the biggest in their fields, but maybe that all consuming pursuit to be the biggest is part of the downfall of other companies.
  - astrodust 13y ago
    Motorola actually died, it just limped along in the mobile space until that part was acquired by Google. Motorola off-loaded their CPU manufacturing, that's now Freescale Semiconductor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freescale_Semiconductor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freescale_Semiconductor), and ditched their PC business. They're still losing money in mobile so it's likely they would've cratered before long.
- cmsimike 13y ago
  Any further information on Iomega's downfall? I used them for their Zipdisks and would love to see read happened. I'm also interested in the downfall of Palm.
  - xsmasher 13y ago
    Zipdisks were overtaken by CD-R tech, which started out expensive ($2000+ writers, but with $100 readers in most machines) but quickly became too cheap for zip to compete (almost every CD-ROM drive was also a writer by the time DVD took over.)
    - moron4hire 13y ago
      Actually, I would expect the more likely killer to be USB thumb drives. No need to invest money or space in a drive at all, so they were usable even on your friend's or your university's or your employer's computers. The disc-based systems were woefully fragmented with a lot of confusion over R version RW and + versus - and CD versus DVD. It was more convenient to rewrite data than CDRW (how often do you need to permanently store data? Rewriting is the better use case). And the media was small enough that you thought nothing of taking it everywhere with you (like your keys and wallet). Plus, I would wager that USB thumb drives are more reliable than CDs, given the propensity for cheap CDs to delaminate or get scratched up versus the numerous thumb drives sent through the washing machine in pants pockets and still came out working.
      - itsameta4 13y ago
        True, but USB sticks didn't become very popular until well after Iomega had stopped being relevant.
  - jimbosis 13y ago
    The effusive Thom Holwerda of OSNews wrote up a quite long telling (55 pg in the PDF version) of the Palm story not too long ago. http://www.osnews.com/story/26838/Palm_I_m_ready_to_wallow_now http://www.osnews.com/story/26838/Palm_I_m_ready_to_wallow_n... Note that you can read the whole thing on the website. The TOC is after his plug for purchasing the PDF. And someone in the know commented that some of the Android developers are people from the Palm world. http://www.osnews.com/story/26861/Additional_insights_into_Palm_OS_6_Cobalt_ http://www.osnews.com/story/26861/Additional_insights_into_P...
throwaway0094 13y ago
What security? Their crypto was shitty. Has it gotten better?
- Tarang 13y ago
  I thought it was pretty good. Have you managed to break into a blackberry and extract the user's info without it being wiped out?
qwerta 13y ago
I always wished BlackBerry would adopt Android operating system. It desperately needs some enterprise hardened secure version with good VPN. Also I really miss decent Android phone with Qwerty keyboard.
- gaius 13y ago
  You can run Android apps on BB10. But there would be no point in running Android, it would be a big step backwards security wise. Not to mention that Google don't do Android out of the goodness of their hearts. They want to make phone handsets commoditized with all the cool stuff in the software and in their "cloud". That's not a market you want to be in as a manufacturer - just ask IBM who were driven out of PCs, a market they created...
  - qwerta 13y ago
    I read that Android support in BB10 is not so great. Most of Android components are open sourced. There are versions of Android which strips out Google stuff. For example Facebook released their phone which runs on Android. There is even alternative OS (sailfish) with similar architecture, which runs Android apps just fine. The problem is that BlackBerry tries to be manufacturer. They do everything by themselves. Instead they should focus on services and existing standards.
    - gaius 13y ago
      But so do Apple and they are wildly successful. BlackBerry's security model relies on integration of the OS with the hardware in such a way that they'd need to rewrite the Android kernel anyway to keep the same benefits.
    - disgruntledphd2 13y ago
      Facebook did not release a phone. They released a home screen/app launcher for Android. HTC did release a phone with it preloaded, which bombed (because move fast and break things works better on the web than on phones).
    - 13y ago
psobot 13y ago
Two sentences in, there are three cryptic acronyms - MDM, BES and BYOD. Apparently the "customers" that the letter was written for are not Blackberry's end users.
- jfb 13y ago
  Well, yeah. Selling to humans was a side effect of the sad state of the smartphone market pre-iOS/Android.
- gaius 13y ago
  That would be why the first line is To our valued *enterprise* customers
  - Zenst 13y ago
    True, but in a far smaller font than the headline "An Open Letter to Customers", which is technicaly the first line of this statment. But hardly good when such confusion is evident, heck BIS was enterprise and BES was consumer, see why people confused with such magical boundaries of consumer.
    - untog 13y ago
