Blackberry (formerly "Research In Motion")

[orangetea]

Images of the scrapped model Kopi were leaked online. No further detail of the expected entry level BlackBerry smartphone is known


BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) was previously expected to come up with two new handsets, which were codenamed Cafe and Kopi. None of the devices were formally launched as the company cancelled both the handsets to avert inventory risk. No details are known about the Café model, but recently some photos of the Kopi have been released by weibo.

BlackBerry
Not much info available on Kopi

[Image: blackberry-kopi.jpg]

As far as design is concerned, Kopi appears slightly different from Q10 and closer to BlackBerry Q5. As of now, there is no information on the markets that could be selling the Kopi model, but if one has to make wild guess, based on the name it might land in markets like Indonesia or Malaysia, as the word “Kopi” translates to “coffee.” Kopi was expected to be equipped with the Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8960, and might have been released in the first quarter of 2014.

There is also a scenario where the handset may never be released, and the leaked photos may end up being just more images of the un-launched devices. It’s not the first time that the images of the scrapped device have leaked online. In September, last year, not so clear image of the device surfaced online.

Chen preferred BlackBerry Z3 over Kopi

It is believed that John Chen, after becoming BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB)’s CEO cancelled both Kopi and Café model, which were meant to be entry level series BlackBerry 10 smartphones. Instead, the CEO chose to launch BlackBerry Z3, which is primarily for the Indonesian market. Another expected handset form BlackBerry is Q20, which will be BB10 device based on the BlackBerry 7 devices of the past. Q20, which might get released by the end of 2014, is expected to have an integrated trackpad and a tool belt of physical buttons.

On Thursday, BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) shares reported a fall of 0.97% to close at $9.22. Fifty two week range of the stock is $5.44 – $16.82, and market capitalization is $4.85 billion. In the last trading session, overall average volume was 22.01 million shares, and total outstanding shares are 526.55 million. On Friday, at 11.30 a.m., BlackBerry shares were up 0.3% at $9.08.

[CityFarmer]

It seems the low-cost version of BB launched in Indonesia, doesn't seem promising...

(not vested)

BlackBerry to consider exiting mobile phones

NEW YORK — BlackBerry would consider exiting its handset business if it remains unprofitable, its chief executive officer said yesterday (April 9), as the technology company looks to expand its corporate reach with investments, acquisitions and partnerships.

“If I cannot make money on handsets, I will not be in the handset business,” Mr John Chen said in an interview, adding that the time frame for such a decision was short. He would not be more specific, but said it should be possible to make money off shipments of as few as 10 million a year.

At its peak, BlackBerry shipped 52.3 million devices in fiscal 2011, while it recorded revenue on less than two million last quarter.
...
http://www.todayonline.com/tech/blackber...ile-phones

[freedom]

It gotta show that everyone reads the same news, but acts differently.

What I see from John Chen's comment is that there is no way for him not to make money from handset business.

[yawnyawn]

It gotta show that everyone reads the same news, but acts differently.

What I see from John Chen's comment is that there is no way for him not to make money from handset business.

I think the new CEO is on the right path by focusing on cheaper handsets. They should do better if they compete in the lower priced market against the Androids as compared to against Apple in the higher end market. Moreover, downside has been reduced by cooperating with Foxconn in the production of the new phones.

More people will be interested to try out Blackberry new handsets provided they are priced cheap enough. This can allow the company to grab some market share. With a market cap of usd4.2B, Blackberry does not need to be sell a lot of handsets like Apple to have a significant impact on its share price.

[rogerwilco]

It seems the low-cost version of BB launched in Indonesia, doesn't seem promising...

CityFarmer, Blackberry Z3 (the phone produced under BBRY-Foxconn new deal) has not been launched in Indonesia. Blackberry indonesian site still put 'coming soon' message for its Z3... so personally i think it is too early to judge its failure/success.

quote from http://n4bb.com/blackberry-z3-launching-...indonesia/

by JT Teran - Apr 5, 2014
[UPDATE] BlackBerry has contacted us to let us know they will not be launching the Z3 next week in Indonesia. There has been some confusion with the report TheRecord has put out, but unfortunately, that launch date has not been moved up. The closest thing we have officially is what CEO John Chen said in the last BlackBerry earnings call land that is a May launch.

