The BlackBerry Thread

[Daradon]

Lots can still happen. They are hoping for funding for shares, if they go private again, but may get completely bought out.

They have enough good pieces though, that they will be a brand for a while, even if owned by someone else.

They'll never compete with Apple or Android again, but a major brand could buy them and integrate their best parts.

They might also reprioritize on their strengths, like business integration and security.

They'll be around, just not the industry leader they were 10 years ago.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Daradon

Lots can still happen. They are hoping for funding for shares, if they go private again, but may get completely bought out.

They have enough good pieces though, that they will be a brand for a while, even if owned by someone else.

They'll never compete with Apple or Android again, but a major brand could buy them and integrate their best parts.

They might also reprioritize on their strengths, like business integration and security.

They'll be around, just not the industry leader they were 10 years ago.

There is some speculation that that Canadian government wants them to stay Canadian. That makes the market for this scenario pretty limited!

If they were to be bought by say Prem Watsa and Fairfax Financial then the government would likely be pretty satisfied with that outcome, all things concerned.

[Daradon]

Why would the govt get involved like that? Is it purely a national pride thing? Or is it an actual strategy. (Which I may not see, but communications has changed so fast, there may be a reason)

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by Daradon

Lots can still happen. They are hoping for funding for shares, if they go private again, but may get completely bought out.

They have enough good pieces though, that they will be a brand for a while, even if owned by someone else.

They'll never compete with Apple or Android again, but a major brand could buy them and integrate their best parts.

They might also reprioritize on their strengths, like business integration and security.

They'll be around, just not the industry leader they were 10 years ago.

I don't think they are looking for funding, per se. They are extremely close to break even financially quarterly, and have like 3b cash or thereabouts. I also don't think they want to sell the company - their stated goal is to find ways to strengthen their reach in the marketplace and get more BB10 penetration.

What is killing them right now is that the financial performance being demanded by shareholders is directly at odds with the pain they need to endure to turn the ship around technology and product wise - that's why they'd like to go private, so that they could manoeuvre and utilize their cash as needed without being beholden to specific quarterly targets financially. Same deal with joint ventures or partnerships - find new ways to attack the market and/or differentiate themselves. Cisco seems like a neat fit in my mind in that regard (other than their terrible track record with any technology not developed at Cisco) - they have network, servers, and why not brand/joint venture on a secure mobility platform as well.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by Daradon

Why would the govt get involved like that? Is it purely a national pride thing? Or is it an actual strategy. (Which I may not see, but communications has changed so fast, there may be a reason)

Strategy - the Canada Pension Plan would like to buy low, help the brand, and sell high. They've done it before in the technology space with companies like Skype, which they made a very, very tidy profit on. Oddly enough, the CPP is quite a shrewd investment vehicle, and has done very well in the technology market.

[psicodude]

Originally Posted by sclitheroe

I don't think they are looking for funding, per se. They are extremely close to break even financially quarterly, and have like 3b cash or thereabouts. I also don't think they want to sell the company - their stated goal is to find ways to strengthen their reach in the marketplace and get more BB10 penetration.

What is killing them right now is that the financial performance being demanded by shareholders is directly at odds with the pain they need to endure to turn the ship around technology and product wise - that's why they'd like to go private, so that they could manoeuvre and utilize their cash as needed without being beholden to specific quarterly targets financially. Same deal with joint ventures or partnerships - find new ways to attack the market and/or differentiate themselves. Cisco seems like a neat fit in my mind in that regard (other than their terrible track record with any technology not developed at Cisco) - they have network, servers, and why not brand/joint venture on a secure mobility platform as well.

One could argue that this is the most positive spin. I would suggest that BlackBerry's dismal quarterly results are getting them nothing but bad press, which erodes consumer confidence, which puts further pressure on their quarterly results. Just yesterday, for example, it was reported that BB is now in 4th place (worldwide) behind Microsoft and that they are now down to a mere 2.9% market share. How many consumers read a negative story like that and then alter their purchasing decision based upon it, as opposed to feature sets or screen size? Ask the average 25 year old what their opinion of BB is, and it won't be pretty...not based upon fact, but based upon a tweet they read that said BB sucks. I think BlackBerry wants to go private so they can avoid some of this crap. Get the stink off, so to speak.

