the best phone BlackBerry's ever built hadn't
even launched in South Africa (one of the device
maker's 'core' markets) by the time the Fairfax
buyout deal fell through, CEO Thorsten Heins
was thrown to the wolves, and the vague
"business model transition" was announced by the new (interim)
boss John Chen.
Yes, this is best phone BlackBerry's ever shipped. The hardware
stands tall above its older devices. Slick, high-quality finishes… a
5-inch screen that's big, but not phablet big. (We'll get to the
operating system).
The only problem is, again, that BlackBerry's managed to catch up
to where the market was 18 months ago. Put the Z30 next to a
Samsung Galaxy S2 and it comes out on top. It'll sort of match
the iPhone 4S.
But at the end of 2013? It's simply too late.
That's the trouble with the now-annual release cycle in the
handset industry. Miss a year – or fail to have a hit – and you
accelerate your decline to irrelevance. Remember, BlackBerry 10 in
the first place (and the launch device, the Z10) was late.
The market's moved on. Not only has BlackBerry lost mindshare,
its lost operator support. Literally as recently as two months
ago, BlackBerry dominated the cover - and first handful of pages
– of the Vodacom and MTN monthly deal booklets. In Vodacom's
October edition, the first BlackBerry makes its appearance on
page 6; ditto with MTN. And while it's a 'new' phone, it's running
the old-generation OS 7 (and BIS).
Because the Z30 is two years too late (18 months, if I'm really
kind), I'm not going to go into camera specs (not great), its new
high-definition sound for video calls ('BlackBerry Natural Sound')
and the like… The one thing BlackBerry's selling hard is the battery
life of the Z30. Its promising 25 hours of "normal" use, which is
a magnitude better than the other BB10 devices. (This comes at
a cost – the battery is no longer removable.)
The real improvements are on the operating system. With the
10.2 update (available to the Z10, Q10, Q5 as well), the new BB10
platform is actually useable. For example, notification previews
are now available on the lockscreen (yes, it is 2013, not 2010).
You can now also reply to notifications (alerts) as they flash at
the top of the screen. Handy.
It's added a priority filter to the inbox hub – so all your important
e-mails, messages, conversations, missed calls will be added to
this (the phone learns who's important, but you can set – on a
granular level – exactly what is/who should be deemed 'priority').
Sharing is easier (the OS learns who you share what with and
how you share things, and the menus start adding these
'favourite' shortcuts). Afrikaans has been added as a predictive
input language.
And, despite the OS being launched ten months ago, it's finally
added a BlackBerry Hub icon so users who aren't familiar with
the upward swipe to access their inbox, can do so easily. Along
with this, it's improved the 'out-of-box' experience, with quick
tutorials demoing the gestures when you first turn your phone
on. Quite why this wasn't done back in January when BB10 was
released is a mystery – especially when the jump to BB10 from
the old OS7 is so massive.
While it's impressive that BlackBerry has notched up three
relatively major OS releases in just over nine months (it's never
managed anywhere close to this before), BlackBerry should've
launched with 10.2. Aspects of the original 10.0 (and 10.1) were
obviously rushed and unfinished.
Beyond that, the broader ecosystem stutters along… Windows
Phone (thanks to Microsoft's deep pockets) has managed to
snatch that 'third spot' in the ecosystem battle (Instagram is
finally heading to WP!) – although this third position is not really
sustainable to begin with.
So a phone that's late to the game, together with an operating
system and ecosystem that's far enough behind it may never
catch up … not exactly a recipe to arrest the stunning revenue
and market share declines we've seen from BlackBerry as it
battles a death spiral.
Following Monday's aborted buyout, a jettisoned CEO and new
private equity suit and Chen now at the helm ( yes, yes, he turned
around database outfit Sybase – but his most recent job has
been as senior adviser at Silver Lake Partners), there are now
simply too many unknowns.
Perceptions in the mass market are crucial in this game. And
when people start talking about 'why BlackBerry is dead' around
the braai, it's probably a (very) bad sign. The average consumer
is not going to commit to a BlackBerry handset for the next two
years on contract when there are all these unknowns swirling
around (Witness HTC and its agony, despite the fact that the
HTC One is a better device than the Samsung Galaxy S4, by
practically every measure.) And the move away from all-in BIS
internet has hit BlackBerry very hard in emerging markets.
Who knows what BlackBerry looks like a year from now? I'd bet –
and it's an easy one to take - that it's going to be
unrecognisable… there's lots to salvage in the mess. But, equally,
there's a fair amount that needs to be cut loose or sold (most
importantly the handset business which has been a gigantic drain
on cash, working capital and resources).
The BBM-on-iPhone-and-Android noise has died down. Of course
the big problem there is it needs to get that user base through
100 million and keep up the momentum. There aren't too many
signs that's happening….
Although, right now, that the least of BlackBerry's problems.
