An end to an era of black-suited white collar people using the black beauty with qwerty keyboard. Once dominant in the professional world, BlackBerry is finally saying goodbye to smartphone building business.
With the loss on hardware operation mounting up, BlackBerry has officially decided to quit the smartphone business. Well, sort of, the company has only stopped its internal smartphone development and instead outsourcing its hardware efforts to third parties.
So what will BlackBerry do? The company will now focus on software and services, to becomes a true software-led mobility solutions unit. The company will focus on building BlackBerry for Android secure software and the Hub unified communications software.
Yet, you will see new smartphones with BlackBerry brand, but they will be from third party manufacturers. The company is outsourcing the development and design of its smartphones to its partners like TCL and Alcatel.
“There are both strategic and financial benefits to our new approach. By continuing to bring BlackBerry devices to market, enterprise customers and consumers will still enjoy our unmatched, end-to-end value proposition which includes best-in-class capabilities in security,” said Ralph Pini, COO and GM, Mobility Solutions, at BlackBerry. “We will also work with our partners to define a competitive hardware portfolio, leverage their distribution scale and access new channels,” he added.
BlackBerry’s first licensing agreement for device software is a new joint venture called BB Merah Putih. Under this partnership, BB Merah Putih will source, distribute and market BlackBerry handsets in Indonesia.
The BB Merah Putih will have full access to BlackBerry for Android secure software and the Hub unified communications software, for the production of new devices in Indonesia.