blackberry deathwatch 2014.10.2.1.537 (now with fm radio) [plus canadachat]

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during which ancient egyptian month will blackberry die?
	thout
	paopi
	hathor
	koiak
	tobi
	meshir
	paremhat
	paremoude
	pashons
	paoni
	epip
	mesori
	gasthred
	banop
	RIM'S GONNA KEEP GOING BABY!!!

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There Will Be Penalty: May 18, 2002; Makes a great pet!

blackberry deathsnipe

# ? May 11, 2015 18:49

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 9, 2024 11:32

leftist heap: Feb 28, 2013; Fun Shoe

quote:

BlackBerry has more than 70 security approvals and certificates � more than any other mobile solution.

Wow, 70 is like, a lot right?

# ? May 11, 2015 18:58

leftist heap: Feb 28, 2013; Fun Shoe

I mean, if BB has 70 other companies must have like what only 30. I can't imagine Apple has more than 30.

# ? May 11, 2015 18:58

Bonzo: Mar 11, 2004; Just like Mama used to make it!

Pinterest Mom posted:

John Chen is a distinguished and proven leader in the technology industry. Prior to joining BlackBerry, he served as Chairman and CEO of Sybase Inc., where he developed and led the company�s re-invention from a mature, slower-growth technology company into a $1.5 billion-plus high-growth innovator. Under his direction, Sybase became the leading provider of enterprise mobility and mobile commerce solutions, achieving 55 consecutive quarters of profitability.

And was then sold to SAP

# ? May 11, 2015 19:31

Asymmetric POSTer: Aug 17, 2005

we employ a lot of canadians and provide a lot of tax revenue, you better not gently caress with us, eh!

...please help us

# ? May 11, 2015 19:52

Thanks Ants: May 21, 2004; #essereFerrari

lol who the gently caress are sybase

# ? May 11, 2015 23:46

A Pinball Wizard: Mar 23, 2005; I know every trick, no freak's gonna beat my hands; College Slice

Pinterest Mom posted:

I join the many, many people across Canada calling on him to apologize and explain why he chose to use derogatory references to people with disabilities in a petition ostensibly about technology. We are dismayed‎ by Mr. Qaadri�s behavior that reflects poorly on all of Canada � and especially to Canadians with disabilities who are incredible contributors to the nation.

Bonzo posted:

Qaadri called the assembly's policy "handicapping, retarding and penalizing MPPs" � much to the ire of Harris, who thought his use of language was inappropriate.

goddamn thats tumblr-level outrage

# ? May 12, 2015 01:28

Subjunctive: Sep 12, 2006; ✨sparkle and shine✨

that's like the only non-offensive use of "retard" possible. well played.

# ? May 12, 2015 02:45

Mister Facetious: Apr 21, 2007; I think I died and woke up in L.A.,
I don't know how I wound up in this place...

rrrrrrrrrrrt posted:

BlackBerry has more than 70 security approvals and certificates � more than any other mobile solution.

Wow, 70 is like, a lot right?

what, like in a row?

it's just how many times i have to pull my battery and input my password until it works, isn't it :downsrim:

# ? May 12, 2015 07:17

infernal machines: Oct 11, 2012; we monitor many frequencies. we listen always. came a voice, out of the babel of tongues, speaking to us. it played us a mighty dub.

blackberry is secure*

*as long as you trust blackberry not to intentionally or otherwise compromise their encryption keys. you know, like they have multiple times already whenever an oppressive government asks them nicely.

maybe their new business model can be selling state secrets from all the shitlords still using blackberry infrastructure in tyool 2015

# ? May 12, 2015 07:24

Mister Facetious: Apr 21, 2007; I think I died and woke up in L.A.,
I don't know how I wound up in this place...

is blackberry Huawei's picture of Dorian Grey, since Huawei went from android rimpho knockoff company to east asian mobile powerhouse?

