From the onset, BlackBerry Ltd. appears bent on reinventing itself - putting its focus on selling services and software to professionals on the go. But it may have a change of heart of late, as the Ontario-based firm who not too long ago cornered a huge chunk of the smartphone market in the US, unveils one smartphone after the other.
Flooding the Market
In the recent MWC (Mobile World Congress) in Barcelona, the John Chen-led company debuted a touchscreen smartphone called Leap. And before people could turn their attention away and leave announced its plans to launch not one but three more devices within the year.
That's a lot of phones for a software-focused company.
In hindsight, the company also launched the Passport and the Classic last year, two phones equipped with keyboard - like its predecessors.
It's surprising how things turn out. As Daniel Ernst, an analyst at Hudson Square Research in New York pointed out "For a company touting a software turnaround, that's a lot of handsets," Bloomberg reports.
Caught in Between a Vision and Reality
For a company which use to lionize the US smartphone market in 2010 cornering as much as 43% of the market, casting doubts on its smartphone ventures seem illogical. But that was before Google unleashed Android and Apple its iPhone, from whence the Canadian tech giant's smartphone business would nosedive and leave it breathing for dear life.
Enter John Chen as CEO in 2013, who wanting to salvage the company pushed to have its hardware revenue replaced by its software business - the company's famous device management service BES12 for instance.
Everything may be going as planned - though not as apparent. BlackBerry Ltd. would need as much helping, financial revenue-wise and its hardware business could give it new blood.
In another wise move, John Chen seriously streamlines BlackBerry's business as most - if not all - of its hardware products are manufactured thousands of miles away at Foxconn, a Taiwanese electronics multinational company.
Working His Magic
For now the investors are happy about the realignments.
To note, shares doubled on the day John Chen assumed his post - as if by cue.
There is still a long way to go though. Hardware sales still account nearly half - 46 % to be exact - of revenue in the quarter ending Nov. 29, a drop of but 24% from the same period last year, according to Bloomberg.
But John Chen is determined, and his business-savvy is showing. Instead of directly competing with former competitors, he is keen on building a healthier relationship, a better ecosystem with BlackBerry right in the middle of it.
Already, he is re-purposing software and apps which used to be BlackBerry exclusives gearing them towards every major hemisphere in the smartphone world today - Apple's iPhones, Android and Windows phones.
Join the Conversation