Classic strategies to rescue Blackberry

Blackberry is looking to go traditional by launching the ‘Classic’ phone instead of the very common touch screen phones. By this strategy, the company focuses on attracting its loyal customers to the brand. Blackberry users prefer the traditional Blackberry handsets instead of the modern touch screen phones, as they were quite convenient to use. The company also focuses on improving the battery life and security to lure people to the company. Blackberry CEO John Chen confirmed that Classic is aimed for the loyal Blackberry customers. He also invited the youth to try Blackberry classic, at the launch event in the Financial District of Ney York.

Blackberry allowed business people follow mails wirelessly facilitating on the move business back in 1999. This was begun with the launch of RIM 950 pioneering a new culture in the mobile phone market. The market then cluttered with competitors making Blackberry quite ancient. Delayed changes in the operating system and features made it loose market share to other growing brands. The company which had a command of over 50% of mobile users in the United States is reduced to a small fraction today. The company is still trying to stay in the race by making hardware even though it is looking to convert into a consumer software and enterprise security company. Will the classic revive Blackberry’s hope in the hardware market or not is suspense.

A BGC analyst said that the company’s future does not lie in hardware. He also added that this product will be a top notch, which would be based around security and enterprise. The Blackberry classic will be available on Amazon at $449. AT&T and Verizon will receive it a little later. Blackberry has made initiatives to sell security softwares to rival companies to gain popularity for its devices. Also, Blackberry partnered with Foxconn, which is a China based assembling company that has manufacturing contracts of iPhones and iPads of Apple. The company designs and manufactures most of the Blackberry products. Foxconn is also making the Classic phone for Blackberry. Chen has made a goal of selling 10 million Classic phones in a year. On the other hand, Apple sold more than 39 million iPhones in the third quarter.

About BlackBerry:

BlackBerry Limited, formerly known as Research In Motion Limited (RIM), is a Canadian telecommunication and wireless equipment company best known to the general public as the developer of the BlackBerry brand of smartphones and tablets, but also well known worldwide as a provider of secure & high reliability software for industrial applications and Mobile Device Management (MDM). BlackBerry’s software and hardware products are used worldwide by various government’s agencies and by car makers and industrial plants throughout the world, much of this activity being unseen by the public. The company is headquartered in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by Mike Lazaridis, who served as its co-CEO along with Jim Balsillie until January 22, 2012; as of November 2013, Saad assumes the new title of “Lead Director and Chair of Compensation”. In November 2013, John S. Chen took over as CEO. His strategy is to subcontract manufacturing to Foxconn, and to focus on software technology. Read more on Wikipedia.

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