ParisLemon

In five years I don’t think there’ll be a reason to have a tablet anymore. Maybe a big screen in your workspace, but not a tablet as such. Tablets themselves are not a good business model.

BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins during an interview at the Milken Institute conference in Los Angeles yesterday.

Oh boy. Heins may want to check with Apple on their tablet business, because it sure seems like a good model. 

There are some quotes that I’m pretty sure will come back to bite someone in the ass. This one I’m sure about.

I’ll make my own prediction: In five years, tablets will be an exponentially bigger business than BlackBerry, because BlackBerry will no longer exist.

"Apple devices are still reigning above the clouds..."

Gogo:

Apple devices are still reigning above the clouds, following the tablet trend with the iPad being the device of choice. Among all mobile devices being used to connect through Gogo, 84 percent carry Apple’s iOS operating system while 16 percent carry the Android operating system. If you look only at the smartphones our customers are using, the iPhone makes up 73 percent and all Android devices make up 26 percent, with Blackberry and Windows based devices each making up less than 1 percent of devices being used in air.

Android is winning. 

But really, the BlackBerry and Windows Phone numbers are just pathetic. 

[via Daring Fireball]

Ex-BlackBerry CEO Dumps Entire Stake

Roger Chen for CNET:

A year ago, Balsillie was one of the largest individual shareholders in BlackBerry (formerly known as Research In Motion) with 26.8 million shares in the company. But in a document filed today, BlackBerry disclosed that Balsillie no longer holds any shares in the company.

While he formerly had a RIM job, no surprise that he took a dump here.

(I’m sorry, I’m 12, I know.)

theonion:

(via Faceless Reader #1786)

Uh oh.

Power corrupts.

But BlackBerry sees typing on glass as its future and will be emphasizing the touch model.

Walt Mossberg, in his BlackBerry 10 review.

I still vividly recall arguing with dozens if not hundreds of people that the iPhone’s touch keyboard was the way forward for everyone, period. Not hearing too much on the topic out of those same people these days…

One of them, you may know.

When Did Alicia Keys Break Up With Her iPhone?

Brian X. Chen for NYT:

BlackBerry has named the singer Alicia Keys as its global creative director. At a press conference in New York on Wednesday, Ms. Keys said that she and BlackBerry were now “exclusively dating,” even though previously she had dumped the BlackBerry because she had been attracted to “hotter, sexier phones, something with more bling.”

There’s just one glitch: Her Twitter account shows she was very recently spending time with an iPhone.

Whoops.

Okay, okay, sure: she could still be on her iPhone since the new BlackBerrys (BlackBerries?) aren’t technically out yet. BUT, as an “officer” of the company now, don’t you think she’d have access to one when say, those reviewing the devices for tech blogs do?

That smell, what is it? Oh, right. Bullshit.

I can’t believe I’m still writing about Alicia Keys right now. Shoot me.

shortformblog:

Nokia usually isn’t in a place to talk when it comes to mobile competition — unless the target of its mockery is BlackBerry.

A crippled man tries to trip a man with no legs; fails.

You should not buy this phone unless you have emotional and cultural reasons to love Blackberry, or some arcane enterprise reason I will not pretend to understand.

Brian Lam on the new BlackBerry devices for Wirecutter.

Ouch.

[via Emptyage]

The Last RIM Job

The Official BlackBerry Blog:

We have an exciting new addition to Team BlackBerry. In a true collaboration, Alicia Keys is now an official partner to BlackBerry, acting as Global Creative Director. Working closely with app developers, content creators, retailers, carriers and entertainers, Keys will be an active member of the BlackBerry community.

The bullshit, it reeks of bullshit! Paying celebrities to take “jobs” seems to be the new celebrity endorsement. Yes, even RIM jobs.

But seriously, smart move to change the company name to “BlackBerry”. Most consumers probably already thought that was the company name. And those of us who did know the actual name have basically only used it in the context of the company slowly dying over the past few years (or, well, other contexts).

High-res

inspiredbyapple:

BB10: *stifles giggle*

(image from Gizmodo)

For serious? This can’t be for serious. What year is it?

"A Holster On His Hip."

Ian Austen reporting on RIM CEO Thorsten Heins for The New York Times:

“Whenever you enter an office, you don’t have your laptop with you, you have your mobile computer power exactly here,” Mr. Heins said, patting a BlackBerry 10 phone sitting in a holster on his hip. “You will not carry a laptop within three to five years.”

While I largely agree with the overall sentiment, I’d still bet on RIM being a services company sometime in the same time-span — perhaps one owned by someone else. Also, it’s hard to take any of that seriously when you read that Heins has a BlackBerry “holster” on his hip. It makes the image at the top of the story pure gravy, as a result.

Six months after the iPhone launch? Blackberry 10 is slated for 6 YEARS after the original iPhone announcement. That's the real joke.

Asked by robotfranchise

A very fair point.

It’s a race between what comes first: BB10, zero cash balance or an acquisition.

Neeraj Monga, an analyst at Veritas Research on the future of RIM.