[yawnyawn]

It seems the low-cost version of BB launched in Indonesia, doesn't seem promising...

CityFarmer, Blackberry Z3 (the phone produced under BBRY-Foxconn new deal) has not been launched in Indonesia. Blackberry indonesian site still put 'coming soon' message for its Z3... so personally i think it is too early to judge its failure/success.

quote from http://n4bb.com/blackberry-z3-launching-...indonesia/

by JT Teran - Apr 5, 2014
[UPDATE] BlackBerry has contacted us to let us know they will not be launching the Z3 next week in Indonesia. There has been some confusion with the report TheRecord has put out, but unfortunately, that launch date has not been moved up. The closest thing we have officially is what CEO John Chen said in the last BlackBerry earnings call land that is a May launch.

Interestingly enough, The z3 is code named as 'Jakarta'. Blackberry phones are still popular in Indonesia and it is no surprise that the company is targeting Indonesians with the launch of Jakarta.

[rogerwilco]

http://blogs.blackberry.com/2014/04/not-...-handsets/

Devices Business is an Important Part of Our End-to-End Strategy
04.10.14 / John Chen

John Chen clarifies a recent Reuters article and reiterates that BlackBerry is Not Leaving the Handset Market

Yesterday, Reuters published an article that said I would consider selling our Devices business. My comments were taken out of context.

I want to assure you that I have no intention of selling off or abandoning this business any time soon.‎ I know you still love your BlackBerry devices. I love them too and I know they created the foundation of this company. Our focus today is on finding a way to make this business profitable.

BlackBerry is not a handset-only company. We offer an end-to-end solution and devices are an important part of that equation. That’s why we’re complementing our Devices business with other revenue streams from enterprise services and software, to messaging. We’re also investing in emerging solutions such as Machine to Machine technologies that will help to power the backbone of the Internet of Things.

We will do everything in our power to continue to rebuild this business and deliver devices with the iconic keyboard and other features that you have come to expect from this brand.‎

Rest assured, we continue to fight. We have not given up and we are not leaving the Devices business.

[rogerwilco]

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-04...e-reliance

BlackBerry Sets Goal to Cut Device Dependence: Corporate Canada
By Hugo Miller and Scott Moritz April 10, 2014

BlackBerry Ltd. (BBRY:US)’s John Chen is giving himself two years to overhaul the smartphone maker and offset declining handset demand with sales of software that connects computers with all manner of machines, from cars to heart monitors.

Chen, who took over as chief executive officer (BBRY:US) in November, is stepping up BlackBerry’s reliance on business customers instead of the smartphones that made the company famous. In the worst-case scenario in which he misses his goal of generating cash flow by this fiscal year, Chen said he’ll have six to eight quarters to replace declining hardware sales (BBRY:US) with higher-margin software revenue.

“I don’t have a plan to get rid of handsets, I have a plan to not be dependent on handsets,” Chen said yesterday in an interview at Bloomberg’s headquarters in New York. “All I need to do is replace the handset revenue, and this company will be very different.”

The shift is the key to Chen’s goal of returning the money-losing (BBRY:US) company to profit by the fiscal year that ends in March 2016. Chen is in a race against time with device sales continuing to slide -- 77 percent last quarter alone from a year earlier. His plan to create fresh revenue streams from its QNX software and BBM instant-messaging services has been welcomed by investors who had driven the stock up 23 percent (BBRY:US) since he took the helm after a failed sale process.

QNX Purchase

BlackBerry bought QNX in 2010 for $200 million from Harman International Industries Ltd. and set about building a new smartphone operating system, BlackBerry 10, on the software. It’s already widely used in cars and industrial settings like coal mines and hospitals. Now Chen wants to make it more prevalent anywhere machines need to communicate with other machines.

“This is where the industry is going,” Chen said. “It’s all about device interaction. This is why it’s so important to be agnostic.”

