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May 9, 2024 21:56
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- The Kins
- Oct 2, 2004
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this is apparently from last friday, but i only just saw it on the facebook trending thing and didn't see it posted here, so... blackberry is laying off an unspecified number of employees worldwide, apparently affecting their hardware and software teams.
CBC News posted:"As the company moves into its next stage of the turnaround, our intention is to re-allocate resources in ways that will best enable us to capitalize on growth opportunities while driving toward sustainable profitability across all facets of our business," the company said in an emailed statement.
BlackBerry had about 7,000 global employees as of September 2014. About half worked in Canada, with most of them in the Waterloo region.
BlackBerry said it plans to boost sales and marketing activity in the coming months, as well as secure strategic partnerships with other businesses and hire more employees focused both on sales and "high growth" areas of its business.
The latest round of job cuts comes after chief executive John Chen said last August that BlackBerry had come to the end of three years of layoffs.
Chen has been focused on shifting BlackBerry's priorities since he joined the company in November 2013. However, he has faced an onslaught of competition from other phone manufacturers including Apple, which first wanted a slice of the consumer market but is now aggressively pursuing large corporate clients.
Instead of making smartphones a priority, Chen has pivoted BlackBerry's strategy towards mobile software services that emphasize higher security levels and are aimed squarely at the business community and government.
BlackBerry began to turn a small profit last year, but the overall revenues of its phones and software services continue to decline.
Last month, the company said it was in negotiations to close its offices in Sweden, which employed about 100 people, but at the time said it needed to work out details with a local union. The company declined to say whether the latest cuts included those offices.
At the peak of its success, the company had about 20,000 employees around the world before making dramatic cuts in recent years.
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May 25, 2015 10:57
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- The Kins
- Oct 2, 2004
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reuters is reporting that blackberry is rumored to be considering throwing its metaphorical hands up, going "gently caress it" and just flat-out releasing an android
quote:BlackBerry is considering equipping an upcoming smartphone with Google Inc.'s Android software for the first time, an acknowledgement that its revamped line of devices has failed to win mass appeal, according to four sources familiar with the matter.
The move would be an about-face for the Waterloo, Ontario-based company, which had shunned Android in a bet that its BlackBerry 10 line of phones would be able to claw back market share lost to Apple's (AAPL.O) iPhone and a slew of devices powered by Android.
The sources, who asked not to be named as they have not been authorized to discuss the matter publicly, said the move to use Android is part of BlackBerry's strategy to pivot to focus on software and device management. BlackBerry, which once dominated smartphone sales, now has a market share of less than 1 percent.
It is not clear whether a move to use Android would spell the end of the company's BlackBerry 10 line of devices that were initially launched to much fanfare in early 2013. After positive early reviews, the late-to-launch BlackBerry devices haven't competed well with Android or Apple, mainly due to a lack of big name apps.
"We don't comment on rumors and speculation, but we remain committed to the BlackBerry 10 operating system, which provides security and productivity benefits that are unmatched," said the company in an email.
A Google spokeswoman declined to comment.
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Two sources said that by launching an Android-based device of its own, BlackBerry would be sending a signal to skeptics that it is confident that the BES12 system can not only manage, but also secure smartphones and tablets powered by rival operating systems.
BlackBerry will probably use Android on an upcoming slider device that is likely to be released this autumn, two sources said. The slider will combine a touch screen with a physical keyboard that users can use if they prefer.
BlackBerry briefly showed off the slider device on stage at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in March, but it has provided little detail on it since then.
By making an Android device that boasts a large touchscreen and a physical keyboard, BlackBerry hopes to snag a niche in the touchscreen-dominated Android market. The device may attract those still using older BlackBerry keyboard handhelds but who want access to the larger app options Android offers.
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Jun 12, 2015 17:18
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- The Kins
- Oct 2, 2004
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in an invention-of-penicillin level stroke of brilliance, blackberry have waited until the new iphone launch day to properly confirm that they're doing an andriod
quote:BlackBerry on Friday confirmed its plans to launch an Android-based handset even as the company reported financial results below what analysts were expecting.
