D-Day: BlackBerry could announce exit from smartphone business on 28 Sep

It’s been a long and bumpy ride for BlackBerry ever since Steve Jobs showed up on stage with his Apple iPhone. About nine months ago, BlackBerry CEO John Chen, decided to move to Android as an alternative operating system for the company’s smartphones and enterprise solutions. While it may been the best move that BlackBerry made since a decade, it came a bit too late. Still then, the Priv stood as a shining example of what a BlackBerry smartphone powered by Android should be. But it came with plenty of flaws, software and hardware while the design was distinctly BlackBerry it had its flaws too as I pointed out in my review of the Priv. Everything seemed to be stable until BlackBerry unveiled its DTEK50 a rather lazy attempt at rolling out an Android smartphone.
And many noticed how the company had simply re-branded an Alcatel Idol 4. It was nothing like the BBOS 10 powered devices in the past, and one could tell since it just came with a sticker on the back. However, the smartphone also hinted that may be, just may be, BlackBerry has indeed given up on building quality smartphones. And that impression alone does not sound too good for business.
Today, the Motley Fool, got hold of similar hints. In its article, it claims that at the upcoming earnings call which takes place on 28 September, BlackBerry could indeed announce that it had given up on the smartphone business, similar to what Microsoft did not too long ago (but with Windows Phone).
And there’s plenty of hints that things may turn out to be that way. There’s a big sale with 40 percent off accessories on the BlackBerry website, and oddly the sale ends just a day before the earnings call.
In Canada, the company’s latest attempt at garnering more customers with the world’s more secure smartphone, seems to have been outdone by the iPhone while the BlackBerry’s latest DTEK50 is already selling at discounted rates.
Not too long ago, WhatsApp a very big entity in the instant messaging space, announced that it would end support for BBOS 10 devices by end of 2016 as well. It is a good enough hint that even most developers really aren’t interested in BlackBerry smartphones anymore. So the Priv becomes the only other Android smartphone that stands for its BlackBerry values, but again it does not come without its glaring flaws.
Months ago, CEO John Chen, had mentioned that he would take a call about the company’s smartphone business in September. While Seeking Alpha thinks that BlackBerry would still be making profits by selling a re-branded smartphones, many others claim that it’s time BlackBerry shut shop and focussed entirely on software instead. Why not? Microsoft did the same thing with smartphone business and so far its seems to have moved on just fine.












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