Blackberry's Euro MD ignores iPhone questions in BBC interview | Hacker News Reader

Blackberry's Euro MD ignores iPhone questions in BBC interview

mcvuk.com

41 points_b8r048 comments

"You know, people often ask me how to compare our new models to some of the products that people are already using. They ask me what we've learned from them, as you did. That's great."

"And yes we did learn from them. Not so much about manufacturing, or how to make portable, powerful device that is the hub of your day. We have been doing this for as long as we've been a company, that's in our DNA."

"BUT, what I think we've learned from those other products is the importance of getting things right for the entire user experience, not just the core four or five things you do the most. We've always had the very best messaging platform. We've always had the best security for business. We've always had the best devices for texting and emailing."

"Now we are committed to that excellence in being the device that browses the web. That manages your digital wallet. That helps you navigate from where you were to where you want to be."

"We've learned a lot from the way those other companies do a great job on things that our customers used to tell us were not critical. The bar has been raised, and we think we are still the very best device for messaging plus we are now leapfrogging them to be the best in all the things people are doing with their devices, not just the core things they do the most."

You're hired.

^That.

I listened to this, and watched him on BBC Breakfast. It was as painful as the article implies, and it is clear that he had barely even prepared for his interview outside of preparing a few lines of bullshit to spout about "the Blackberry experience". He was torn to spreads by several interviewers in a fairly casual setting, and although I'm sure he's fairly competent at his job he offered no optimism ahead of their product launch.

EDIT: Shreds, not spreads. Never comment on an empty stomach.

I realise "torn to spreads" is probably a mistake in there, but that's now my new favourite phrase. Especially in the context of lunch.

My sandwich will be utterly torn to spreads. Brilliant!

That's what happens when you browse HN in the office kitchen during breakfast.

we’re at the bridge of a new transformation where we see it from going from mobile communications, there’s mobile computing.. blah blah blah .. we’ve really driven to is delivering a new unique user experience. blah blah blah... engaging our customers, consumers, our business customers, the developers, our partners and we’ve been interacting about what the new BB will deliver and the feedback’s bneen amazing around… blah blah blah...

Total corporate newspeak from one end to the other. The only thing we learn is that he's a businessman, but he's also a familyman.

I think we also learned that he has only ever had to work at convincing existing bb users that the new version is worth upgrading to. He knows nothing about the technical features which is fine because he only ever interacts with high level people in enterprise businesses who don't care about technical features.

I've started to think that bb management views the company like the IBM of the mobile phone world, an old and venerable company driven by great engineering that doesn't need to be greatly concerned with what its competitors are doing. Them having deeply internalized this kind of view of company is the only reason I can think of that their apparent arrogance and misunderstanding of their place in the world makes sense.

Direct link for the UK (not sure it's accessible elsewhere): http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p014f43k

My embarrassment at this humiliating performance is only mitigated by a slight pride in the BBC presenters not letting him off with it.

Works in Greece too, thanks! Man, this is cringeworthy.

So he can't learn from a competitor. Blackberry is dead, dead, dead.

Muppets like this guy don't do their cause any good at all. I don't understand why BB don't talk up their new OS (QNX). From the little I know about it it seems fairly cool ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QNX

Its a microkernal based RTOS.

Rim/Blackberry is a joke. Sounds like a business monkey at large here, selling shit he has no clue about. Would have been better if they had one of the designers or engineers onboard instead buzzwording bs and making a fool out of himself.

Kudos to the BBC guys for not letting him off the hook, regardless of how awkward it might have been. Got a new fan now.

What is BB's real business value proposition?

I'm got sincere concern for the well-being of Blackberry. I doubt that having a physical keyboard is enough of a game changer to have people switch back to a BB from an Android/iPhone device. They've stagnated for several years while their competitors have moved ahead, in terms of both OS polish and device functionality. A lackluster interview performance where not a single tangible improvement was given seems more indicative of the company as a whole than just an inept executive.

Any speak about "business friendliness" and "security" is complete hogwash. Apple's and Androids MDM solutions may not be perfect, but app-level encryption is readily available on both. Data secured at rest + data secured in transit.

I wonder what they've learned from Android, since this is the prevalent smartphone OS in the UK. :-D Anyway, amazing interview. :-))

...Really? I mean, it's pretty prevalent right here, but I am sitting in the Google office. I see significantly more iPhones on the Tube of a morning than Android phones.

