When the high tech world stood still for a single moment on September 19th for fully focusing on the release of the newest member of the Apple Family – the already notorious iPhone 6 –, BlackBerry seized the chance to enter the market with their brand new BlackBerry Passport “by the back door” successfully. The main reason for this success might not only be the innovative technology Blackberry users awaited in vain over the last couple of years, but also the failure of the iPhone 6 in withstanding the “pressure” of users’ pockets, as Lucas outlined in his blog post.
Thanks to Lucas’ careful analysis of potential consequences for Apple and the company’s reputation in the marketplace, the question arose for me why Apple did not avoid this now rather awkward debate from the beginning. Supposing that it took more than a year to develop the iPhone 6 and Apple is known for landmark innovation through careful analysis and tests, it is unimaginable that they just did not think of the consequences of using aluminum as basic material. So why did they take this risk? Were they just too confident in their market leadership? Or did they actually seek the public’s attention?
While these questions will probably remain unanswered, BlackBerry tries to take over parts of Apple’s market share by simply exploiting Apple’s failure to satisfy consumers’ needs. Nevertheless, this could not only be a unique opportunity for the struggling company to broaden their customer segments, but also a threat to their unique selling proposition in the market for business phones.
Still, the consumer will make the final decision who just bends their phones and who is actually brought to their knees in this battle.
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