As for the long term of the company? I just can't see it being around for many more years. I understand they have a lot of cash right now, but they just can't turn a profit with the miniscule number of customers they have. I think they go private to remove the pesky shareholders, give it another go for a year or two, and then sell the scraps in under 5 years from now.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by psicodude

One could argue that this is the most positive spin. I would suggest that BlackBerry's dismal quarterly results are getting them nothing but bad press, which erodes consumer confidence, which puts further pressure on their quarterly results. Just yesterday, for example, it was reported that BB is now in 4th place (worldwide) behind Microsoft and that they are now down to a mere 2.9% market share. How many consumers read a negative story like that and then alter their purchasing decision based upon it, as opposed to feature sets or screen size? Ask the average 25 year old what their opinion of BB is, and it won't be pretty...not based upon fact, but based upon a tweet they read that said BB sucks. I think BlackBerry wants to go private so they can avoid some of this crap. Get the stink off, so to speak.

As for the long term of the company? I just can't see it being around for many more years. I understand they have a lot of cash right now, but they just can't turn a profit with the miniscule number of customers they have. I think they go private to remove the pesky shareholders, give it another go for a year or two, and then sell the scraps in under 5 years from now.

I agree - the negative spin from having to release quarterly results is crushing, and it creates a negative spiral.

I dunno - I try not to put a positive spin on it overall; I hope they succeed as a niche player, and I'm fine with them going down with the ship trying to do that, rather than sell off their IP and disappear that way. I think saying things like "how much market share did Apple have when they launched the iPhone" would be silly - there's still room in mobility for lots of innovation, but the size of the installed base of users is so much bigger now that I doubt another disruption of iPhone proportions will occur.

Could they be profitable at 2.9% market share globally? Hard to say - the tail on mobility is pretty long, with over 7 billion mobile phone subscriptions forecast globally for the end of 2014. That's like 140 million subscribers. You'd think you could eek out an existence on that. I guess you could also get snuffed out pretty easily too on that.

[Slava]

I'm sure it wasn't intentional, but Cisco made me laugh! Yesterday they announced they're cutting 4000 jobs after a dismal quarterly report. Match made in heaven!

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by Slava

I'm sure it wasn't intentional, but Cisco made me laugh! Yesterday they announced they're cutting 4000 jobs after a dismal quarterly report. Match made in heaven!

They need something to take their minds off the Flip video camera acquisition.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by sclitheroe

I agree - the negative spin from having to release quarterly results is crushing, and it creates a negative spiral.

I dunno - I try not to put a positive spin on it overall; I hope they succeed as a niche player, and I'm fine with them going down with the ship trying to do that, rather than sell off their IP and disappear that way. I think saying things like "how much market share did Apple have when they launched the iPhone" would be silly - there's still room in mobility for lots of innovation, but the size of the installed base of users is so much bigger now that I doubt another disruption of iPhone proportions will occur.

Could they be profitable at 2.9% market share globally? Hard to say - the tail on mobility is pretty long, with over 7 billion mobile phone subscriptions forecast globally for the end of 2014. That's like 140 million subscribers. You'd think you could eek out an existence on that. I guess you could also get snuffed out pretty easily too on that.

If they could keep steady at 2.9%, sure, maybe. But, they've gone from 5.2 to 2.9 since last year.

How many consumers read a negative story like that and then alter their purchasing decision based upon it, as opposed to feature sets or screen size? Ask the average 25 year old what their opinion of BB is, and it won't be pretty...not based upon fact, but based upon a tweet they read that said BB sucks.

It is not just a matter of blindly falling the trends, but it makes sense to want to pick a mainstream phone that is going to have 1st tier support for whatever apps, hardware devices, services, etc that you may care about over the 2 years you are committed to your phone.

Business customers want to ensure that they are investing in an infrastructure that is going to be around for a while, and it is hard to be confident in BB being around in 2-3 years now. Everyone I work with absolutely prefers our BB to our secure iPhone implementation, but we're going ahead with our iPhone migration anyway for this reason.

Technology changes fast, and momentum is hard to break once it is going. BB had their day, but they'll be laying in the dirt with Palm soon enough. Apple better watch out, or they may be next.

[Anduril]

And on a related note if Blackberry would to be sold, the exec team would earn $85 million including termination as well.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by nfotiu

If they could keep steady at 2.9%, sure, maybe. But, they've gone from 5.2 to 2.9 since last year.

