BlackBerry loses $423M in last quarter as revenue plunges | Hacker News Reader

BlackBerry loses $423M in last quarter as revenue plunges

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67 pointsbane65 comments

Good fucking almighty riddance! BlackBerry devices are an absolute nightmare to develop on. I would know, I have been for the past year for a bank, both native and jQuery Mobile.

I might go into therapy for a few months once this project is over.

I'm debating whether to even list any of these projects and related skills on my resume for fear of pigeon holing myself as "the blackberry guy". Honestly most depressing job.

My environment is a locked down, lenovo x120e, running Windows XP. Awful. It's sort of good because when I come home to my beautiful $10k+ mac setup, a single tear roles down my cheek, and I can fire up xcode and do some serious relaxing. Yes, Objective C relaxes me.

For BB7 or BB10? I've always heard the former is a nightmare but not so much the latter...

BB7 & BB10 alike. They are both bad. BB7 is an order of magnitude worse to develop on.

It's not that BB10 is too bad, it's just that when you run into a specific problem, likely nobody else on the internet has run into the same problem.

Isn't it a big project? Can't you get paid support? This is really depressing to read, especially for me as I may be developing for BB10 in a few weeks.

ECC1 claims are simply false. His Lenovo x120e can barely handle Eclipse. It's no wonder the experience is worse than his '10K$ Mac setup' ...

I've developed native apps for BB10. The tooling is decent. It's a bit heavy since it's based on Eclipse but I had no problems with it. You can also use QtCreator with BlackBerry 10, but I've never tried it. You will mostly use Qt-based APIs anyway in your app, so there's no issue with support. The documentation for BB10 Cascades APIs is very good. There are also lots of official and community submitted samples on Github. For questions I've always used their developer forums which were active.

Kid, I'm not bullshitting. Believe what you want. It's a fucking awful experience.

Just curious, why are you using such a dev environment like the one you describe for writing BlackBerry apps? Why can't you get a more up-to-date setup? I can't see any reason to develop in WinXP anymore.

Believe me, I can't see any either. They are company issued laptops that need to follow certain security procedures. I brought in my mac and ported my code, had like a week of GREAT development before 2 "officials" from the information security team demanded I delete any and all code in front of them. You are absolutely not allowed to use anything beyond the company hardware and software, and I got the short end of the stick as all the good machines have already been "leased" for other projects.

If there is a god he will deliver me from this place.

Yeah, I think the problem is the place you work with, not so much BlackBerry development itself. Though I don't blame you for having a tainted view of it because of these kind of asinine policies as a result.

This guy is completely wrong. Developing for BB10 is so easy. He's right in the sense that it's hard to find people with similar issues, but how is that BlackBerry's fault? Ignore his complaints and continue your plan to develop for BB10. It's a great OS and I love devving on it.

Any new OS will have this problem. Seems like an unfair criticism to me.

What kind of problems are you running into for BB10? Would you mind listing them, I am very curious.

It's still amazing to me that they haven't produced a keyboarded, skinned, android device yet.

At this point sticking with only their own OS seems prideful. I'm sure the internal discussion are about "differentiation". But that swings both ways. Being different/bad is not the kind of differentiation a company wants.

Blackberry's Software is DoD audited. If they change OS's they have to go though a lengthy re-certification program that Samsung KNOX and IOS6 only completed this 1 year ago.

The US government is one of their major customers, and a lot of business men and women like the piece of mind their phone is DoD approved for security... Even if they do nothing else to secure it.

Didn't they just switch OSes last year? Blackberry 10 is QNX-based.

Black Berry has owned QNX Since 2010

-Retracted-

Your correct they did push BlackBerry10 in 2013, but BlackBerry 7 (No clue what happened to 8, and 9) was not an upgrade from 6 and was only available on newer phones. Which leads me to believe 7 was actually the QNX implementation.

I am very sure BB10 was the first QNX release. Its release slipped many times, and was over a year late to market.

Wasn't PlayBook a QNX release?

Yes.

OS: Blackberry Tablet (QNX)

From the BlackBerry Tablet page

"Another QNX-based operating system, known as BlackBerry 10, will replace the long-standing BlackBerry OS on handsets after version 7."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlackBerry_PlayBook

Their new OS is security certified as well: http://bizblog.blackberry.com/2012/11/blackberry-10-fips-cer...

There's no reason the hardware couldn't run both OSes, letting the buyer choose the system they want. It changes the dynamics of the business to support that, but their current direction doesn't seem to be working for them.

There is a very big reason.

Android is a time-shared monolithic kernel.

QNX is a Real-Time Microkernel.

So you want to pay people to maintain 2 different kernels, for the exact same hardware, at the exact same company? When the primary customer of your phones are only interested in mobile email?

Doesn't matter if it increases the profitability of the company in a meaningful way. That is the if, of course.

The problem is your assuming people who buy BlackBerry's currently want android. They pretty definitively didn't want touch screen keyboard.

To make Android profitable you'd have to complete change their target demographic, and re-invent their company image from, "Phones for lawyers, and non-tech savvy business people" to "Phones for everyone."