# ? May 12, 2015 07:45

ahmeni: May 1, 2005; It's one continuous form where hardware and software function in perfect unison, creating a new generation of iPhone that's better by any measure.; Grimey Drawer

Mister Macys posted:

is blackberry Huawei's picture of Dorian Grey, since Huawei went from android rimpho knockoff company to east asian mobile powerhouse?

no, Huawei sells a ton of networking poo poo and their stuff is the cheap option for running your mobile networks, it's the same poo poo that is keeping Nokia alive

# ? May 12, 2015 09:29

The Management: Jan 2, 2010; sup, bitch?

Mister Macys posted:

is blackberry Huawei's picture of Dorian Grey, since Huawei went from android rimpho knockoff company to east asian mobile powerhouse?

huawei is literally run by the Chinese military with the goal of replacing western telecom equipment filled with western espionage backdoors with Chinese made equipment with home grown backdoors, and not just in the domestic market.
BlackBerry was actually built to be secure and later compromised when smacked in the face with the realty of governments. remember when the pushed literal spyware to everyone's phone in some Arabian country (Bahrain?)

# ? May 12, 2015 11:00

Feisty-Cadaver: Jun 1, 2000; The worms crawl in,
The worms crawl out.

Thanks Ants posted:

lol who the gently caress are sybase

they make a relational database and bunch of other garbage.

# ? May 12, 2015 11:55

Mister Facetious: Apr 21, 2007; I think I died and woke up in L.A.,
I don't know how I wound up in this place...

The Management posted:

huawei is literally run by the Chinese military with the goal of replacing western telecom equipment filled with western espionage backdoors with Chinese made equipment with home grown backdoors, and not just in the domestic market.
BlackBerry was actually built to be secure and later compromised when smacked in the face with the realty of governments. remember when the pushed literal spyware to everyone's phone in some Arabian country (Bahrain?)

i don't remember that, but i do remember the news bit of India telling rim straight up- if they want to do business in their country, they'd damned well better give them access to all data traffic for phones within their borders

# ? May 12, 2015 17:54

Subjunctive: Sep 12, 2006; ✨sparkle and shine✨

rim put some servers in Saudi and under Saudi security's jurisdiction to get a ban on blackberry lifted

# ? May 12, 2015 18:14

Mister Facetious: Apr 21, 2007; I think I died and woke up in L.A.,
I don't know how I wound up in this place...

Subjunctive posted:

rim put some servers in Saudi and under Saudi security's jurisdiction to get a ban on blackberry lifted

maybe that's what I was thinking of. it's been forever since I read it.

# ? May 12, 2015 18:17

power botton: Nov 2, 2011

Mister Macys posted:

maybe that's what I was thinking of. it's been forever since I read it.

nah india also did that

# ? May 12, 2015 20:45

infernal machines: Oct 11, 2012; we monitor many frequencies. we listen always. came a voice, out of the babel of tongues, speaking to us. it played us a mighty dub.

and if india and saudi arabia have done it you know loving well the us of a did years ago

so bby's security isn't worth poo poo all against state actors, or anyone affiliated with state actors (read nsa contractors). but god drat it it's secure enough for :canada:

# ? May 13, 2015 04:06

qirex: Feb 15, 2001

many words

quote:

The Inside Story of How the iPhone Crippled BlackBerry
�Losing the Signal� examines Research In Motion�s efforts to take on Apple�s game-changing smartphone

BOOK EXCERPT
Condensed and adapted from the forthcoming book �Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry.�

By JACQUIE MCNISH And SEAN SILCOFF
May 22, 2015 12:25 p.m. ET

Mike Lazaridis was home on his treadmill when he saw the televised report about Apple Inc.�s newest product. Research In Motion�s founder soon forgot about exercise that day in January 2007. There was Steve Jobs on a San Francisco stage waving a small glass object, downloading music, videos and maps from the Internet onto a device he called the iPhone.

�How did they do that?� Mr. Lazaridis wondered. His curiosity turned to disbelief when Stanley Sigman, the chief executive of Cingular Wireless joined Mr. Jobs to announce a multiyear contract with Apple to sell iPhones. What was Cingular�s parent AT&T Inc. thinking? �It�s going to collapse the network,� Mr. Lazaridis thought.