      Bear in mind that the only reason you are reading this is because someone posted it to HN. I imagine they sent it out by e-mail to enterprise customers, and not anyone else.
    - jlgaddis 13y ago
      >* ... heck BIS was enterprise and BES was consumer ... You've got that flipped around.
      - Zenst 13y ago
        Your right - my bad.
- BackerHopez 13y ago
badman_ting 13y ago
"In short, reports of our death are greatly exaggerated." A tech company saying this is not a great sign.
- twvance 13y ago
  ^ death, just not 'greatly exaggerated'
droob 13y ago
"MDM vendors are undoubtedly inviting you to webinars and enticing you to switch off your BES." They're trying to tell me an actual human typed that sentence?
- jwr 13y ago
  I think this is a way to reach their target audience and I think it just might make sense. Think of it as them going to their roots. You are not their target audience.
- asmithmd1 13y ago
  They are done. They STILL have no clue they aren't the center of the universe. Who knows (or cares) what this sentence means: "We’re serious about multi-platform MDM and even more serious about multi-platform EMM"
  - cones688 13y ago
    > or cares Go tell CISO/CIO (or Auditor) of a fortune 500 that they don't need to care what company data/emails are on peoples phones/tablets or whether its under the companies control. Your lack of interest shows that this isn't relevant to you, it would be arrogant to assume the rest of the world doesn't care about it - in the same way lots of people don't care about how lean your startup is or what VC drinks social you went to the other night.
    - asmithmd1 13y ago
      I am an interested person who is reasonably schooled in the art. You are absolutely right that many people need to care about controlling data/email on peoples devices - and your sentence does a much better job explaining the issue than their letter does.
  - peeters 13y ago
    People that administer enterprise network and security infrastructure, for starters. Who are the target audience of this letter. This letter is not directed towards consumers.
Zenst 13y ago
I skimmed thru and this caught my eye "Our EMM customer base is much larger than any of the other vendors in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Mobile Device Management – and is growing." Not having heard of this "Magic Quadrant", I find it hard to see how the average consumer could take that seriously.
- gpvos 13y ago
  As far as I know, those Gartner "magic quadrants" are fairly well-known in the circles of really large corporations. Which is apparently their target market.
- toggle 13y ago
  I'm sure the average consumer wouldn't take that seriously -- however, this is not meant for the average consumer. This letter is definitely trying to appeal to business IT managers, and they sure love Gartner's magic quadrants. (They also enjoy whitepapers about best practices for implementing thin enterprise BYOD methodologies.)
- casca 13y ago
  The Gartner Magic Quadrants are treated very highly by senior management who often don't trust vendors or their own staff. They tend to be vacuous and of awful quality - I've started keeping historical ones so that at some point I'll be able to show how terrible Gartner are at predicting the future. But a surprising number of purchasing decisions are made on the back of these magic quadrants. Here is the link to the 2013 Magic Quadrant for Mobile Device Management Software that is referenced in the post: http://www.gartner.com/technology/reprints.do?id=1-1FRG59X&ct=130523&st=sb http://www.gartner.com/technology/reprints.do?id=1-1FRG59X&c...
  - mcintyre1994 13y ago
    I get that this is addressed to a specific audience, and it isn't me - but I don't understand how their position there is something to mention at all. They're a "niche player" apparently, where in this context that means they have a low ability to execute and incomplete vision. "BlackBerry is positioned in the Niche Players quadrant and should only be considered for BlackBerry management or for cross-platform if iOS is needed and BES 10 has been purchased." sure doesn't sound reassuring either.
Lancelot_ 13y ago
Blackberry 10, for me, is the best mobile operating system. Also, writing application for this OS is terribly cool (C++ and Qt !). So, I believe in BlackBerry.
- dallagi 13y ago
  I totally agree with you. I recently switched from android 4 to blackberry 10 and I couldn't be happier with it. It's an awesome OS, plus the app gap with android/ios is not really terrible (I can find almost all the apps I need in the BB world, and I have the android runtime -which works fine for me- for the others). I guess the majority of bb detractors have never played with BB10 for more than 10 minutes before. I suggest you to do so, you could change your mind ;)
  - mdm_ 13y ago