Do you think Android is more prevalent outside London, or have you just had a different experience to me?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/feb/21/android-sma...

And I think the gap has grown even more in the last year (in Apple's disadvantage).

Iphones are pretty "visible" indeed, depends where and when you travel. At work however over 90% of the people use non-apple stuff.

The tube in the morning has a wealthier, commuting demographic that doesn't represent the rest of the UK.

If only more businesses realised that the London demographic is starkly different to pretty much everywhere else.

I'm in Cardiff and I see quite a few more Android phones than I do iPhones.

I concur. The trains and trams in and out of Sheffield are very much Android territory. Not even new Android devices (Galaxy SIII, Nexus 4 etc) - they are generally devices a generation or two behind.

Mind you, there is That Guy who sits watching Pointless on streaming TV on his iPad on the way home each night...

I think the rest of the UK is different. iPhone ownership goes hand in hand with a certain level of disposable income and fashion sensitivity. Androids dominate the lower end of the smartphone market, but people commuting by tube are not in that bracket.

People who live in London and commute by tube automatically fall into an above-average income bracket. In my experience they're far more likely to have the disposable income to get an iPhone over a cheaper smartphone.

Wow, this is a new low. Even for BlackBerry.

But not for a politician...[0]

[0] http://www.mediaite.com/tv/robot-politician-in-bbc-interview...

I've never had the "uncanny valley" feeling while watching a human before!

You really, really need to start listening to the Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, talk.

Sorry if this sounds like a cheap political shot, as I'm normally a Labor party supporter, but she honestly is like an overprogrammed, overcoached politician.

To be fair, it's to make sure that his soundbyted message appears in the media regardless of which little snippet of the interview is used.

I've yet to see a more egregious and brazen example of a politician refusing to answer a question than Jeremy Paxman's 1997 Newsnight interview with Michael Howard. [1]

Paxman asked the same question 12 times and 12 times it was dodged and avoided.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v...

Here's a video of a similar performance by this guy on UK TV:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5l8bdaOMaA

"Blackberry UK head, Stephen Bates sticks to his PR script. The script doesn't help him."

I love the segue back to the compere's...

Q: "What went wrong?"

A: "The boss wants to focus on what went right..."

That interviewer was being an unprofessional asshat to be honest. I think the BBC are near tabloid when it comes to technology reporting these days.

What would have been more professional? To just sit back and let the guy recite his PR release from memory? A professional interviewer asks the questions that his audience want answered.

A professional interviewer doesn't shout over the interviewee, however incompetent they are.

You're joking. Apple are wiping the floor with Blackberry. Blackberry are about to go out of business because of Apple. I think that it's a pretty reasonable question, and given the response (or lack thereof) the interviewer was totally within his rights to go after Stephen Bates.

The BBC is not a place for you to read out your press release. Expect to be asked questions. Even gentle ones, like, "what have you learned from your competitors?".

100% not joking. The questions are fine but the approach that was taken i.e. shouting over the guy is unacceptable.

Watch Jeremy Paxman deal with someone. He'll let the person dig themselves a hole and politely fill it in on top of them.

The takeaway: nobody wants to be that guy who sets up his employer to another billion dollar lawsuit from Apple.

That's what I was thinking. Any direct answer to that question would delight the swarms of injunction-happy Apple lawyers.

I can completely understand him not wanting to answer the iPhone question - that's the kind of thing that would end up in court if Apple ever sued RIM. However later when he can't even mention a feature that BB10 has over Android/iOS, that's just embarrassing.

So, I have asked this question many times but never got an answer. Fellow HN users, please tell me:

>> What is the USP of BlackBerry?

I've met many people who use BB and I have no idea why. And all the answers were like this guy's answers.

RIM seem to have form on this sort of thing...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/9456798.s...

From one extreme to another it appears!

Wow, did they give him no media training!?!

By the sounds of it I think he has had some really bad media training.

He sounded like a politician, trying to delay answering a direct question for as long as possible.

Here’s the transcript. Audio can be accessed on iPlayer.

Ouch.

that was painful to read.

Whatever you do, don't listen to it then...

If you think about it thou: answering questions like this invites litigation.

Ridiculous. He can talk about it in generic terms. He could say the bleeding obvious: the iPhone is very easy to use, and so they have focused on usability. Or their app store ecosystem is excellent. So they want to be awesome at that.

While I don't like spin, this was oh so much the easiest of questions to have answered.

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