Blackberry might switch to Android as OS

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/11/us-blackberry-google-android-idUSKBN0OR2ZM20150611

by hoare • 11 years ago

41 64 11 years ago

heimatau2• 11 years ago

I can't help but shake my head at the title of this article. Why spend millions on an OS to be at the whim of someone else? It's a bad business move. BB has to do something and this could work but...in the long run this is either killing your ecosystem or positioning it to sell.

bbcbasic• 11 years ago

They will selling yet another Android phone, and that isn't good for margins.

TTPrograms• 11 years ago

They could fork and focus on stability, performance and security. Throw in a physical keyboard and some enterprise software subscriptions and it could differentiate pretty well. Then they have the added benefit of access to the Android app market instead of competing to reach critical mass on their own app market.

bdcravens2• 11 years ago

Those who carry BB's do it for the messaging. Android options with a high quality keyboard are slim to none.

Heck, if they created a version of their keyboard for the iPhone, they'd sell like crazy. (not the first iphone kb, but would the first BB keyboard for the iphone)

JoshTriplett2• 11 years ago

If they manage to sell an up-to-date Android device with a keyboard, there's a substantial market of people who want one.

Justin_K• 11 years ago

They should have done this 6 years ago. They make good devices, shitty OS.

As far as shaking your head, I don't see you pushing a better plan ... maybe they should continue with BB OS? HA. Maybe they should develop a new OS? HA. This is their only option.

shyn3• 11 years ago

Why HA? Have you used it?

cwyers6• 11 years ago

Stop making phones altogether. Focus on what they do well -- BBM and MDM solutions. Being an Android OEM is death by slow cuts at this point. Players who have a much bigger head start in making Android handsets are doing poorly. Even the big "winners" like Samsung are selling a lot of units at low margins. What's Blackberry got that every other Android vender doesn't? Don't say keyboards, Motorola's first Droid had a keyboard, there's a reason they haven't made a new keyboard phone since 2012. And those are slider keyboards -- nobody is making Android apps optimized for the screen size and ratio of a classic style Blackberry. Making Android devices would be throwing good money after bad.

heimatau2• 11 years ago

My plan was indirect but they should refine their OS. Heck they could even partner with Microsoft to allow portability. But the moment they give up their OS is the moment they are throwing in the towel, for mobile.

bdcravens2• 11 years ago

Works pretty well for a ton of other vendors.

coryl• 11 years ago

Hmm, are any of the handset manufacturers making profit? I think Samsung's phone division is losing money.

adevine• 11 years ago

Not really. Apple takes something on the order of 90% of ALL cell phone profits worldwide (I've seen figures from 89 to 93%). Even Samsung is having difficulty because there have been lots of new Android competitors.

That said, while it's estimated that Android vendors take ~10% of cell phone profits, that's better than Windows Phone and BB, which take 0%.

untog2• 11 years ago

Apps is the main reason. Plus it'll be cheaper than developing their own OS. Augment Android with their secure e-mail, BBM, etc and they might have something. Maybe.

threeseed4• 11 years ago

Forget about the apps how about the keyboard.

There is still a significant number of people who would like a decent phone with a built in keyboard.

macspoofing3• 11 years ago

Why spend millions on an OS to be at the whim of someone else?

Because they can't beat iOS and Android. And they can't out-market and out-spend Microsoft for #3. So what's left?

on_and_off• 11 years ago

Leaving the OS/hardware market and focus on services.

AdrianRossouw• 11 years ago

qnx seemed really nifty. I'd been intrigued since the "1.4mb floppy with a full gui" days.

it's a pity they couldn't make it work for them.

jshute• 11 years ago

I can't help but rejoice at the title of this article. I own a BlackBerry Passport and the hardware is phenomenal, but the OS seems designed to put the company out of business. Side-loading APKs is a terrible consumer experience, and as interesting as the Hub concept is, in practice I don't prioritize Foursquare updates the way I prioritize SMS or work email! Gmail and Inbox don't run, Acompli crashes on startup, and Mailbox has unreliable interaction glitches. The Calendar app is frequently outright wrong! The folks saying "another android phone" truly don't get it: the last great keyboard phone was the Droid 4, a slider that's years old and definitely does not have a capacitive keyboard.

VieElm• 11 years ago

I doubt your Passport will see an Android update even if they did this. Someone might have an unofficial Android build for the Passport though.

nfoz4• 11 years ago

I've run into some small issues, but I my Passport is the best phone I've owned; I'm a convert from Android. I think the hardware and the OS are both fantastic; better UX and more stable than my Google Nexus.