    My wife and I are currently trying to decide between the Q10 and the HTC One (we're both renewing contracts and upgrading from Samsung Galaxy Infuse). We're really drawn to the Q10 for the physical keyboard and BB10 looks awesome (we've watched video reviews and played around with a demo model in-store). There's also a little bit of a "Buy Canadian" thing, at least on my part. But we're leaning more and more towards the HTC One. Our Android apps are guaranteed to work, without any complicated conversion process, missing features, or stability/performance problems. The HTC hardware seems light years ahead of the Q10 (and is actually more powerful than my work laptop). The device seems more "futureproof", especially given Blackberry's uncertain future. What if they get out of the consumer-level hardware business six months from now (I have memories of my old Sega Dreamcast here)? What if 10.2.1 is the last consumer OS upgrade they ever release and AppWorld collapses and support for Android APKs gets worse and worse as it goes unmaintained? These are devices we're committing to for the next two years, and we can't help feel apprehensive about choosing Blackberry at this point.
    - dallagi 13y ago
      In my opinion BlackBerry is just too big and important to fail. It's the only non-american major player, and it's well known for its security and reliability. Anyway, if you're trying to decide between the Q10 and the HTC One, I think the biggest difference is the keyboard. If you prefer a physical one, just go BB. If you prefer a larger screen to watch pictures, videos and play games, buy the HTC One. FIY some days ago Nokia gave me a free lumia for development purpose, and while typing on its screen keyboard I really missed the physical one of my Q10. With my BB I can type precisely without watching the keyboard, and I love it, while on touchscreen I feel insecure. Sometimes I'd like to have a bigger screen, but I wouldn't trade the keyboard for that (If you want to watch a movie, tablet are a better choice anyway). Speaking about apps, as I already said I don't really feel such a huge gap. I have all the apps I usually use, and for the missing ones there is always the android runtime (which runs pretty well and is constantly improving). In addition to that, I feel a greater UI consistency in BB10 native application, compared to iOS and Android ones. You have settings on the top, main bar on the bottom, togglable action bar on the right and menu bar on the left. Imho this is a great value for BB, which is instead missing on Android. Then, we could speak about swipe based ui, blackberry hub and a lot of things, but I think you already know all I could tell to you. So, regardless of your final decision, I hope you will be satisfied with your new smartphone. Good luck! (and sorry for my poor english)
cones688 13y ago
The key point in this letter which HN people should be noting is: > To our valued enterprise customers and partners, MDM (Mobile Device Management), EMM (Enterprise Mobility Management) BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), BES (BlackBerry Enterprise Server) is to the enterprise IT department what saas, paas, Xaas is to Hacker News, industry language. On a separate note I still have no idea why Oracle/HP/IBM haven't bought them, clearly so much opportunity seeing as Fortune 500 have still not settled on an effective way to manage mobile devices, - Easily (for Sysadmin vs Employee), - Securely (employee privacy vs corporate security) - Cheaply (BYOD) BES10 is actually pretty robust and has more features than most of its competitors
- kosei 13y ago
  Thank you for breaking that down. I can't believe that press release had so many acronyms without explanation. Do they expect all customers and potential customers to be able to understand all of that jargon?
  - cones688 13y ago
    By customers, this is targeted at CISOs (Cheif Information Security Officers) and other senior IT decision makers and Sysadmins. Without being too patronising, this is really really basic jargon for anyone working in the Enterprise IT mobile space - like someone knowing what HTML/CSS/JS stand for/represent in the web dev/design space.
    - kosei 13y ago
      Ah, I appreciate that. When I saw customers I thought it was referring to actual consumers (as a former Blackberry owner, myself).
- casca 13y ago
  A more interesting question is why hasn't Google, Microsoft, Samsung or Apple bought them for their patent portfolio. They've been doing mobile for a long time and historically did things that could genuinely be considered innovative. It's even the kind of thing that Intellectual Ventures probably has the budget to pick up.
znowi 13y ago
This is an open letter to enterprise customers. A bit of a misleading title.
- JOnAgain 13y ago
  they don't have many non-enterprise customers anymore zing
- jfb 13y ago
  Well, those are the only customers that BB has ever really served, so it's appropriate.
dangerboysteve 13y ago
Isn't this the 2nd or 3rd open letter to customers within a month ?
- peeters 13y ago
  This is the first I can recall from the new CEO.
jdorfman 13y ago
Hail Mary
aegiso 13y ago
Rumors of our death are greatly exaggerated. They are not rumors! We failed to sell and we have nothing new to offer. But in case you still think we have a shot, here's another meandering 720 degree tailspin in the form of an open letter.
hexis 13y ago
Well, that is certainly an enterprise URL.
haversine 13y ago
Can someone explain to me why BlackBerry gets so much negativity for trying to regain relevance, whereas there's much more positive thoughts for startups trying to pivot to do the same? It always seems like HN has a lot more love for the latter than the former.
RockyMcNuts 13y ago
TL; DR we're not dead yet! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sh8mNjeuyV4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sh8mNjeuyV4

