What BlackBerry needs to do is pull it's ass out of the touchscreen market. It entered late, and it shouldn't have entered at all trailing so far behind. Not only did it suck at touchscreen phones, it isolated the traditional BB fans.
For example, the BB Storm phone that came out few years ago was complete shit because the touchscreen didn't work 1/2 of the time. The new Z10 touchscreen phone is running on BB OS10, which no one develops for. The Q10 phone that's suppose to replace Bold, they took away the trackpad and the traditional BB buttons. WTF?
If I wanted a phone with touchscreen capability, I'd get an iPhone. I want my BlackBerry the way it's always been, but continue to update it and focus on the minimalist productivity features. BB users are conservative. You don't need to make drastic changes like releasing a new shitty touchscreen phone. Just do what you've always done, but do it better.
I've been a Blackberry lover for years, and completely agree that the Storm was hideous (haven't tried the Z10 yet), but for me the Q10, which I moved to a month ago, is a beautiful replacement for the Bold. It took maybe an hour to get used to it, having been using the Bold line since it came out (9000 -> 9700 -> 9900 I think?), and I'm absolutely in love with the Q10 now.
From the time I spent with it, it feels like a touch screen phone with a keyboard, which isn't what BB is _about_. Without the trackpad, you're forced to touch the screen, and use the keyboard only for typing. That's a big no-no for me, as I completely avoid touching the screen on my Bold. I guess it just comes down to individual preference.
That being said, I will still probably get the Q10 when my contract expires.
I find it much more responsive and snappy than Android.
Among Android companies, Samsung was the first one with consistent brand strategy: Galaxy S1, S2, ... updated each year.
It doesn't require IQ 160 to grasp this: good name and update each year.
But for some reason HTC, each x months created new brand: Hero, Desire, don't remember, One, and the last one: One X/Mega f... I don't remember even after reading Engadget three times a week.
LG tried to copy Samsung and changed the letter to G. So finally we have G1 and G2. Not bad, they are more consisted than HTC.
Sony has letter Z but still doesn't know how to enumerate updates. The last model is Z1 and the previous was Z or Z Zero? I don't know.
Blackberry also uses letter Z, and their last model is Z10?
At least Google coined good brand name, Nexus. Nokia has Lumia series which are selling quite well.
Actually, I think that's how a lot of people make their decision. These people decide what OS/ecosystem they like, then whittle down their options from there. But a lot of people probably just walk into the store not knowing what they really want. I'm actually not sure which kind of person is more common.
When Samsung began their marketing campaign, it wasn't directed at you and I. It had very little to do with the Operating System and more to do with cute features the company had added. See 'bump'. The campaign was directed at average users.
It's hard to say who's average, though. At the end of the day, I think it's probably brand name recognition more than anything else which drives purchasing decisions. I'd like to see what the manufacturers know...
Actually, now that I'm thinking about it what I think drove my girlfriend to Android more than anything else is probably how poorly her macbook aged (although with any laptop you can only expect a couple of good years, so she might be being a bit unfair) - especially how awful iTunes is on that thing. Just opening iTunes completely grinds that thing to a halt.
There's really only 2 manufacturers doing gangbusters, Apple and Samsung, everyone knows that. But outside of those two companies the only ones still around are those that licensed OSes, everyone who has tried going it alone is out of business or in the process of going out of business. Do you really dispute this?
BB has a very nice OS, but has done a very poor job of it and spent quite a lot of time backing Adobe's fading tech. There is a lot of room in getting development simpler, but they need to get some more software expertise.
They still have a place if they can start building with a phone at the bottom-end ("free") or low-cost for pay-as-you-go plans. That gets them numbers and then upselling their messaging. Cheap Android lives there (mostly in a poorly implemented non-upgradeable state) and iPhone doesn't.
They're all more or less the same design: thin low-quality plastic slabs of touchscreen phones of varying sizes. Choice is even smaller if you want a decent/high end phone: those just tend to be big. There is no differentiation based on form factors any more, it's basically a game of me-too and playing it safe.
The conventional wisdom may be wrong in this case. Conventionally, if you wanted to save them you'd look at what they do best, look at their very core best capability and you'd go all in with that and maybe find a winning partner for the other stuff. As an outsider, and maybe because I'm just a computer dork and see the world this way, Blackberry is either a handset company or they're a bbOS company. So I'd say, put the people's platform on their handsets or put their OS on Samsung and other handsets.
The one thing about them putting Android on their handsets, it gives their fans access to their hardware and it gives their customers access to software. BB10 has the same problems Windows Phone has, it may be great but my favorite apps aren't on it. How much better does the platform have to be to get over the missing apps?
I hope they survive and come up with a plan. I don't see them ever being as big or profitable as they once were though.
There is still a rather large chunk of people who buy whats "free" and they can text on. Start with the old BB form factor and get something that plays to that market and pay-as-you-go customers.
IMHO, BlackBerry can survive if it refocuses on what it does best; the Enterprise. I get it. The consumer business represents a massive market and even a small percentage of that market can be hugely rewarding. It also takes a toll on expenditure and thus margins.
Software and services! Focus on QNX acquisition, it hasn't been fully exploited as yet.
Alternately, MS or Apple could buy them up simply to prevent Google from doing so.