The company said its latest quarterly loss, excluding certain items, was 13 cents per share on revenue of about $490 million. Analysts had been expecting a per-share loss of about 9 cents, on revenue closer to $600 million.
The upcoming Android phone, dubbed Priv, will have a slide-out keyboard and “combines the best of BlackBerry security and productivity with the expansive mobile application ecosystem available on the Android platform,” CEO John Chen said in a statement. Priv is due out at the end of 2015, BlackBerry said, adding that it remains committed to its own BlackBerry 10 OS, which is slated to get a software update in March with further security and privacy enhancements.
“We are focused on making faster progress to achieve profitability in our handset business,” Chen said. The company also announced plans earlier this month to acquire rival Good Technology for $425 million. “From these initiatives, we anticipate modest sequential revenue growth in each of the remaining quarters of fiscal 2016.”
BlackBerry noted that it did post $100 million in free cash flow last quarter and increased its cash and investment balance to $3.35 billion, up $37 million following $47 million it spent buying back its own shares. The company hopes to turn sustainably profitably by its fourth fiscal quarter, which runs through February.
Last month, Chen acknowledged that the company’s latest handhelds had not been a runaway success and said that BlackBerry needed phones that could run more apps. He stopped short of saying that future devices would run Google’s flavor of Android, however.
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Sep 25, 2015 13:23
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- The Kins
- Oct 2, 2004
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what the gently caress
link
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Oct 29, 2015 19:45
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- The Kins
- Oct 2, 2004
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apparently blackberry just realized that letting random governments into their server room to poke around and kick the tires might be a bad look for a faltering tech firm that uses security as their sole remaining marketing point
The BBC posted:Phone-maker Blackberry is to stop operating in Pakistan at the end of 2015 because of government requests to monitor customer data.
The Pakistani government wanted to be able to monitor every message and email sent via its phones, it said.
In a blogpost, it said it had decided to "exit the market altogether" over the row.
It said Pakistan's demand was not to do with public safety but a request for "unfettered access".
Slow decline
In July, Pakistan's Telecommunications Authority told Blackberry the servers underpinning its messaging business would no longer be allowed to operate in the country, citing "security reasons".
Marty Beard, chief operating officer at Blackberry, said the "truth" of the matter was Pakistan had wanted to look at all the traffic passing across its messaging servers but the phone company would not "comply with that sort of directive".
"Remaining in Pakistan would have meant forfeiting our commitment to protect our users' privacy. That is a compromise we are not willing to make," wrote Mr Beard.
This led Pakistan to tell Blackberry its servers could no longer operate in the country.
Mr Beard said Blackberry did not support "backdoors" that would grant open access to customers' information and had never complied with such a request anywhere in the world.
"While we recognise the need to cooperate with lawful government investigative requests of criminal activity, we have never permitted wholesale access to our servers," he said.
Mr Beard said the company had regrets over leaving Pakistan because it was an "important market".
Initially, Blackberry said it would wind up its operations at the end of November. However, the exit date has now been moved to 30 December as the government shutdown deadline has been extended until that date.
Industry figures gathered by analyst company IDC suggest that, in early 2015, Blackberry had a 0.5% share of the global smartphone market. In 2014, Blackberry shipped about 5.8 million handsets - 70% less than in 2013.
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Nov 30, 2015 13:54
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- The Kins
- Oct 2, 2004
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But I thought that sell cheap devices to emerging markets was their new plan
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Nov 30, 2015 15:54
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- The Kins
- Oct 2, 2004
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you know how the blackberry brand is synonymous with security, privacy, and totally not stopping anyone who wants to penetrate the first two things? well,
Aunty posted:A Dutch police unit has confirmed to the BBC that it can decrypt messages on Blackberry's most secure smartphones.
It did not go into details about how it does this but said that its methods allow police to read messages.
Troubled phonemaker Blackberry has prided itself on providing customers with one of the safest methods of communication.
In response to the news, it said it could not comment without more information about the crack.
