News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:BlackBerry loses $423M in last quarter as revenue plunges by valarauca1 on Friday March 28, 2014 @12:33PM (#7488259)
Blackberry's Software is DoD audited. If they change OS's they have to go though a lengthy re-certification program that Samsung KNOX and IOS6 only completed this 1 year ago.

The US government is one of their major customers, and a lot of business men and women like the piece of mind their phone is DoD approved for security... Even if they do nothing else to secure it.

Re:BlackBerry loses $423M in last quarter as revenue plunges by eli on Friday March 28, 2014 @12:44PM (#7488344)
Didn't they just switch OSes last year? Blackberry 10 is QNX-based.
Re:BlackBerry loses $423M in last quarter as revenue plunges by valarauca1 on Friday March 28, 2014 @12:48PM (#7488373)
Black Berry has owned QNX Since 2010

-Retracted-

Your correct they did push BlackBerry10 in 2013, but BlackBerry 7 (No clue what happened to 8, and 9) was not an upgrade from 6 and was only available on newer phones. Which leads me to believe 7 was actually the QNX implementation.

Re:BlackBerry loses $423M in last quarter as revenue plunges by mcpherrinm on Friday March 28, 2014 @01:49PM (#7488821)
I am very sure BB10 was the first QNX release. Its release slipped many times, and was over a year late to market.
Re:BlackBerry loses $423M in last quarter as revenue plunges by jljljl on Friday March 28, 2014 @07:55PM (#7490745)
Wasn't PlayBook a QNX release?
Re:BlackBerry loses $423M in last quarter as revenue plunges by valarauca1 on Monday March 31, 2014 @08:01AM (#7500856)
Yes.

OS: Blackberry Tablet (QNX)

From the BlackBerry Tablet page

"Another QNX-based operating system, known as BlackBerry 10, will replace the long-standing BlackBerry OS on handsets after version 7."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlackBerry_PlayBook

Re:BlackBerry loses $423M in last quarter as revenue plunges by omh on Friday March 28, 2014 @01:51PM (#7488830)
Their new OS is security certified as well: http://bizblog.blackberry.com/2012/11/blackberry-10-fips-cer...
Re:BlackBerry loses $423M in last quarter as revenue plunges by randomdata on Friday March 28, 2014 @12:48PM (#7488377)
There's no reason the hardware couldn't run both OSes, letting the buyer choose the system they want. It changes the dynamics of the business to support that, but their current direction doesn't seem to be working for them.
Re:BlackBerry loses $423M in last quarter as revenue plunges by valarauca1 on Friday March 28, 2014 @12:54PM (#7488420)
There is a very big reason.

Android is a time-shared monolithic kernel.

QNX is a Real-Time Microkernel.

So you want to pay people to maintain 2 different kernels, for the exact same hardware, at the exact same company? When the primary customer of your phones are only interested in mobile email?

Re:BlackBerry loses $423M in last quarter as revenue plunges by randomdata on Friday March 28, 2014 @01:37PM (#7488747)
Doesn't matter if it increases the profitability of the company in a meaningful way. That is the if, of course.
Re:BlackBerry loses $423M in last quarter as revenue plunges by valarauca1 on Friday March 28, 2014 @04:14PM (#7489694)
The problem is your assuming people who buy BlackBerry's currently want android. They pretty definitively didn't want touch screen keyboard.

To make Android profitable you'd have to complete change their target demographic, and re-invent their company image from, "Phones for lawyers, and non-tech savvy business people" to "Phones for everyone."

That's a drastic shift.

Re:BlackBerry loses $423M in last quarter as revenue plunges by randomdata on Friday March 28, 2014 @04:40PM (#7489845)
The original parent suggested people wanted to buy Android devices with hardware that is on-par with what BlackBerry produces.

> To make Android profitable you'd have to complete change their target demographic

While I'm not sure agree with the aforementioned commenter, I'm not sure I agree with this either. Trying to shift to "phones for everyone" is what has left BlackBerry struggling now.