Chen said that by replacing single-digit phone margins with software margins that are routinely 70 percent to 90 percent, BlackBerry can be profitable with the same level of revenue. Chen reiterated yesterday that he expects the Waterloo, Ontario-based company to stop losing cash by the end of this fiscal year.

The company is focused on supplying both software and hardware to customers in regulated industries such as finance, government, health care and law who need security, risk management and high productivity, Chen said. About 80 percent of BlackBerry’s installed base of smartphone customers are in a regulated industry, and an even higher percentage of customers dependent on its servers are in such a field, he said.

Restoring Value

Emphasizing this core base of users and technology that caters to them “will be the best way to capture and reverse the decline of our value,” he said.

Chen took over after a plan to sell BlackBerry and take it private had collapsed. He said that he’s focused on making BlackBerry competitive again, not selling the company at a distressed price.

“I’m not running the company for a sale,” Chen said. “I’m running the company to generate value, to grow the business.’

He pointed out that he ran Pyramid Technology Corp. for five years before he sold it and Sybase Inc. for 12 years before SAP AG (SAP) bought it for $5.8 billion in 2010.

Today, BlackBerry shares fell 3.6 percent to $7.67, giving the company a market value of $4 billion.

Chen inherited a company that had already been losing smartphone market share to Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. for years. As recently as late 2010, BlackBerry claimed 19 percent of the global smartphone market, according to IDC. By December of last year, it had slipped to 0.6 percent.

T-Mobile Fallout

As the company shifts its emphasis to supplying software and services, Chen recently decided to end BlackBerry’s partnership with T-Mobile US Inc.

In February, T-Mobile started offering to swap new iPhones for old BlackBerrys. Last week, Chen said he won’t renew the supply agreement with T-Mobile, the fourth-largest U.S. wireless carrier, saying that their strategies are ‘‘not complementary.”

“What kind of business person am I when I knowingly am giving a license for a company to move my customers away?” Chen said yesterday in the interview.

Severing ties with BlackBerry critics, cementing loyalties with other carriers and bringing back the older and popular BlackBerry Bold phone have been among the latest steps in Chen’s efforts to restore faith in the company.

No Pushing

“It was easier to do this with T-Mobile,” he said. “They are clearly focused on consumers, and I’m clearly focused on enterprise. So this is a different conversation if it was AT&T (T:US) or Verizon. (VZ:US)”

In recent weeks, BlackBerry also has taken legal action to try to stamp out product leaks and just won a court order convincing a judge that Typo Products LLC probably infringed its patents with its clip-on keyboard.

The move to cut ties with T-Mobile wasn’t emotional, he said. It was to send a signal.

“I wanted to make sure the world knows that we are not going to let people push us around,” Chen said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Hugo Miller in Toronto at hugomiller@bloomberg.net; Scott Moritz in New York at smoritz6@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sarah Rabil at srabil@bloomberg.net Anne Reifenberg

[rogerwilco]

BBRY is focusing on 3 industries (government, healthcare, financial)

http://seekingalpha.com/news/1674943-bla...elop-phone

BlackBerry invests in healthcare software firm, will jointly develop phone
Apr 15 2014, 12:50 ET

BlackBerry (BBRY -0.8%) has taken a stake in NantHealth, developer of a cloud-based clinical software platform that's used by ~250 hospitals and gathers data from 16K+ connected medical devices.

NantHealth suggests it will leverage BlackBerry's QNX OS to "put the power of a supercomputer in the palm of the caregiver's hand." The company will also use BlackBerry's upcoming BBM Protected secure messaging platform (part of the eBBM Suite).

BlackBerry and NantHealth plan to develop a smartphone for the healthcare industry that's optimized for viewing 3D images and CT scans. It's expected to arrive in late 2014 or early 2015.

The deal is part of an effort by BlackBerry to carve out niches for its mobile hardware and software in enterprise/institutional verticals. John Chen: "The future of BlackBerry lies in creative opportunities like this that take our many core disciplines and combine them in ways no one else can match."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/1...nologyNews

BlackBerry buys minority stake in healthcare IT firm
BY EUAN ROCHA
TORONTO Tue Apr 15, 2014 8:03am EDT

(Reuters) - BlackBerry Ltd said on Tuesday it bought a minority stake in privately held healthcare IT firm NantHealth, a move that offers a glimpse into the type of niche markets the smartphone maker is targeting as it attempts to engineer a turnaround.