"We are confident that Blackberry provides the world's most secure communications platform to government, military and enterprise customers.
"However, we can't comment on this claim as we don't have any details on the specific device or the way that it was configured, managed or otherwise protected, nor do we have details on the nature of the communications that are claimed to have been decrypted," a spokeswoman told the BBC.
Criminal link
It is believed that the tests were conducted on PGP Blackberrys, handsets with an extra layer of encryption provided by online vendors, such as GhostPGP and TopPGP.
The Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI), a body that provides forensic evidence to Dutch police, was unwilling to provide details on how it decrypted messages from the devices, although it seems that it does need physical access to handsets.
Technology website Motherboard reported that it uses a piece of forensic software made by Cellebrite. Others speculated that the NFI may have removed a memory chip and dumped the data from it.
The NFI could not decrypt all messages. According to Dutch blog Crime News, which first reported the news, 275 out of 325 encrypted emails were cracked.
So-called PGP Blackberrys are advertised as being particularly suited to people wanting to keep data secure and have been linked to criminals in the past.
GhostPGP said that its services had not been compromised.
In 2014, it was reported that such phones were used by those involved in a series of killings in Australia. The Sydney Morning Herald claimed that police officers had travelled to Blackberry headquarters looking for advice on how to access encrypted data on the phones.
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Jan 12, 2016 16:53
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- The Kins
- Oct 2, 2004
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the struggle continues
The Beeb posted:BlackBerry sales fell by almost $200m in the three months to the end of February in a bigger-than-expected slide that sent shares down almost 8%.
The Canadian company said smartphone sales had been below projections in the quarter.
Chief executive John Chen blamed delays in negotiations with mobile networks about its Android-based Priv handset.
Blackberry reported revenue of $464m, but analysts had expected $563m.
It swung to a net loss of $238m for the quarter, compared with a profit of $28m for the same period last year.
Mr Chen said cost-cutting meant the company now needed to sell only 3 million devices a year - down from a previous estimate of 5 million - at an average of $300 apiece to break even on handsets.
"The softness at the high end of the smartphone market is certainly a headwind, but the main issue that we face and that we need to address is the distribution," he told analysts.
Blackberry has found its market for expensive handsets heavily eroded in recent years by competitors including Apple's iPhone and the Samsung Galaxy range.
It now has less than 1% of the global smartphone market and if the Priv fails to sell well it could be the last Blackberry device.
Morningstar analyst Brian Colello said: "The decline in hardware revenue is certainly a negative. We'd like to see more details into how close Blackberry is to achieving its target of profitability."
Blackberry said it expected its software and services revenue to grow faster than the overall market, at about 30%.
"We have more than doubled our software business - we have clearly gained traction and market share," Mr Chen said.
Software and services accounted for just under a third of total revenues, with hardware on 39% and service access fees making up 29%.
Shares in Blackberry were down 64 cents to $7.45 in New York in morning trading. They have fallen almost a fifth since the start of the year.
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Apr 2, 2016 15:08
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- The Kins
- Oct 2, 2004
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...r... ...rip?
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Jul 4, 2016 23:47
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- The Kins
- Oct 2, 2004
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blackberry released an official statement elaborating on this - the blackberry classic has been discontinued (presumably because it sold like utter poo poo because who wants to buy a bold in tyool 2016) in favor of "updating our smartphone lineup with state of the art devices". i'm not sure where they're going to get those, but hey, have fun, you crazy kids.
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Jul 5, 2016 19:52
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- The Kins
- Oct 2, 2004
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no pedestrian is safe
Reuters posted:Canada's BlackBerry Ltd (BB.TO) will open an autonomous driving research center on Monday, as it tries to make itself an indispensable under-the-hood piece of the automotive industry's weaponry in the self-driving vehicle arms race.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will attend the launch by the Waterloo, Ontario-based smartphone pioneer, the prime minister's office said on Sunday. A Blackberry spokeswoman deferred any comment on the project until Monday.