The next day Mr. Lazaridis grabbed his co-CEO Jim Balsillie at the office and pulled him in front of a computer.

�Jim, I want you to watch this,� he said, pointing to a webcast of the iPhone unveiling. �They put a full Web browser on that thing. The carriers aren�t letting us put a full browser on our products.�

Mr. Balsillie�s first thought was RIM was losing AT&T as a customer. �Apple�s got a better deal,� Mr. Balsillie said. �We were never allowed that. The U.S. market is going to be tougher.�

�These guys are really, really good,� Mr. Lazaridis replied. �This is different.�

�It�s OK�we�ll be fine,� Mr. Balsillie responded.

RIM�s chiefs didn�t give much additional thought to Apple�s iPhone for months. �It wasn�t a threat to RIM�s core business,� says Mr. Lazaridis�s top lieutenant, Larry Conlee. �It wasn�t secure. It had rapid battery drain and a lousy [digital] keyboard.�

If the iPhone gained traction, RIM�s senior executives believed, it would be with consumers who cared more about YouTube and other Internet escapes than efficiency and security. RIM�s core business customers valued BlackBerry�s secure and efficient communication systems. Offering mobile access to broader Internet content, says Mr. Conlee, �was not a space where we parked our business.�

The iPhone�s popularity with consumers was illogical to rivals such as RIM, Nokia Corp. and Motorola Inc. The phone�s battery lasted less than eight hours, it operated on an older, slower second-generation network, and, as Mr. Lazaridis predicted, music, video and other downloads strained AT&T�s network. RIM now faced an adversary it didn�t understand.

�By all rights the product should have failed, but it did not,� said David Yach, RIM�s chief technology officer. To Mr. Yach and other senior RIM executives, Apple changed the competitive landscape by shifting the raison d��tre of smartphones from something that was functional to a product that was beautiful.

�I learned that beauty matters....RIM was caught incredulous that people wanted to buy this thing,� Mr. Yach says.

Verizon�s Big Ask

RIM faced the iPhone threat by joining forces with Verizon Communications Inc. The powerful U.S. carrier understood that AT&T�s exclusive deal to sell the iPhone was a serious competitive threat.

More than 1 million iPhones, dubbed the Jesus Phone, had been sold in its first three months during the summer of 2007. This was no ordinary phone. It was a cult with a devoted and rapidly growing following.

Verizon went searching for an antidote to viral iPhone sales in August and RIM, then the world�s largest smartphone maker, was its chosen supplier. Mr. Lazaridis initially offered BlackBerry�s planned new Bold phone, with its traditional keyboard and new touch-screen display, as the answer. But Verizon officials waved him off. If Apple and AT&T were gaining ground with a touch-screen phone, Verizon had to have one.

Mr. Lazaridis�s solution was Storm, a phone that was little more than a prototype in 2007. Like the iPhone, Storm featured a glass screen. Unlike Apple�s phone, it had a movable screen. Users could activate the phone�s digital keyboard by pressing the screen down, replicating the click and tactile pleasure that made BlackBerry�s physical keyboard so popular.

�There was a point where the carrier, by changing the rules, forced all the other carriers to change the rules eventually. It allowed Apple to reset what the expectations were. Conservation didn�t matter. Battery life didn�t matter. Cost didn�t matter. That�s their genius.�
�Mike Lazaridis, RIM�s founder

Verizon officials loved Storm, promising a marketing budget of as much as $100 million to promote Storm in thousands of retail outlets. It was a huge breakthrough in the U.S. market for BlackBerry, and Mr. Lazaridis felt he couldn�t say no even though Verizon set a punishing deadline of launching Storm by the spring of 2008.

The nine-month deadline came and went, and it wasn�t until 15 months later in November 2008 that RIM was able to start shipping Storm phones for the busy Christmas season. Internally, most of RIM�s engineers knew the company was shipping a flawed product.

