BlackBerry is dead, long live BlackBerry

It happened a week ago. The current owner of the BlackBerry brand, OnwardMobility, decided to close the service for BlackBerry OS devices. That more or less meant it final ending from the blackberry. Not really a surprise, although the owner of the brand thinks otherwise. Is BlackBerry really dead?

BlackBerry’s end was not unexpected

Admittedly, after the enormous Ping hype some twelve years ago, every teenager suddenly had one BlackBerry wanted to have, it only went downhill from about 2012. Despite various attempts to revive the BlackBerry success, the smartphone ‘avant la lettre’ eventually fell prey to the supremacy and user-friendliness of the touchscreen generation as made great by iOS and Android. Seen in that light, BlackBerry’s death is actually a logical next, and final step.

However, that death is denied by OnwardMobility, barely a week after the service was closed. More than a year ago, in 2020, the current brand owner promised that they would present a new ‘BlackBerry’ in 2021. A smartphone, with a physical keyboard, for business users with an emphasis on security and privacy. Unfortunately, that announcement never came. The conclusion that OnwardMobility had definitively buried the brand by closing the BlackBerry service is therefore not so surprising.

BlackBerry is dead, long live BlackBerry

Last weekend OnwardMobility let in a blog let the world know that that ultra-secure privacy smartphone will indeed come. According to the manufacturer, the reason that it has remained quiet for so long had everything to do with the challenges that people will have to choose in 2021; corona, chip shortages, logistical problems, etc. Problems that just about the whole world had to deal with.

From now on, OnwardMobility promises, the company will keep us (the consumers) regularly informed about the progress and status of the new device. In other words, BlackBerry is dead, long live BlackBerry.

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A smart phone, before the smartphone was invented

They were once the smartphones for business users. Long before the smartphone as we know it since the first iPhone (from 2007) was invented. No, I’m not a grandpa yet, but I’ve been walking with a cell phone in my pocket since the end of 1992. Yes, that’s what we called a mobile phone back then, better known today as a smartphone. In 2004 I discovered my first BlackBerry. The ultimate email phone. Years before that, I was already emailing, surfing the Internet and faxing with a Nokia 9100 Communicator, but the BlackBerry 7210 was compact, had a great keyboard and the battery lasted much longer. Because you needed a separate subscription for the so-called BlackBerry services, many companies chose to give employees who always had access to their e-mail while on the road a BlackBerry especially for that purpose. Then, of course, usually in combination with a Nokia for regular telephone calls.

I personally enjoyed using different BlackBerrys well into the teens of this century. Between 2004 and 2012 I had the 7210, the 8800 and the Bold 9700. When BlackBerry, after the great hype years, started experimenting with touchscreen models – they had to – I slowly but surely gave up. The Torch was simply a disaster device and the Z10, the first full-touch screen BlackBerry, with BlackBerry OS 10, could not match iOS or Android in any way. Buggy, not intuitive and with the disappearance of that monstrously good physical qwerty keyboard, for which BlackBerry had been known for more than 15 years, the interest of the last remaining BlackBerry ‘addicts’ also disappeared.

Too bad, but hey… times change. I will therefore be curious how OnwardMobility will breathe new life into the BlackBerry brand. All attempts made by various owners since 2013 have been unsuccessful.

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