INTERESTING: The New Blackberry 10

The maker of the BlackBerry has introduced a completely re-engineered operating system, two new phones, and a new company name in the hope of reviving its dwindling market share.

What we are selling is a unique and differentiated proposition.
Frank Boulben, BlackBerry

The new Z10, which features a 4.2-inch full touch screen, and the Q10, which offers a physical keyboard, have been praised by reviewers and analysts; but with almost nine out of 10 smartphones sold now being either Android or iPhone, the company has an uphill battle to regain its previous mantle.

Frank Boulben, BlackBerry's chief marketing officer, said in a group interview that the smartphone market was currently a "duopoly" but insisted "the cards can be re-dealt". Referring to iPhone and Android, he said the smartphones today were based on a "paradigm" introduced six years ago, namely the grid of app icons and home button for users to dip in and out of applications.
Advertisement

"We are not selling a me-too product; what we are selling is a unique and differentiated proposition," said Boulben.

But despite mostly positive reviews, the new models failed to excite investors, with the company's stock dropping 10 per cent in late afternoon trading. However it is still trading at more than double its nine-year low from September.

Senior product manager for BlackBerry, Arun Kumar, shows off the new BlackBerry Z10 smartphone.
While the Z10 is aesthetically very similar to the iPhone 5, the new phones feature a completely redesigned user interface that does away with home, back and search buttons and instead allows users to flow seamlessly between apps using simple swipe gestures. BlackBerry 10 also offers several unique features such as tight social media integration and seamless switching between personal and work profiles.

At the event in New York City on Wednesday, the company also announced it was ditching the name Research in Motion for a single brand: BlackBerry.

Pricing and availability for Australia has yet to be announced by local carriers, however Telstra and Optus have confirmed they will offer at least the Z10 here. In the US the Z10 will be available in March while the Q10 is expected to arrive in April. BlackBerry said Australian availability would be "in line" with the US.

The launch was at times bizarre, featuring the rap song No Sleep Till BlackBerry 10 by Lil E and the creator of CrackBerry.com having his pony tail cut off on stage, which he said he would grow until the delayed new platform finally launched.

R&B singer-songwriter Alicia Keys was named BlackBerry's "global creative director", revealing she and BlackBerry were "exclusively dating again" after she was "playing the field" with a newer, more attractive phone. But she stumbled through the Q&A with nonsensical responses and was also caught tweeting with Twitter for iPhone in the past week.

Between 70,000 and 100,000 apps will be available at launch on BlackBerry World — including Skype, Amazon Kindle, WhatsApp, Angry Birds and more — which executives said was "more apps at launch than any first generation platform".

The head of BlackBerry's developer relations team, Alec Saunders, said he and other staff covered 2.5 million miles and 44 cities around the world schmoozing developers and convincing them to build apps for the new platform.

BlackBerry CEO and president Thorsten Heins, speaking about one year after he took the reins of the company, said BlackBerry had gone through a "journey of transformation" that was the most challenging yet exhilarating year of his career.

"Two years ago we had to make a very serious decision, adopt someone else's platform or build a whole new one," he said. "We made the tough call to go it alone ... we have transformed ourselves inside and out."

That call meant the new BlackBerry devices were delayed for over a year as competitors such as Samsung adopted Google's Android platform and gobbled up a huge chunk of market share.

Heins described the screen on the Z10 as offering a "cinematic experience", while the physical keyboard on the Q10 was the "best typing experience in the industry, period".

On the software side BlackBerry 10 is tightly integrated with social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and offers a unified inbox called BlackBerry Hub that contains all of the user's messages and notifications. It means the user doesn't have to open each social app individually and they are even able to publish status updates from within the hub.

Swiping up from the bottom allows the user to easily switch between running apps while you can also "peek" at your messages without minimising or closing your existing application. Swiping down from the top reveals more menu options.

Heins boasted users can "control the whole experience with one thumb".

Another touted feature is the ability to seamlessly switch between work and personal profiles with a swipe and a tap. This allows IT managers to secure the device and prevent workers from copying data between their work and personal spaces.

BlackBerry Messenger now allows users to make video calls over the data network and share their screen with the person they are calling to show documents, pictures or other information.

Asked whether BlackBerry's edge with Messenger had been eroded now that there were dozens of instant messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Viber, BlackBerry vice president T.A. McCann told Fairfax Media that it proved BlackBerry's vision was right "because everyone's trying to copy it".

Adam Leach, principal analyst at Ovum, said BlackBerry 10 offered an impressive, differentiated user experience that would stand out from Android and iPhone and appeal to existing BlackBerry owners. However, the challenge would be to attract new users and those who have already switched to a competitor.

"Despite a well-designed Blackberry 10 platform that will certainly attract short-term interest from existing users, the company will struggle to appeal to a wider audience and in the long-term will become a niche player in the smartphone market," said Leach.

Malik Saadi, principal analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media, said the BlackBerry Z10 "delivers some of the most efficient, accurate and engaging ways to access messaging and social networking services to date". He said this coupled with the ease of flipping between apps and multi-tasking made it "stand out from the best smartphones currently available on the market".

But he said for some users the lack of usual buttons such as home, back and search, which have been replaced by swipe gestures, may be challenging.

"BlackBerry should aim to sell at least 1 million units of the new device in its first quarter," said Saadi.

"Anything below this would call into question the company's ability to execute its marketing strategy while anything above 3 million units would be a spectacular performance."

BlackBerry said it was working on updating existing PlayBook tablets to BlackBerry 10 software but didn't reveal much about any new tablet models on the way.

Boulben said down the track the vision is for the BlackBerry smartphone to be the user's main personal computing device and they will eventually be able to dock it in to a larger screen and keyboard when they get into the office, dock it into their car for the commute and then dock it at home.

Source: The Age