Sounds like they're going to become a niche company even more so than they already were.

robg 13y ago
It's a multi-billion dollar niche.
- lostlogin 13y ago
  They are losing money hand over fist. http://www.cnbc.com/id/101065804 http://www.cnbc.com/id/101065804
  - contextual 13y ago
    That's a September article, and a little context is in order. The writedown was in inventory and not cash. It was for product that had only been in the retail channel for a few months. Good product like the Z10. It was a strategic move to lower the price of the corporation so it could be taken private. They were trying to make BlackBerry as affordable as they could, as quickly as they could.

It won't be long until you say Blackberry phone and people will say "What?" This company will be a case study in how deep in the sand you can stick your head. You'd think they'd have studied the spectacular downfall of Palm, and prior to that, Iomega, when trying to chart their own course.

moron4hire 13y ago
It's corporate schizophrenia. So few corporations avoid it. The only ones I can think of in technology are IBM and Motorola. They seem to have been able to reinvent themselves enough times to avoid crapping out entirely. Sure, they aren't the biggest in their fields, but maybe that all consuming pursuit to be the biggest is part of the downfall of other companies.
- astrodust 13y ago
  Motorola actually died, it just limped along in the mobile space until that part was acquired by Google. Motorola off-loaded their CPU manufacturing, that's now Freescale Semiconductor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freescale_Semiconductor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freescale_Semiconductor), and ditched their PC business. They're still losing money in mobile so it's likely they would've cratered before long.
cmsimike 13y ago
Any further information on Iomega's downfall? I used them for their Zipdisks and would love to see read happened. I'm also interested in the downfall of Palm.
- xsmasher 13y ago
  Zipdisks were overtaken by CD-R tech, which started out expensive ($2000+ writers, but with $100 readers in most machines) but quickly became too cheap for zip to compete (almost every CD-ROM drive was also a writer by the time DVD took over.)
  - moron4hire 13y ago
    Actually, I would expect the more likely killer to be USB thumb drives. No need to invest money or space in a drive at all, so they were usable even on your friend's or your university's or your employer's computers. The disc-based systems were woefully fragmented with a lot of confusion over R version RW and + versus - and CD versus DVD. It was more convenient to rewrite data than CDRW (how often do you need to permanently store data? Rewriting is the better use case). And the media was small enough that you thought nothing of taking it everywhere with you (like your keys and wallet). Plus, I would wager that USB thumb drives are more reliable than CDs, given the propensity for cheap CDs to delaminate or get scratched up versus the numerous thumb drives sent through the washing machine in pants pockets and still came out working.
    - itsameta4 13y ago
      True, but USB sticks didn't become very popular until well after Iomega had stopped being relevant.
- jimbosis 13y ago
  The effusive Thom Holwerda of OSNews wrote up a quite long telling (55 pg in the PDF version) of the Palm story not too long ago. http://www.osnews.com/story/26838/Palm_I_m_ready_to_wallow_now http://www.osnews.com/story/26838/Palm_I_m_ready_to_wallow_n... Note that you can read the whole thing on the website. The TOC is after his plug for purchasing the PDF. And someone in the know commented that some of the Android developers are people from the Palm world. http://www.osnews.com/story/26861/Additional_insights_into_Palm_OS_6_Cobalt_ http://www.osnews.com/story/26861/Additional_insights_into_P...