The browser was painfully slow, the clickable screen didn�t respond well in the corners and the device often froze and reset. Like most tech companies launching a glitchy product, RIM played for time. Verizon stoked sales with heavy subsidies, while RIM�s engineers raced to introduce software upgrades to eliminate Storm�s many bugs. �It was the best-selling initial product we ever had,� says Mr. Lazaridis, with 1 million devices sold in the first two months. �We couldn�t meet demand.�

Storm�s success was fleeting. By the time Mr. Balsillie was summoned to Verizon�s Basking Ridge, N.J., headquarters in the spring of 2009 to review the carrier�s sales data, RIM�s senior executives knew Storm was a wipeout. Virtually every one of the 1 million Storm phones shipped in 2008 needed replacing, Verizon�s chief marketing officer, John Stratton, told Mr. Balsillie. Many of the replacements were being returned as well. Storm was a complete failure, and Mr. Stratton wanted RIM to pay.

�You�re going to make us whole on the money we�ve spent fixing your Storm product problems,� Mr. Stratton told Mr. Balsillie, �or we�ll revisit our whole supplier relationship with you. This is your responsibility. We expect you to step up because this is your fault, not ours.� Verizon wanted RIM to pay close to $500 million to cover the carrier�s losses.

�I can�t write a check like that,� Mr. Balsillie said.

Instead, he and his team walked Mr. Stratton through an alternative solution. Mr. Balsillie offered Mr. Stratton a range of concessions, including a free repair and upgrade program and a cache of complimentary BlackBerrys. The fix would cost RIM more than $100 million, a cost that would barely dent RIM�s income statement compared to the bath it would have to take to make Verizon whole.

Mr. Stratton wasn�t happy, but he had little choice. Verizon had signed a �take-or-pay� deal, meaning it was stuck with the units it committed to buy. Mr. Stratton wouldn�t get his $500 million, but he warned Mr. Balsillie that the carrier�s relationship with the Waterloo, Ontario, company would change dramatically.

Storm�s Wake

For the first time since it went public, RIM had delivered a product that widely missed the mark. Given the opportunity to vault past Apple and regain its lead in the smartphone race, RIM had fallen short. RIM was used to winning praise and adulation for its devices; now critics were questioning whether it could still innovate.

�Everybody was upset. It was demoralizing for the whole organization,� says Chief Operating Officer Don Morrison. �You�re shattering the very fabric of what BlackBerry stood for.�

Mr. Conlee says, �We thought it was within our ability to get it done. We were wrong. I think people were embarrassed.�

Only Mr. Lazaridis didn�t regard Storm as a failure. To him, it was RIM�s first crack at a new technology. When he looked at Storm, Mr. Lazaridis saw its technical achievements: It had a good camera, video-streaming capabilities, a great speaker and a replaceable battery. It was Verizon�s first 3G device. Most of all, he loved the clickable screen. Mr. Lazaridis hated the sensation of typing on glass, of using a touch-screen keyboard that didn�t physically respond to every click. He couldn�t fathom that consumers might not love his clickable screen�it had to be the fault of his staff for delivering a poorly built product.

�We let Mike down, in his mind, because he made a request and we didn�t deliver,� says Mr. Morrison. �Whether the request is reasonable or not is not part of that sentence.�

Mr. Yach, chief technology officer in charge of software, shouldered much of the blame from Mr. Lazaridis for Storm�s shortcomings. �He would say, �You must have crappy people,�� Mr. Yach says. �He was clearly frustrated. From his perspective he felt that he was let down.�

Mr. Lazaridis was convinced Storm was the kind of device BlackBerry should continue to improve. RIM would take another stab at a clickable screen with Storm 2. Even though sales were tepid, Mr. Lazaridis persisted with the clickable Storm screen until 2010, when U.S. carriers finally lost interest.

Although the market rejected his initial touch-screen approach, Mr. Lazaridis believed the four pillars of BlackBerry�s success�good battery life, miserly use of carrier�s spectrum, security and the ability to type�still ruled in the new smartphone world and gave his company its competitive advantage. Two years after Apple�s launch, it still amazed Mr. Lazaridis that iPhone users had to cart around adapters to power up depleted batteries. His early prediction that Apple would cause AT&T headaches by using up its network bandwidth also proved right.