That's a drastic shift.

The original parent suggested people wanted to buy Android devices with hardware that is on-par with what BlackBerry produces.

> To make Android profitable you'd have to complete change their target demographic

While I'm not sure agree with the aforementioned commenter, I'm not sure I agree with this either. Trying to shift to "phones for everyone" is what has left BlackBerry struggling now.

What do you dislike about BB10? All my friends that use it like it quite a bit.

I don't really understand how people can want there to be less choice in the market. We have millions of android devices. I am so glad that we still have competition, even if they're losing ground.

What do you dislike about BB10?

The OS can be fantastic but if it isn't supported by third parties it's going to be a bad experience. I loved the Windows Phone UI, but eventually I got sick of the lack of apps and went back to Android.

And no, I'm not talking about the lack of Candy Crush, I mean the lack of productivity apps, online banking, two-factor auth apps, etc. etc.

Seconded. It's not as bad in Canada where most of the banks and major companies have BB10 apps, but it's still a pain not to have Mint, Netflix, and other apps I would otherwise use on a daily basis.

The problem's somewhat mitigated by the fact that you can now access the Amazon Android app store and run Android apps, but it feels clunky and slow. Definitely not a good substitute.

Have you heard of Snap? With this app, you can download and install any Android app from Google Play as easy as native BlackBerry apps, and with no sideloading.

Mint, Netflix, any Android app you want can run on BB10 now. That along with everything in BlackBerry World. Plus, you get it on the awesome BB10 OS. Snap is a game changer.

[1] : http://redlightoflove.com/snap/

Is BB10 still limited to Android apps made for 2.x?

I don't really understand why it is that on a PC/laptop we do our banking, news, and other tasks in the browser, but on phones and tablets we need apps for all these things. I recently upgraded from a Samsung Note 3 (which my wife now happily plays Hay Day on) to a Q10, and can do everything I need through the excellent built-in browser. As far as productivity apps, I use Blackberry Hub, Blackberry Remember, and Evernote, and can't think of what else I really need to do on my phone.

I've always struggled with lack of concentration, focus, etc and by the time I was on my third Android smartphone I realized that they're Big Glittering Distraction Machines. Personally, I find the lack of apps and games on BB10 a blessing, and the OS is unparalleled for my primary use, email and texting.

> I don't really understand how people can want there to be less choice in the market.

The problem is not what I want, it's about ensuring the survival of the company. There are simply more people leaving BB, despite an excellent alternative OS, than coming in.

Are you aware that BB10 runs Android apps (at least, any that don't depend on Google-specific services)?

BlackBerry 10 devices already are effectively skinned android devices. I have a BlackBerry Q10 in my hand, running 100% stock T-Mobile USA software (not flashed in any way), and it runs the Android version of Spotify and Simple Bank without any issues.

Android developers do need to re-wrap their apps for BB10, re-upload them to a new distribution store, and the BB10-Android compatibility layer is not 100% complete. This is especially true for anything that is coming out of Google Play (push notifications, maps, locations, etc).

The cost is non-zero. It is certainly lower than writing something from scratch for BB10, but non-zero. I write enterprise mobile software, and we used to get inquiries about a BB10 version of our app and were considering distributing it that way, but haven't had any requests for BB10 in 6+ months.

That's only true in the store. There's no need to wrap anything, unless you want to be in the BlackBerry App Store.

If you host an APK on your website, everything "just works." No hacks -- any stock, unmodified BB10.2 device can open a Android APK instantly, just like an Android would.

The only drawback I've seen so far is the lack of Google Services. If your app doesn't use those, it runs right out of the box.

For instance, Spotify's Android APK works out of box -- no wrapping needed

Unless something has changed isn't the BB10 Android Runtime based on Gingerbread?

The latest release (10.2.1) runs Jelly Bean 4.2.2.

http://developer.blackberry.com/android/documentation/bb_run...

BlackBerry has great apps and services.

BlackBerry should give up their os and produce Android phones with these exclusive apps and services. Because nobody's interested in owning a Blackberry os phone today.

It used to be a "white collar" phone,now the iPhone is the "white collar" phone.

"Os" wise, Between Android,IOS and WP,there will be a place for a fourth player only if that player is really innovative,and invent something other players dont have and markets it well. That's why I dont believe in the Jollas, and the Firefox oses, nothing new,nothing Android phones cant do.

The whole "html" os stuff has been tried already,it was a failure and android phones actually ship with browsers... hello? we dont need "html" oses...

As for Jollas,what's the point if It's to use android apps? can already do that on android phones...

The "point" of Jolla isn't to run Android apps. That's a feature. The point is to have a great mobile Linux device running native (!Java) code and a beautiful UI and a small but great community of passionate users, devs and the company.

I quote their homepage ,lead paragraph:

   >Navigate effortlessly with the gesture-based user 
   >interface and load the phone with top Android™ apps.

There is your point?

Again, being able to use some existing Android apps is a feature, not the point of the phone

$42M actual loss, $382M in tax accounting fluff.

They're estimating profitability by end of FY2015 (february 2015). That sounds reasonable, given the investments they're making on the future of the company, rather than just trying to goose the numbers for stock performance.

