Blackberry To Stop Making Phones

Blackberry, once the market leader when it came to business mobile phone solutions has announced it will stop designing and manufacturing smartphones.

The company has struggled to compete with smartphone competitors such as Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android based solution.

The Blackberry phone will most probably be remembered for its physical qwerty style keyboard and as a must have gadget that no one in business who was going places could be seen to be without. Blackberry, the company, will now instead focus its energy primarily on security and software instead.

“Under this strategy, we are focusing on software development, including security and applications. The company plans to end all internal hardware development and will outsource that function to partners. This allows us to reduce capital requirements and enhance return on invested capital,” said John Chen, Blackberry CEO.

Phones with a Blackberry badge will still be manufactured, in the short term at least, in markets such as China and India, but will be manufactured by 3^rd party vendors such as Alcatel, and feature Blackberry’s hardened version of Android.

BBM

Blackberry Messenger was one of the strongest factors that attracted users in their droves. BBM allowed them to use the internet to send emails and messages quickly in a way that the world hadn’t seen before, and rivals struggled to replicate.

However, with the advent of Apple and Google smartphones and the rise of Facebook messenger, WhatsApp and literally millions of other apps and games, Blackberry quickly found itself playing catch-up as its market dominance crumbled in a number of months.

By the time Blackberry made the switch to its own heavily secured version of Android, the world had moved on, and innovative products such as the Priv, didn’t have the developer support, and found itself at the wrong end of the pricing structure for most people.