throwaway0094 13y ago

What security? Their crypto was shitty. Has it gotten better?

Tarang 13y ago
I thought it was pretty good. Have you managed to break into a blackberry and extract the user's info without it being wiped out?

qwerta 13y ago

I always wished BlackBerry would adopt Android operating system. It desperately needs some enterprise hardened secure version with good VPN. Also I really miss decent Android phone with Qwerty keyboard.

gaius 13y ago
You can run Android apps on BB10. But there would be no point in running Android, it would be a big step backwards security wise. Not to mention that Google don't do Android out of the goodness of their hearts. They want to make phone handsets commoditized with all the cool stuff in the software and in their "cloud". That's not a market you want to be in as a manufacturer - just ask IBM who were driven out of PCs, a market they created...
- qwerta 13y ago
  I read that Android support in BB10 is not so great. Most of Android components are open sourced. There are versions of Android which strips out Google stuff. For example Facebook released their phone which runs on Android. There is even alternative OS (sailfish) with similar architecture, which runs Android apps just fine. The problem is that BlackBerry tries to be manufacturer. They do everything by themselves. Instead they should focus on services and existing standards.
  - gaius 13y ago
    But so do Apple and they are wildly successful. BlackBerry's security model relies on integration of the OS with the hardware in such a way that they'd need to rewrite the Android kernel anyway to keep the same benefits.
  - disgruntledphd2 13y ago
    Facebook did not release a phone. They released a home screen/app launcher for Android. HTC did release a phone with it preloaded, which bombed (because move fast and break things works better on the web than on phones).
  - 13y ago

psobot 13y ago

Two sentences in, there are three cryptic acronyms - MDM, BES and BYOD. Apparently the "customers" that the letter was written for are not Blackberry's end users.

jfb 13y ago
Well, yeah. Selling to humans was a side effect of the sad state of the smartphone market pre-iOS/Android.
gaius 13y ago
That would be why the first line is To our valued *enterprise* customers
- Zenst 13y ago
  True, but in a far smaller font than the headline "An Open Letter to Customers", which is technicaly the first line of this statment. But hardly good when such confusion is evident, heck BIS was enterprise and BES was consumer, see why people confused with such magical boundaries of consumer.
  - untog 13y ago
    Bear in mind that the only reason you are reading this is because someone posted it to HN. I imagine they sent it out by e-mail to enterprise customers, and not anyone else.
  - jlgaddis 13y ago
    >* ... heck BIS was enterprise and BES was consumer ... You've got that flipped around.
    - Zenst 13y ago
      Your right - my bad.
BackerHopez 13y ago

badman_ting 13y ago

"In short, reports of our death are greatly exaggerated." A tech company saying this is not a great sign.

twvance 13y ago
^ death, just not 'greatly exaggerated'

droob 13y ago

"MDM vendors are undoubtedly inviting you to webinars and enticing you to switch off your BES." They're trying to tell me an actual human typed that sentence?