Waterloo, Ontario-based BlackBerry, a pioneer in the smartphone industry, has fallen on hard times as its market share has waned in recent years. As the company attempts to stem losses and remain relevant it is now focused on expanding its services segment that caters to the needs of large clients like banks, law firms and government agencies, among others.

BlackBerry's Chief Executive John Chen, who took the reins at the company less than six months ago, sees healthcare as one of the sectors in which the company has an advantage, due to a heightened focus on patient privacy and BlackBerry's vast array of networks that can manage and secure data on mobile devices.

"BlackBerry's capabilities align closely with NantHealth's," said Chen in a statement on Tuesday. "This investment represents the type of forward-looking opportunities that are vital to our future."

The financial terms of the deal itself were not disclosed, but NantHealth said it does not seek any further funding from BlackBerry beyond its current investment.

The two companies are now working together to develop a new smartphone tailored to the needs of the healthcare sector. The device is likely to get launched late in 2014 or early in 2015, said Jim Mackey, BlackBerry's head of corporate development and strategic planning, in an interview.

"We do plan to make the device available for all, but it will be optimized for viewing 3D images and CT scans," said Mackey, adding that the device will also be usable as a regular smartphone, allowing users to view movies, play games or access consumer applications.

He said the deal with NantHealth exemplifies BlackBerry's focus on the regulated industries such as healthcare.

NANTHEALTH INVESTMENT

California-based NantHealth, whose cloud-based platform is already set up at about 250 hospitals and connects more than 16,000 medical devices, said it sees the tie-up with BlackBerry allowing it to expand its base of services.

"Security and privacy is tantamount to us and to patients," said NantHealth's founder Patrick Soon-Shiong. "BlackBerry's expertise is incredibly valuable to NantHealth as we expand our platform and make it available for wider deployment through a secure mobile device."

Soon-Shiong, a surgeon and businessman, who made billions of dollars selling his two former companies American Pharmaceutical Partners and Abraxis BioScience, said BlackBerry's current focus on services and enterprise clients made it an ideal partner.

BlackBerry's new CEO Chen has rapidly moved to cut costs, bolster the balance sheet and build a team focused on addressing the needs of its major clients that rely on its secure networks to manage mobile communication devices on their networks.

The Canadian company, which has lost most of the smartphone market to Apple's iPhone and gadgets powered by Google Inc's Android operating system, has laid off some 9,500 employees, or more than half its workforce since 2011, as it has rushed to cut costs in the face of mounting losses.

Chen, who was credited with having turned around enterprise software maker Sybase Inc in the late 1990s, has now decided to focus less on the consumer market and more on BlackBerry's core audience of corporate and government clients and their employees - many of whom have for long eschewed touch screen smartphones in favor of BlackBerry's physical keyboard devices.

[rogerwilco]

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101585505

Why we chose to invest in NantHealth
John Chen, executive chair and CEO of BlackBerry
14 Hours Ago
CNBC.com

The "Internet of Things," a vague catchall phrase that gets people excited even if they are not quite sure what it means, is no longer a theoretical concept, but a new reality that is revolutionizing the way we live and work. Imagine the possibilities: Your doctor can access real-time information about your health direct from monitoring equipment, share it quickly with other medical professionals, and tap into the diagnostic and treatment resources of the best institutions in the world.

A core strategy of the ongoing turnaround at BlackBerry taps into the interconnected systems that make up the Internet of Things. By doing so, we will be able to deploy our unique assets and capabilities to help industries operate efficiently, reliably and, most importantly, securely.

Today, we announced an investment in and plan to collaborate with NantHealth to transform the delivery model of health-care to patients. The brainchild of Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, NantHealth has developed a cutting-edge, cloud-based clinical operating system that is agnostic to any device or electronic health record.

