Blackberry appears to be taking one last swing at the mobile phone business. Over recent years sales for the company have been in major decline, likely due to their strong competition in apple and google devices. One of the leading strengths phones such as the iPhone have shown over blackberry was their innumerable apps and strong connections with social media. Though some customers held on to their Blackberries, praising the durable frame and user friendly keyboard; the hardware could not compete with the convenience being offered by other brands. In other words, blackberries operating system simply could not keep up with their competition. Nevertheless in the hope that Blackberry will restore their once sought after name, they have just released their newest model, the Priv. This particular release is very interesting in that the company has clearly recognized their drop in customers and therefore significantly altered their approach. As a result, instead of using their original operating system BB10, Blackberry made the switch to use a third party operating system, Android. This move to Android proves that Blackberry is trying to reinvent their value propositions and reposition themselves on the market. Instead of being the phone known solely for business use , it may now be viewed as the best phone for mixing business with pleasure(apps and convenience). It seems that blackberry intends to maintain their market in the business class, as they retained the sturdy hardware, and easy to use keyboard in their new design. However, the much bigger screen and new operating system will assist with appeal to the younger demographic. Unfortunately, I don’t likely find that this final attempt will help blackberry to regain ground in the mobile phone industry. Apple at this point has built too strong of a customer base for Blackberry to make a dent in their sales. Even though iPhone’s may be considered less durable, because they have now become so familiar, customers will more likely buy the new iPhone than make the switch to the Priv. Consequentially, if this last attempt to remain relevant for Blackberry is not successful, they with expectedly be out of the phone game for good.
http://plug-in.bestbuy.ca/t5/Cell-Phones/Introducing-the-Android-powered-BlackBerry-Priv/td-p/123322
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/blackberry-priv-android-phone-could-be-company-s-last-says-analyst-1.3283851