But there was no going back. Apple was setting a new agenda for the wireless industry. RIM, like others, were now followers. �We built a perfectly evolved, optimized service and product offering that made the industry take off,� says Mr. Lazaridis. �There was a point where the carrier, by changing the rules, forced all the other carriers to change the rules eventually. It allowed Apple to reset what the expectations were. Conservation didn�t matter. Battery life didn�t matter. Cost didn�t matter. That�s their genius. We had to respond in a way that was completely different than what people expected.�

Strategic Confusion

If the failure of Storm sent Mr. Lazaridis back to the lab with a sense of purpose, it left Mr. Balsillie winded. For a leader who thrived on ambiguity, Mr. Balsillie found it hard to grapple with the new competitive dynamic.

To Mr. Balsillie, RIM was in an existential crisis, mired in what he describes as �strategic confusion.� The company�s business had been disrupted on several levels, with no obvious path forward. Was RIM supposed to defend BlackBerry�s QWERTY keyboard, or jump all-in and become a touch-screen smartphone maker? Was it supposed to challenge Apple at the high end of the smartphone market or focus on the lower end with devices like its Curve and Gemini models, which were driving heady sales gains in foreign markets where Apple wasn�t yet a factor? Should the company stick to its closed, proprietary software technology or open its platform?

One of the biggest puzzles was what to do about apps. For years Mr. Balsillie had fought carriers for the right to sell apps to customers, reassuring them RIM was �constructively aligned� with the wireless carriers. Then Apple waltzed in with an app store despite AT&T exclusion from any app revenues.

Now RIM was forced to play catch-up. Unlike RIM, Apple had an army of outside developers who had already built consumer apps for its computers and iPods and were primed to do the same for the iPhone. By the time BlackBerry launched its app store in spring 2009, iPhone customers had already downloaded 1 billion apps. Was RIM taking the right approach, Mr. Balsillie wondered, or should it stick to its �constructive alignment� narrative and leave the sale of apps to carriers?

Mr. Balsillie struggled with each question. �The Storm failure made it clear we were not the dominant smartphone company anymore. We�re grappling with who we are because we can�t be who we used to be anymore, which sucked...It�s not clear what the hell to do.�

highlights: the storm was so bad verizon asked for $500 million in cash to make up for how lovely it was, lazardis honestly believed the clicky screen idea was good, blamed his product team for it sucking and spent 2008-2010 trying to make a good storm while balsille couldn't decide what to do and their company got eaten alive by apple and anroid

# ? May 23, 2015 18:55

pram: Jun 10, 2001

quote:

Virtually every one of the 1 million Storm phones shipped in 2008 needed replacing, Verizon�s chief marketing officer, John Stratton, told Mr. Balsillie. Many of the replacements were being returned as well. Storm was a complete failure, and Mr. Stratton wanted RIM to pay.
...
Only Mr. Lazaridis didn�t regard Storm as a failure. To him, it was RIM�s first crack at a new technology.

lol.

# ? May 23, 2015 19:12

The Management: Jan 2, 2010; sup, bitch?

lol management failure at the highest level sank their fortunes.

# ? May 23, 2015 20:45

Notorious b.s.d.: Jan 25, 2003; by Reene

Thanks Ants posted:

lol who the gently caress are sybase

sybase were the original authors of microsoft sql

the fact that you have never heard of them, but ms sql is an industry leader, should tell you everything you need to know about sybase sales and marketing.

# ? May 23, 2015 21:02

Notorious b.s.d.: Jan 25, 2003; by Reene

Bonzo posted:

And was then sold to SAP

that was pretty much the best possible outcome for sybase

# ? May 23, 2015 21:03

eric: Apr 27, 2004; Lipstick Apathy

qirex posted:

many words

highlights: the storm was so bad verizon asked for $500 million in cash to make up for how lovely it was, lazardis honestly believed the clicky screen idea was good, blamed his product team for it sucking and spent 2008-2010 trying to make a good storm while balsille couldn't decide what to do and their company got eaten alive by apple and anroid

the storm was their most exciting product. you never knew what feature would randomly activate.