It's actually OK that their market share is falling, since the overall market is growing faster than 5% a year. Having 2.9% of the 2013 market is better than having 5.2 of the 2012 market. It's entirely possible to continue growing your customer base while losing market share (which is exactly the situation Apple is in, albeit on a much bigger scale - in fact, their market share losses have been more severe than BB's).

[jammies]

Originally Posted by sclitheroe

It's actually OK that their market share is falling, since the overall market is growing faster than 5% a year. Having 2.9% of the 2013 market is better than having 5.2 of the 2012 market. It's entirely possible to continue growing your customer base while losing market share (which is exactly the situation Apple is in, albeit on a much bigger scale - in fact, their market share losses have been more severe than BB's).

I think your math is off a little there - for a 5.2 to 2.9% market share loss to mean a larger actual number of phones sold, you need more like an 80% increase in market size, not 5%.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by jammies

I think your math is off a little there - for a 5.2 to 2.9% market share loss to mean a larger actual number of phones sold, you need more like an 80% increase in market size, not 5%.

Yeah, my bad, I shoulda researched it more carefully, and I apologize.

Based on this:
http://gigaom.com/2013/08/07/even-as...-market-falls/

They dropped like 12% units shipped, despite losing 41% of their existing market share from Q2 2012 to Q2 2013.

So the market didn't grow enough to stave off a drop in units shipped, but it's not quite as bad as it sounds when reports don't take the growth in the overall market into account.

However, that being said, the bigger issue facing BB is that only half of those shipments were BB10 devices regardless.

Generally speaking, not great news no matter how you frame it.

[sclitheroe]

This is a great read. Apple wanted 1% of the mobile market a year and a bit after the launch of the iPhone (so by the end of 2008), which they just achieved:
http://gigaom.com/2009/01/30/apple-a...are-what-next/

What's fascinating is that at that juncture, RIM is reported to have just 1.9 percent of the cellphone market!

[killer_carlson]

Bump

Anyone else still rocking a BB?

For what I use my phone for, I need a keyboard. I've tried friends androids and iphones and cannot think they would ever suit my needs (which are 99.97898756% work related).

I'm looking forward to the BB Mercury which will be released sometime next year.

If it and 2 other BB models next year do not sell well, it will likely be the end of BB hardware.

[TheScorpion]

I have an old Z10 that I use as a media device. Used to be my dad's gave it to me after he got an S6 Edge. I think BB 10 is still a great OS.

[CroFlames]

I used a Z10 for a long time and it's the best work phone ever. My current S6 is great, and it's got tons of capabilities, but no phone comes close to the intuitive BB touch keyboard or their email functionality. It's simply the best for heavy email users.

[Lubicon]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

I used a Z10 for a long time and it's the best work phone ever. My current S6 is great, and it's got tons of capabilities, but no phone comes close to the intuitive BB touch keyboard or their email functionality. It's simply the best for heavy email users.

Agreed. I still have my Z10 (have had it since 2013) and love it other than it is lacking in Apps. My main use is for work and most of that is emails but I also really like the message hub concept. If it ever dies I'm not sure what I will do as our IT group only supports Apple now or else replace with an existing BB, assuming we have one laying around that is not being used. iPhones have proven to be absolutely useless to me as a business tool so I am reluctant to get one. They have been causing me nothing but aggravation lately but our sales guys love them and are reluctant to give them up.

[DoubleF]

I've been hoping BB and MSFT could do a partnership to produce a pure productivity phone since around Windows phone 7. They seem like good fits together philosophically, visually and style wise. Even if the phone focused mostly on doing word/excel/ppt + social media and stated it didn't care too much about games, it would probably do pretty well. Idea wise, if BB jumped on Window's idea to have seamless transition between computers and phones, productivity, plus security... I think they'd grab a strong niche.

IMO, BB10 + W10 + keyboard IMO would be a cool phone. The recent Android versions IMO are dumb.

A Surface with BB features would be pretty darn snazzy too.

I've been trying to keep my eyes out for a cheap BB for travel usage and as a media player. I almost jumped on the Q10 except their keyboard has reliability issues. Maybe I'll keep my eyes out for a dirt cheap Z10 instead.