jwr 13y ago
I think this is a way to reach their target audience and I think it just might make sense. Think of it as them going to their roots. You are not their target audience.
asmithmd1 13y ago
They are done. They STILL have no clue they aren't the center of the universe. Who knows (or cares) what this sentence means: "We’re serious about multi-platform MDM and even more serious about multi-platform EMM"
- cones688 13y ago
  > or cares Go tell CISO/CIO (or Auditor) of a fortune 500 that they don't need to care what company data/emails are on peoples phones/tablets or whether its under the companies control. Your lack of interest shows that this isn't relevant to you, it would be arrogant to assume the rest of the world doesn't care about it - in the same way lots of people don't care about how lean your startup is or what VC drinks social you went to the other night.
  - asmithmd1 13y ago
    I am an interested person who is reasonably schooled in the art. You are absolutely right that many people need to care about controlling data/email on peoples devices - and your sentence does a much better job explaining the issue than their letter does.
- peeters 13y ago
  People that administer enterprise network and security infrastructure, for starters. Who are the target audience of this letter. This letter is not directed towards consumers.

Zenst 13y ago

I skimmed thru and this caught my eye "Our EMM customer base is much larger than any of the other vendors in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Mobile Device Management – and is growing." Not having heard of this "Magic Quadrant", I find it hard to see how the average consumer could take that seriously.

gpvos 13y ago
As far as I know, those Gartner "magic quadrants" are fairly well-known in the circles of really large corporations. Which is apparently their target market.
toggle 13y ago
I'm sure the average consumer wouldn't take that seriously -- however, this is not meant for the average consumer. This letter is definitely trying to appeal to business IT managers, and they sure love Gartner's magic quadrants. (They also enjoy whitepapers about best practices for implementing thin enterprise BYOD methodologies.)
casca 13y ago
The Gartner Magic Quadrants are treated very highly by senior management who often don't trust vendors or their own staff. They tend to be vacuous and of awful quality - I've started keeping historical ones so that at some point I'll be able to show how terrible Gartner are at predicting the future. But a surprising number of purchasing decisions are made on the back of these magic quadrants. Here is the link to the 2013 Magic Quadrant for Mobile Device Management Software that is referenced in the post: http://www.gartner.com/technology/reprints.do?id=1-1FRG59X&ct=130523&st=sb http://www.gartner.com/technology/reprints.do?id=1-1FRG59X&c...
- mcintyre1994 13y ago
  I get that this is addressed to a specific audience, and it isn't me - but I don't understand how their position there is something to mention at all. They're a "niche player" apparently, where in this context that means they have a low ability to execute and incomplete vision. "BlackBerry is positioned in the Niche Players quadrant and should only be considered for BlackBerry management or for cross-platform if iOS is needed and BES 10 has been purchased." sure doesn't sound reassuring either.

Lancelot_ 13y ago

Blackberry 10, for me, is the best mobile operating system. Also, writing application for this OS is terribly cool (C++ and Qt !). So, I believe in BlackBerry.