The NantHealth platform is installed at approximately 250 hospitals and connects more than 16,000 medical devices collecting more than 3 billion vital signs annually. Think about the possibilities when an enormous amount of data and computing power is accessible to doctors in the palm of their hands.

This is the future of health care, a field where the ability to share reliable information and make sense of conflicting signals can mean the difference between life and death. As the health-care industry changes, a secure and robust technology infrastructure becomes all the more vital — not only to keep doctors and nurses current on patient care, but also to ensure compliance with privacy laws and streamline sometimes cumbersome and confusing billing procedures. BlackBerry's active role helping health-care professionals maximize the potential of mobility highlights our commitment to adapting technology to rapidly changing needs and opportunities across a range of fields.

For example, if the Internet of Things can connect the machines that take your blood pressure or electrocardiograph to your doctor's smartphone, the need for absolute security and reliability is more important than ever. Those are unmatched BlackBerry strengths, and as we work to turn around the company, opportunities such as this that will be vital to our future.

Since I took over as CEO last year, I've been asked more times than I can count whether BlackBerry has a role in the rapidly changing and intensely competitive mobile market — a market BlackBerry was instrumental in creating. As our collaboration with NantHealth illustrates, the answer is a resounding yes. In fact, BlackBerry's role is more necessary than ever as our core strengths of reliability and security will be essential to the next era of computing — an era in which mobility is fully integrated with the underlying systems that keep the modern world operating.

Granted, BlackBerry will cater more to enterprises, regulated industries such as finance, law enforcement, government and health care. And our offerings will expand beyond best-in-class mobile-device management and handsets to include the integration of those elements into the embedded systems that make up the Internet of Things. This helps us place even greater value on our smartphones because they integrate seamlessly with the embedded systems that collectively make up the Internet of Things.

In fact, BlackBerry already powers many of those embedded systems with our QNX operating system. Although not widely known, QNX is at the ultra-secure core of our smartphones, but it also powers a range of essential industrial, automotive, military and medical systems for which security and reliability are absolutely essential. They include applications such as wearable GPS and communication systems for ground troops, unmanned aircraft control systems, steam turbine controls, nuclear power monitoring, advanced driver assistance in cars and a range of medical diagnostic and monitoring equipment.

So when BlackBerry talks about focusing on the emerging needs of the enterprise, this is what we're talking about. Those needs are changing, just as they did in previous eras of technological change — such as the advent of desktop computing and the rise of mobile.

The work we're engaging in with NantHealth illustrates that the future of health care lies in the ability to share information securely and quickly, whether device-to-device or doctor-to-doctor. Although the collaboration is just beginning, BlackBerry and NantHealth see tremendous opportunity because:

BlackBerry, through our QNX technology, is already trusted to run the machines that take your blood pressure, monitor anesthesia and conduct laser eye surgery. QNX enables the mission-critical medical diagnostic and monitoring devices in hospitals and homecare environments through its real-time embedded operating system;

Super-fast, super-secure messaging through our upcoming BBM Protected secure communication platform will connect health-care providers, field-service workers, emergency personnel, patients and family members to keep life-and-death information flowing to the people who need it;

NantHealth's proprietary Clinical Operating System platform integrates the doctor's office or hospital with the medical network and the payment system, enabling 21st century coordinated care at a lower cost;

NantHealth and BlackBerry can combine secure cloud-based and supercomputing services to provide data integration, decision support and analytics — allowing care providers to crunch huge amounts of data to aid in accurate diagnoses; and
BlackBerry devices are the global standard for secure communication and collaboration, keeping sensitive medical information available only to authorized users.

Clearly, different industries will have different needs as the Internet of Things expands, but the need they share is the ability to communicate and collaborate securely and reliably — whether that's between human users or the machines and systems running in the background. This is what BlackBerry does best and our technology is already trusted where it matters most — on battlefields, behind the wheel of a car, in nuclear plants, and at the doctor's office.

John Chen is chief executive officer of BlackBerry and executive chair of the company's board of directors. Follow BlackBerry on Twitter at @BlackBerry4Biz.