After the arrival of John S. Chen in the company, Blackberry seems to have made its first move to regain it’s success in the smartphone industry by launching it’s new product, Passport. Admitting that its future relies on selling mobile data management and securities to governments and corporations, Blackberry realised that this is its last chance to relight its game in the industry.

Looking back, it seems that Blackberry has lost its appeal in the smartphone industry, proven by its decreasing sales. The launch of its new product, passport, doesn’t seem to reflect a processed constructing strategy either. Passport features a square display and physical keyboard that doubles as a touch sensitive track pad, which seem to be the only selling point that blackberry tries to focus on. In addition, the square shaped screen seems to serve as a problem in terms of cost rather than an advantage for the company. Priced $50 away from the basic iphone 6 it further reduces the competitive advantage of passport in the market. With the recent launch of iphone 6, it is a bad time for Blackberry to launch its new product even though it’s mainly targeted on old customer base. Overall, no major improvements or changes have been made to the product or the company in general, which may have made the whole product development ineffective to save blackberry in the smartphone market.

On the other hand, this might be the tip of the iceberg for Blackberry considering that it will launch another new product, Blackberry classic. While we still don’t know Blackberry’s next strategy, looking over, the new product development still has a high chance of not getting Blackberry back on their feet.

References :

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/25/technology/under-new--blackberry-unveils-its-newest-smartphone.html?ref=international