dallagi 13y ago
I totally agree with you. I recently switched from android 4 to blackberry 10 and I couldn't be happier with it. It's an awesome OS, plus the app gap with android/ios is not really terrible (I can find almost all the apps I need in the BB world, and I have the android runtime -which works fine for me- for the others). I guess the majority of bb detractors have never played with BB10 for more than 10 minutes before. I suggest you to do so, you could change your mind ;)
- mdm_ 13y ago
  My wife and I are currently trying to decide between the Q10 and the HTC One (we're both renewing contracts and upgrading from Samsung Galaxy Infuse). We're really drawn to the Q10 for the physical keyboard and BB10 looks awesome (we've watched video reviews and played around with a demo model in-store). There's also a little bit of a "Buy Canadian" thing, at least on my part. But we're leaning more and more towards the HTC One. Our Android apps are guaranteed to work, without any complicated conversion process, missing features, or stability/performance problems. The HTC hardware seems light years ahead of the Q10 (and is actually more powerful than my work laptop). The device seems more "futureproof", especially given Blackberry's uncertain future. What if they get out of the consumer-level hardware business six months from now (I have memories of my old Sega Dreamcast here)? What if 10.2.1 is the last consumer OS upgrade they ever release and AppWorld collapses and support for Android APKs gets worse and worse as it goes unmaintained? These are devices we're committing to for the next two years, and we can't help feel apprehensive about choosing Blackberry at this point.
  - dallagi 13y ago
    In my opinion BlackBerry is just too big and important to fail. It's the only non-american major player, and it's well known for its security and reliability. Anyway, if you're trying to decide between the Q10 and the HTC One, I think the biggest difference is the keyboard. If you prefer a physical one, just go BB. If you prefer a larger screen to watch pictures, videos and play games, buy the HTC One. FIY some days ago Nokia gave me a free lumia for development purpose, and while typing on its screen keyboard I really missed the physical one of my Q10. With my BB I can type precisely without watching the keyboard, and I love it, while on touchscreen I feel insecure. Sometimes I'd like to have a bigger screen, but I wouldn't trade the keyboard for that (If you want to watch a movie, tablet are a better choice anyway). Speaking about apps, as I already said I don't really feel such a huge gap. I have all the apps I usually use, and for the missing ones there is always the android runtime (which runs pretty well and is constantly improving). In addition to that, I feel a greater UI consistency in BB10 native application, compared to iOS and Android ones. You have settings on the top, main bar on the bottom, togglable action bar on the right and menu bar on the left. Imho this is a great value for BB, which is instead missing on Android. Then, we could speak about swipe based ui, blackberry hub and a lot of things, but I think you already know all I could tell to you. So, regardless of your final decision, I hope you will be satisfied with your new smartphone. Good luck! (and sorry for my poor english)

cones688 13y ago

The key point in this letter which HN people should be noting is: > To our valued enterprise customers and partners, MDM (Mobile Device Management), EMM (Enterprise Mobility Management) BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), BES (BlackBerry Enterprise Server) is to the enterprise IT department what saas, paas, Xaas is to Hacker News, industry language. On a separate note I still have no idea why Oracle/HP/IBM haven't bought them, clearly so much opportunity seeing as Fortune 500 have still not settled on an effective way to manage mobile devices, - Easily (for Sysadmin vs Employee), - Securely (employee privacy vs corporate security) - Cheaply (BYOD) BES10 is actually pretty robust and has more features than most of its competitors

kosei 13y ago
Thank you for breaking that down. I can't believe that press release had so many acronyms without explanation. Do they expect all customers and potential customers to be able to understand all of that jargon?
- cones688 13y ago
  By customers, this is targeted at CISOs (Cheif Information Security Officers) and other senior IT decision makers and Sysadmins. Without being too patronising, this is really really basic jargon for anyone working in the Enterprise IT mobile space - like someone knowing what HTML/CSS/JS stand for/represent in the web dev/design space.
  - kosei 13y ago
    Ah, I appreciate that. When I saw customers I thought it was referring to actual consumers (as a former Blackberry owner, myself).
casca 13y ago
A more interesting question is why hasn't Google, Microsoft, Samsung or Apple bought them for their patent portfolio. They've been doing mobile for a long time and historically did things that could genuinely be considered innovative. It's even the kind of thing that Intellectual Ventures probably has the budget to pick up.

znowi 13y ago

This is an open letter to enterprise customers. A bit of a misleading title.

JOnAgain 13y ago
they don't have many non-enterprise customers anymore zing
jfb 13y ago
Well, those are the only customers that BB has ever really served, so it's appropriate.

dangerboysteve 13y ago

Isn't this the 2nd or 3rd open letter to customers within a month ?

peeters 13y ago
This is the first I can recall from the new CEO.

jdorfman 13y ago

Hail Mary

aegiso 13y ago

Rumors of our death are greatly exaggerated. They are not rumors! We failed to sell and we have nothing new to offer. But in case you still think we have a shot, here's another meandering 720 degree tailspin in the form of an open letter.

hexis 13y ago

Well, that is certainly an enterprise URL.

haversine 13y ago

Can someone explain to me why BlackBerry gets so much negativity for trying to regain relevance, whereas there's much more positive thoughts for startups trying to pivot to do the same? It always seems like HN has a lot more love for the latter than the former.

RockyMcNuts 13y ago

TL; DR we're not dead yet! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sh8mNjeuyV4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sh8mNjeuyV4