After long time of waiting, Blackberry presents its latest smartphone, Passport, today in London, Dubai and Toronto.
This is a very important step for Blackberry because the market performance of Passport will either lead Blackberry to a revival or to the end of the handset business. Fortunately, the chief executive of Blackberry, John Chen, is pretty optimistic about Passport and Blackberry’s future.
For the past few years, Blackberry had been enduring a hard time in smartphone market. It is not only because of its own unstable financial status, but also because of the innovative and fancy models released by its rivals, Apple and Samsung. To be honest, as a customer, I would prefer to buy an iPhone rather than a Blackberry because iPhone has prettier appearance and more apps. However, Blackberry did not give up and with the release of Passport, people are guessing if the revival of Blackberry is coming.
Positioning of Blackberry — finding an unoccupied area in order to be the first in the industry
Passport is much different with the old Blackberry models. It has a novel square display and a physical keyboard that doubles as a touchsensitive track pad, and also, Blackberry adds some maturity to Passport.
Direct business model —
What is more remarkable is that Blackberry will sell the phone directly to its target audience rather than relying on wireless carriers’ sales forces. In that way, customers may enjoy a more genial service. Just like what we learnt in the last class, this direct business model could help company better meet the demand of customers.
The competition in the industry is fierce —
Since Apple just released its iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 plus, there are still many concerns about Blackberry’s future because the rivalry against Apple will be drastic. It is just a beginning for Passport; everything is still uncertain. Will Passport lead Blackberry to a revival or to an end? We will just wait and see.
Reference: pictures from https://www.google.ca/imghp?hl=zh-CN&tab=wi
Apple has such a strong reputation and name in the competitive nature of the smartphone industry. Blackberry, on the other hand, has a very weak name, relying on its loyal and faithful consumers to keep it alive as it battles to win the loyalty of a wider consumer base.
Look at Beats by Dre for example. They are expensive and you can certainly get a better headphone for cheaper from a less known manufacturer. However, people still buy Beats because of their name, the look they give, and the personal experience of unboxing one of the most known products.
With an industry such as smartphones, reputation and name has a lot to do with the success of products. I think the Passport won’t revive Blackberry because of the name they have developed over the past decade. Good post 🙂
Thanks. In fact, I personally agree with what you said. But in general, it seems like blackberry is still optimistic about the future of their smartphone business, and they really hope that passport can become their turning point. So I guess we should wait and see. Everything is still unpredictable.