Blackberry, once known for its phones but now betting its future on the more profitable business of making software and managing mobile devices after largely ceding the smartphone market to the likes of Apple and Samsung, is expanding subsidiary QNX's Ottawa facility to focus on developing advanced driver assistance and autonomous vehicle technology.
After a detour where QNX's industrial-focused software was used to reinvent the now-discarded BlackBerry phone operating system, BlackBerry is focused on how its embedded software interacts with the explosion of sensors, cameras and other components required for a car to drive itself.
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Dec 19, 2016 15:55
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- The Kins
- Oct 2, 2004
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blackberry - or the chinese manufacturer wearing their skin - are in a hotel room near ces showing off the new thing.
CNET - BlackBerry is back! Will anyone care?
quote:While the BlackBerry brand is wounded, it is still a recognizable name. That's more than can be said for TCL or Alcatel, which have quietly drawn customers by offering more bang for their buck. The BlackBerry name will be independent from Alcatel, which has separate sales and marketing teams, Steve Cistulli, head of Alcatel's North American business, said in an interview Tuesday. Both sit under the TCL umbrella.
TCL's deal with BlackBerry also makes it the exclusive partner to build and distribute BlackBerrys worldwide, except in India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh.
Cistulli has ambitious goals for BlackBerry. He expects to stabilize the BlackBerry business by the end of this year and get it back to a growth trajectory by 2018. He plans to tap into business customers who are coming up for their 24-month phone upgrades.
That sounds great, right? But it's also what BlackBerry has said in the past.
Where TCL plans to differ is the breadth of products. The company expects to come out with two BlackBerry devices at different prices this year, and more in 2018. BlackBerry misfired with the high-priced Priv and apparently introduced a low-cost version of its Android BlackBerry too late.
"We need to bring confidence back in the handsets themselves," Cistulli said.
TCL plans to lean on the relationships with carriers that it has fostered over the last three years -- a problem BlackBerry struggled with as it faced limited distribution.
For the next year, consumers aren't likely to see the BlackBerry name on any billboards. TCL will focus on getting carriers to sell the phones to business customers. But Cistulli believes there is an opportunity to get it back into the consumer market once TCL stabilizes the core corporate segment.
"Given the overall trajectory BlackBerry has had in recent years, don't count on this being an overnight success," said Ramon Llamas, an analyst at IDC. "There are a lot of moving parts to this, and it could take months or even into 2018 to see some results."
DigitalTrends - BLACKBERRY MERCURY: OUR FIRST TAKE
quote:The same applies for the Mercury — though instead of targeting the budget and mid-range line, the new device will pit itself against flagship devices like Apple’s iPhone 7, the Samsung Galaxy S7, and Google’s Pixel. But BlackBerry has not released hardware specifications for the device, its price, or its release date — all we know is that official details will be announced around the time of Mobile World Congress in February.
Regardless, we managed to get some hands-on time with the Mercury, and we can talk about how it feels. The software was far from being finalized, so we can’t comment on it yet other than the fact that it runs Android 7.0 Nougat.
For all you hardcore BlackBerry fans — the Mercury has a QWERTY keyboard with capacitive gesture capabilities, akin to the physical keyboard on the Priv. That means you can swipe up and down, left and right on the keyboard to move through your home screen, or even scroll through apps.
What’s unique is the fingerprint sensor, which is embedded into the space bar on the front of the device. We couldn’t test it out yet, but it’s a unique way of adding the sensor onto the front panel — rather than extending the bezel to accommodate it. Above the keyboard are capacitive navigation buttons that offer strong haptic feedback.
The device carries a rectangular shape that’s quite elongated due to the physical keyboard — it’s smaller than a 5.5-inch phone such as the Google Pixel, and the screen is even smaller. BlackBerry hasn’t offered specific details yet, but the Mercury felt fairly chunky. It has a soft-touch back that seems a little cheap for a flagship phone.
There is a headphone jack, and what looks to be down-firing speakers. Sitting in between the speakers is a USB Type-C charging port.
The Mercury carries the same “Convenience Key” that’s available on the DTEK60 and the DTEK50 — it’s basically a customizable hotkey to specific apps or tools, such as the camera. The power button was on the left, and the volume rocker sat above the Convenience Key on the right.
