Well, if you expected it, you could have made a bunch of money when it happened. If everyone expected it, that would not have been possible.

Well sure - but my point is, who the heck thought BlackBerry was ever going to manage to turn their business around?

Incredibly surprising it may be, but even a couple months back people actually expected Blackberry to be doing well.

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/will-blackberry-rise-from-a...

http://www.berryreview.com/2013/06/26/blackberry-first-quart...

Of course, this isn't really that suprising. There are actually people who believe Nokia will recover. Seriously - Nokia will recover. I can't even imagine how anybody can start to believe that. (Cue people commenting below how Nokia will recover, and you will understand how people think Blackberry can recover too.)

When you look at BB10 and WP8 in isolation they look great. They're pretty and have lots of attractive features and the launch events look very slick. You can see how other people might buy them.

But you'd never buy one yourself, because there's just nothing there you can't get on an iOS or Android device, at leats not enough to make any difference. So yes, maybe other people will but them, and maybe they'll get traction, so clearly they have a chance, but not me. I might think about it, but I'd never actually buy one. The problem is everyone thinks that way*.

Except for maybe 1% or 2%. But then you can always find 1% or 2% of people that'll do anything.

I would actually honestly consider Windows Phone 8 at this point. I'm much more of an Android guy though, where I can tweak things and break out of isolated app silos down to a shared file system. But then I almost have to carry an iPhone because that's where I make my living - building iOS apps. So Windows Phone 8 comes in a close third, but for reasons normal people (non-developers/hackers) don't have.

BlackBerry? There's nothing there I can't get from an Android phone.

I also like Windows Phone 8. I think it is very nearly as good as Android and iOS, it just needs a bit more traction to get devs on board. BB, there is just no reason to jump on that sinking ship.

"....They're not Apple, they're not the low-end provider, they're not Nokia, so they are in the middle and they do relatively low volumes,"

"...It's difficult to make great margins on that kind of volume - so I would say the outlook is quite negative them."

aka Microsoft

Defeat the NSA and use BBM...

> But you'd never buy one yourself, because there's just nothing there you can't get on an iOS or Android device, at leats not enough to make any difference.

Being someone who picked up a HTC Surround on launch day, followed by my Samsung Focus S, Nokia Lumia 900, Nokia Lumia 920 and soon a Lumia 925, along with a family that exclusively owns Windows Phone devices, I can say safely that you are 100% wrong.

There are plenty of things you do not get from Android or iOS that WP8 has to offer, especially if you already live in the MS ecosystem (Office 365, Windows 8, Xbox). People just care too much about Instagram and Zynga games, they ignore all the features and cool apps that are already available on the platform.

You've had 5 phones in 3 years and that's somehow supposed to convince us to move to your system for being better?

I've had 2 phones in that time, an HTC desire that lasted me 3 .5 years and a nexus 4 that I've had since replacing that and I expect to last me equally as long.

The point behind me going through five phones in three years is irrelevant except to point out my experience with it, I have always gone through phones quickly because I like having the latest and greatest, before I got my HTC Surround I had an Nokia N75, an iPhone 3GS and a Palm Pre Plus, I kept bouncing between platforms because none of them worked the way I would expect. With Windows Phone I finally found something that works the way I expected it to; hell, I originally got my HTC Surround solely to use as a developer device and get in on the marketplace early, it ended up being my everyday phone within a month.

You say that now, but seriously... go play with a Windows 8 phone for a while. I am not the biggest Microsoft fan, but they designed developed and sold their vision and it's actually pretty great. I find that between having an Android and Win8 phone, I've been gravitating toward using the Win8 more, simply because everything you do is just smooth and seamless. I imagine the experience is what Apple users expect from their products. Honestly, Android fails to deliver on that. Still, I love tinkering in Android.

It's plausible that BlackBerry may hang on to the 3rd place spot in the smartphone market. Their new phones are fairly solid, and it's plausible that many of their old users would upgrade (the question is how many exactly, versus how many jumped ship permanently). Further, expectations were so low that even a small profit (as forecast) would have been great news.

It was possible for the Z10/Q10 to be a reasonably successful product that kept BlackBerry afloat. That looks a lot more unlikely now, but it's not an option that should've been dismissed as a kneejerk reaction just because "LOL BlackBerry".

Microsoft assumed 3rd Place not that long ago, so no, BB isn't hanging on to anything but a thread at this point.

Keep in mind that ranking is based on quarterly sales, not real market share of phones out there. Regardless, Microsoft assumed 3rd Place in Q1 2013, when the Z10 was launched in Canada Feb. 5th and not in the US until Mar. 26th. The Q10, which has been selling much better than the Z10, didn't launch until May 1st in Canada, and June 5th/6th in the US. So, that market position doesn't really reflect the sales of BB10 phones, and for the most part weren't available yet in Q1 2013. Windows Phone 8 on the other hand was launched Oct. 29th, 2012 and had the benefit of actually being on sale for Q1 2013. Q2 2013 will paint a much better picture of how BB10 is doing, and it won't be until Q3 2013 where there will be a full quarter of where both new BB10 phones have been available for sale.

This may all be true but you really are just arguing over who is the smaller loser given how far they both are behind Android and iOS.