BB10 is the best mobile OS I've used, and I'm glad to see they're on track for turning the company around.

Not BB10 (Edit: Playbook OS) on the Playbook is still better (imo) than Android 4.4 on the Nexus 7 (if you adjust for massive hardware differences).

It both feels and behaves engineered, it's an absolute shame that they where late to the party.

How are you running BB10 on the Playbook? I didn't think it was ever officially released, just an old, busted preview.

Whoops my bad, Playbook OS not BB10.

FWIW I agree, Playbook OS is pretty great on the usability front. I'm still steaming that they reneged on porting BB10 to it though, I only bought one on that promise.

I bought two in the Firesale at a silly price (I think I paid less for both than a single 1st gen Nexus 7 at launch).

They make solid little almost-disposable portable web browsers.

Blackberry seems to be the classic example of a company that didn't take the competition seriously enough while in its prime & thus paid the price. This is what happens when you aren't constantly vigilant & innovating - you're at risk from companies that are.

Keep in mind that BlackBerry Limited cut 40% of its workforce (4,500 employees) in September 2013, and in November 2013 they received a $1B cash injection from Fairfax Financial. If things continue to go poorly in 2014 then we can expect some more shuffling in leadership.

Competition continues to be quite fierce in the mobile handset market. Notably, where is HTC's 2013 Annual Report? Surely they're dealing with similar troubles.

Thank you for mentioning the cash injection. I was starting to wonder where RIM was getting all this money they keep losing quarter after quarter.

You know I really don't understand all the comments here cheering for a company to go under... they made mistakes and their products were behind the market for quite awhile. but now they have BB10 and it's brilliant and keeps improving (3 major OS updates in the first year). Even if you personally dislike BB10, isn't more choice a good thing for the market?

Bringing back the bold is an interesting strategy... I'd imagine at this point it doesn't cost much to manufacture it and they don't see it canabalizing any BB10 devices. I'm assuming this is a play in markets where BB still has a shot, (Latin America, Africa, etc.) Places where the Bold may compete against feature phones and may still be viable. Think of the Bold as a new version of the Nokia bricks that stayed in production much longer than needed for the US markets.

BlackBerry 10 is an underrated OS. The move to bring back the Bold is a bad decision. Nobody supports BBOS7 anymore. Bring in Google Play to BB10 and start marketing your security.

I agree with you that BB10 is a really great and thoughtfully conceived OS.

On the other hand, so was webOS, so was MeeGo...

Even their security should be questioned:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/03/12/bb10_dated_crypto/

I'm unclear on what Chen meant when he said he was restarting production on the blackberry bold... Is that referring to the updated version of a keyboard BB10 device that would have the trackpad or does it literally mean restarting the BB7 powered Bold device?

"The phone, first introduced in 2011, will be re-released as 'The Classic'."

This seems to indicate that he means it's a new device, the Classic (formerly known as the Q20 [1]). Seems just like a BB10 version of the Bold.

[1] http://blogs.blackberry.com/2014/02/blackberry-q20/

Good. The bad karma is catching up with this company.

As an individual (against corporate customer) I purchased a Blackberry for around $400 in India. iPhone was ~$1000 and Android phones were still half as good as they are now. I quickly realized that the phone was overpriced. Every app install required restart that involved taking off the battery.

Also, the postpaid plants were 2x more expensive than the prepaid plans purely because postpaid users had no other choice but to pay up. There was no number portability in India at that moment.

The company would then provide updates to OS which were carrier specific. OS7 was not compatible with OS6 and BB10 made OS7 totally worthless but not to mention the company still sold all their phones at a premium.

The death spiral continues. I have to hand it to them, they lasted longer than I expected.

I expected a very long death because of the government contracts. Blackberry isn't going anywhere until a different maker has all of the security clearances needed to have its devices on the secure network.

I don't think Apple cares. Probably Samsung or Google will do its best to get those in a few years.

There are "secure" versions of Android. It's the secure messaging solution that is bundled with BB that makes it a compelling solution for the government.

QNX OS is a real-time embedded OS that is popular for embedded applications. They could close their consumer division and just do government and embedded product lines and actually be profitable.

There is a very good bullish article on Blackberry.

http://market-ticker.org/post=228889

I took a look at it for two seconds and didn't know what the hell was BBOS 12 or 7, never heard of it, never seen it. I'm sure this is what most people think too who's using iOS or Android, they are beating a dead horse and failing to innovate themselves out of the hole they created.

If they improve the usability of BBM a little bit and get wrap some better PR around it, they could pretty easily compete with the other big names in SMS-alternative social networks (Viber, Line, Kik, WeChat, Kakao). As it is, though -- at least in my circles -- the unwieldiness of the additional fun stuff (like Glympse integration) pushed us back to WhatsApp and Telegram.

Not surprising. Even mainstay companies are advocating BYOD now and even if the reintroduction of the "bold" spurs corporate sales they still need a solid consumer phone. Not that the z/q10 aren't(never used them) but I don't know that there is any compelling differentiator to encourage users to switch.

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