Sorry to hear that you have had so many issues, though. I mostly use Hub (primarily text), the fantastic Browser, PDF reader, calls, mobile Hotspot/tethering, and several apps (mostly native).

mdm_2• 11 years ago

as interesting as the Hub concept is, in practice I don't prioritize Foursquare updates the way I prioritize SMS or work email!

A couple things to try: in the Hub, click the menu button in the bottom right corner "..." and select "Settings". Turn on "Priority Hub" and you'll get an additional folder in the Hub for messages that match your priority criteria. Also, under "Hub Management", you can set each account integrated within the Hub to display notifications exclusively in the main Hub folder, the account-specific folder, or both.

rbanffy2• 11 years ago

I only hope QNX finds a decent home. Maybe open sourced on Github.

TD-Linux• 11 years ago

I hear tons of praise for QNX here, but how many people have had good experience with it? I've absolutely hated VxWorks personally, and have heard many complaints about QNX as well.

Has anyone here used it and liked it more than, e.g. Linux?

jsolson• 11 years ago

I have used it, and for what it is I like it rather well. If I was in the business of building real-time systems, I would choose it over Linux in a heartbeat.

rbanffy2• 11 years ago

At the time I learned C on it Minix was brand new and Linux was a distant future. QNX is a rock-solid RTOS. There was, once, a desktop version with a GUI, but I never used it.

I may be wrong, but I remember it could boot, compile C code and run vi from a 360k floppy.

kori-ayakashi• 11 years ago

What if Blackberry were to use Sailfish, instead of Android?

shmerl• 11 years ago

+1 for Sailfish.

macspoofing3• 11 years ago

Using a niche operating system is their problem.

threeseed4• 11 years ago

Exactly. The industry can't sustain multiple operating systems unless there is some way of abstracting the development platforms. Solutions do exist for this but they are generally very poor quality and force a lowest common denominator approach.

This is a smart and very overdue decision by Blackberry.

cwyers6• 11 years ago

They'd be worse off?

Blackberry has two problems right now, they don't have any apps so nobody wants to buy their phones, and they don't have any market share so nobody wants to make apps for their phones.

And yet.

In terms of both market share and app availability, they're better off than Sailfish, or FirefoxOS, or Ubuntu Phone or Tizen. In fact, it probably has more users and more apps than all four of them combined. Switching from their current OS to any of the other alternatives in the marketplace besides Android or maybe Windows Phone is a step BACK for Blackberry, not forward.

jarboot• 11 years ago

If they use a heavily-modified, security-focused sort of android marketed toward corporations/government I wouldn't mind it too much. I just hope they don't end up having the same sort of android that every other phones seems to have nowadays.

rvschuilenburg2• 11 years ago

This is IMO where they will be stuck if they do pursue this road: There's no way Google will allow the Play Store on such a heavily modified android (look at the Amazon Fire for example, with Amazon's custom Android).

So in the end they'll end up with an OS that can run Android apps, but doesn't support the Google ecosystem. But they already have that. It's called BBOS10 and has the Android runtime and the Amazon AppStore.

neverminder• 11 years ago

Why not Firefox OS or Ubuntu?

nfoz4• 11 years ago

Why not BB OS?

nfoz4• 11 years ago

I understand the competitive pressures that drive us down to only a very small number of choices in the market (e.g. iphone or android, windows or mac).

What I don't understand is why so many consumers seem to want that outcome.

threeseed4• 11 years ago

They don't want the outcome. It's the result of the network effect.

App developers simply can't afford or are capable of maintaining a separate code base for each OS. Especially when each OS requires very difficult skill sets.

wooyi• 11 years ago

Most of the comments here are focusing on the OS. It's not about the OS. It's about the ecosystem - the apps marketplace. They can come up with a great OS, like Windows did, but without the ecosystem, consumers will not use it. A smartphone without apps is a dumb phone.

rvschuilenburg2• 11 years ago

But BB10 already supports the ecosystem. They have an Android runtime and it ships with the Amazon AppStore.

smegel• 11 years ago

And Blackberry as everything else? Lucky no one has thought of being an independent Android vendor before, the field is almost open!

Shorel• 11 years ago

It would be at least interesting if it was Ubuntu Touch instead of yet another generic android phone.

Blackberry might switch to Android as OS

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