# ? May 23, 2015 21:30

graph: Nov 22, 2006; aaag peanuts

the storm ads were just great

:pushes clickyscreen: WHOA. DID YOU SEE THAT.

# ? May 23, 2015 22:09

pram: Jun 10, 2001

omg i forgot the screen was a giant button lmao

# ? May 23, 2015 22:09

graph: Nov 22, 2006; aaag peanuts

pram posted:

omg i forgot the screen was a giant button lmao

did you actually ever use a storm

it was loving lollers

# ? May 23, 2015 22:29

pram: Jun 10, 2001

no. my mom had a torch and it was the biggest pile of poo poo ive ever seen

# ? May 23, 2015 22:30

SIGSEGV: Nov 4, 2010

there was the pearl that would erase messages at random when running out of memory

# ? May 23, 2015 22:32

Necc0: Jun 30, 2005; by exmarx; Broken Cake

SIGSEGV posted:

there was the pearl that would erase messages at random when running out of memory

i had one and it was worse than that. it would receive the message, confirm to the carrier that you received the message, flash the 'new message' icon for a split second without lighting up the notification led or playing a noise and immediately delete it. it would do this for every incoming message until you realized it was happening and restart the phone. oh and while using the phone it gave no indication that anything was wrong. everything still functioned like normal. i had a span of several days in college where i thought i hosed up somehow because everyone was ignoring me and everyone thought i was a dick for not responding to anything.

# ? May 24, 2015 00:00

The Management: Jan 2, 2010; sup, bitch?

blackberry invented force touch :smugbert:

*unusable implementation causes $100 million in losses and sours biggest business relationship*

# ? May 24, 2015 00:26

ahmeni: May 1, 2005; It's one continuous form where hardware and software function in perfect unison, creating a new generation of iPhone that's better by any measure.; Grimey Drawer

I told so many poor bastards to take their broken storm back to the store but the major audience was Tech Dads so they got pretty much what they deserved

# ? May 24, 2015 03:08

ahmeni: May 1, 2005; It's one continuous form where hardware and software function in perfect unison, creating a new generation of iPhone that's better by any measure.; Grimey Drawer

the pearl 8130 owners though were 99% just regular people and that no space text messaging thing was brutal and took two years to finally fix lol

# ? May 24, 2015 03:11

~Coxy: Dec 9, 2003; R.I.P. Inter-OS Sass - b.2000AD d.2003AD

that article is a bit too derogatory towards the iphone

it makes it sound as if their downfall was mainly to bad luck instead of selling lovely products for their whole business career even while some comes along with something decent.

# ? May 24, 2015 03:14

Necc0: Jun 30, 2005; by exmarx; Broken Cake

ahmeni posted:

the pearl 8130 owners though were 99% just regular people and that no space text messaging thing was brutal and took two years to finally fix lol

when i found the bug i took it back to the verizon store and they told me to just update the OS. then of course i get home and find that there's no loving update.

then i bought an android which would receive texts reliably- but it'd delete all of them without warning every few months

# ? May 24, 2015 03:26

pram: Jun 10, 2001

really more of a lateral move

# ? May 24, 2015 03:39

Nintendo Kid: Aug 4, 2011; by Smythe

~Coxy posted:

that article is a bit too derogatory towards the iphone

it makes it sound as if their downfall was mainly to bad luck instead of selling lovely products for their whole business career even while some comes along with something decent.

to be fair Literally Any Phone was going to take down blackberry

# ? May 24, 2015 04:55

minivanmegafun: Jul 27, 2004

I think I might read that book, the autistic side of me likes books about trainwrecks

# ? May 24, 2015 05:10

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# ? May 9, 2024 11:32

The Management: Jan 2, 2010; sup, bitch?

Nintendo Kid posted:

to be fair Literally Any Phone was going to take down blackberry

yeah, those palm phones, the Moto razr, and the samsung blackjack were really kicking blackberry's rear end

# ? May 24, 2015 06:38

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > YOSPOS > blackberry deathwatch 2014.10.2.1.537 (now with fm radio) [plus canadachat]

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