To be clear, the Mercury is a joint venture from BlackBerry and TCL and the hardware and software aren’t final.
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The user-interface is almost exactly stock Android, but BlackBerry has a few of its own tweaks to the OS. For example, the overview button shows previous apps in a grid-like layout. You’ll also find pre-installed BlackBerry apps, such as BBM, BlackBerry Hub, and DTEK by BlackBerry.
#BlackberryMobile
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Jan 5, 2017 15:14
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- The Kins
- Oct 2, 2004
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according to research firm Gartner, blackberry's share of the global smartphone market has fallen to a rounded-off 0.0% after shipping just 207,000 phones last quarter.
entirely coincidentally, blackberry is suing nokia over patent infringement claims, specifically seeking payment instead of blocking nokia's usage of the technologies.
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Feb 16, 2017 15:15
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- Adbot
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ADBOT LOVES YOU
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May 9, 2024 21:56
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- The Kins
- Oct 2, 2004
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blackberry has been accused of being fucky to their staff
CBC News posted:
A class action lawsuit against BlackBerry alleges the Canadian smartphone software company denied employees their termination entitlements by transferring them to the Ford Motor Company of Canada and then giving them resignation letters.
Law firm Nelligan O'Brien Payne LLP announced the lawsuit in a news release Thursday.
According to the release, the class action lawsuit covers more than 300 current and former employees who have been working in Ontario and across Canada.
The notice of claim said BlackBerry arranged to transfer those employees to Ford Canada in the fall of 2016, then informed them that they had resigned once they accepted employment with the company.
The employees were given resignation letters and stipulated their last date of employment, the suit said.
"BlackBerry's actions amount to a termination of the employees employment," the statement said. "This entitles these employees to statutory, common law and/or contractual entitlements on termination."
The notice of claim said BlackBerry has structured the transfer of employees to avoid paying termination entitlements and is refusing to pay them.
The employees have also lost their accumulated years of service with the company.
The plaintiffs in the class action are seeking $20,000,000 in damages or a resolution consistent with termination entitlements.
In an emailed statement, a BlackBerry spokesperson wrote: "We have reviewed the allegations in the lawsuit, and are confident we complied with all our obligations to our employees. Therefore, we believe the case lacks merit and we will defend against it vigorously."
None of the allegations has been proven in court.
Nelligan O’Brien Payne's statement on the matter
Nelligan O’Brien Payne posted:Nelligan O’Brien Payne LLP has commenced a class action against BlackBerry Limited (“BlackBerry”) on behalf of a group of BlackBerry’s employees working in Ontario and across Canada.
BlackBerry arranged to transfer over 300 employees across Canada to a business partner. Only after employees accepted employment with the business partner, BlackBerry informed the employees that they had resigned their employment. Blackberry provided resignation letters for the employees to sign and dictated their last date of employment. Blackberry stated that the transfer is not a sale of business, meaning the employees will lose all of their years of service.
BlackBerry’s actions amount to a termination of the employees’ employment. This entitles these employees to statutory, common law, and/or contractual entitlements on termination. BlackBerry has stated that it will not pay BlackBerry employees any of these entitlements, despite the fact that employees lose all of their years of service.
BlackBerry has breached its duties of good faith and honesty, and has knowingly misled the employees. BlackBerry structured this transaction in such a way as to avoid paying these employees their statutory entitlements.
We seek damages for the plaintiffs for minimum provincial statutory entitlements on termination, contractual entitlements on termination, and/or common law entitlements on termination. We are also asking for bad faith and punitive damages, as well as costs.
Plaintiffs in the class action include individuals who were employees and/or dependent contractors of BlackBerry Limited in Canada, and who were offered and accepted employment with the business partner.
BlackBerry has given letters of resignation to employees to sign. We strongly discourage employees from signing such letters. Employees can contact our office if they have any questions.
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Feb 19, 2017 17:15
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Sep 18, 2014 13:51
