BlackBerry says it is absolutely committed to the BlackBerry 10 (BB10) operating system and physical keyboard smartphones, despite the discontinuation of the BlackBerry Classic last week
Chief Operating Officer Marty Beard said reports that the company was abandoning the pillars of its mobile strategy were simply not true and wanted to set the record straight.
“BlackBerry is not backing away from BB10,” he declared, adding that BB 10.3.3 would further enhance privacy and security and that a roadmap for 207 was in place. “Our customers depend on the BB10 platform and they are the ones that drive our roadmap.
“That is why we are committed to not just maintaining BB10 software, but advancing it to be even more secure and provide even greater productivity.”
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“We wanted to merge the best of BlackBerry with Android – the notion of a new merged BlackBerry platform meant we would provide the security and connectivity BlackBerry is known for, with the content available in the Android ecosystem – all in one environment.
“BlackBerry is the only one with this unique flavour of smartphone in the market today. PRIV was the first iteration…and soon there will be others.”
Beard also rejected the suggestion that the end of the Classic was a sign that smartphone users had moved away from QWERTY keyboards. He said the Passport and Android-based Priv were still available and that so long as there was demand, BlackBerry would continue to make keyboard devices.
BlackBerry was once the market leader in smartphones but its market share has shrunk to less than one percent in recent times. While Apple, Samsung and others were able to erode BlackBerry’s advantage in security and compliance, the perpetually-delayed launch of BB10 meant the Canadian manufacturer was unable to offer devices that had the features end users desired.
CEO John Chen has repeatedly cast doubt on the future of its handset business and has reportedly given it until the end of the year to be profitable.
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So I read this as BB10 will now be used in IoT devices and Android will be used on BlackBerry handsets with BlackBerry 10 like enhancements to address security?
With US Gov. now switching away from BlackBerry 10 to other OS, one of the biggest reasons for keeping BB10 going is disappearing. With Android for Work & BES12, BlackBerry Android devices can enjoy much if not off of the capabilities of BB10/BES12 with many benefits such as support for a much wider range of apps.
Therefore, no more BB10 handsets and expect them to go end of life in the not too distant future......