It surely is an end of an era in the field of cellular technology as BlackBerry has called it a day by announcing it has decided to halt the production of its devices after having remained in mobile phone business for nearly a decade-and-a-half.
The 32-year old BlackBerry Ltd, formerly known as Research in Motion Ltd, is a Canadian multinational telecommunication and wireless equipment company best known to the general public as the developer of the BlackBerry brand of smartphones and tablets.
Its 2016 revenues stand at US$2.160 billion, net income rest at US$ 208 million, its total assets are valued at $5.534 billion and its total equity has been estimated at $3.208 billion. The total number of BlackBerry employees in February 2016 was 4,534.
A known British newspaper “The Telegraph” has reported: “The news comes as BlackBerry reported losses of $372 million (£286 million) in the last quarter, compared with a profit of $51 million in the same period last year. BlackBerry’s sales so far this year have fallen to $734 million down from $1.1billion in the first six months of 2015. After 14 years in the mobile phone business, embattled maker BlackBerry has announced that it is no longer going to design its own smartphones. The company, which is famed for its “Qwerty” keyboard mobile phones that were the choice handset for professionals, has been struggling to keep up with market leaders Apple and Samsung as the world has moved to touchscreens”.
The esteemed newspaper said: “As a result, the loss-making business said it is going to focus on creating software for mobile phones, rather than the devices themselves. Instead, it will outsource the brand to other manufacturers. The demise of BlackBerry’s handset making division follows efforts to compete with other smartphones. The Canadian company released its first Android smartphone last year, which was followed with the Dtek50 this summer, billed as “the world’s most secure Android smartphone”. However, it has failed to reverse a trend of falling revenues since 2010, when the company was at its peak. The popularity of BlackBerry Messenger and its high-tech email system made its phones a smash hit among young users and professionals alike, but Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android software, with millions of apps and full touchscreens, rendered them obsolete”.
Meanwhile, the “CNN Money” states: “The Company, famous for making cellphones with physical keyboards that was once so popular that people nicknamed them Crackberries, has decided to stop making its own devices. BlackBerry said Wednesday that it will rely on partners to manufacture the phones, which will still have BlackBerry’s look and feel. The company announced a joint venture with an Indonesian telecom company that will start making them. BlackBerry plans to turn its attention to software, a move it has made gradually in recent years as sales of its phones have slid”.
The American media house added: “Shares of BlackBerry (BBRY, Tech30) rose 4 percent in early trading after the announcement. But the stock price is well below its peak from several years ago. BlackBerry was once the phone of choice for Wall Street traders, politicians and celebrities, thanks in part to its well-regarded security system. President Obama was spotted with a BlackBerry. So was actress Kim Kardashian West”.
The “CNN Money” maintained: “But the company was too late to the touchscreen game, and customers left in droves for Apple’s (AAPL Tech30) iPhone, Samsung’s (SSNLF) Galaxy and other devices running on Google’s (GOOGL, Tech30) Android system. CEO John Chen has tried to turn the company around since joining in 2013. But even as he has pushed BlackBerry toward mobile and security software, apps and the plethora of connected devices known as the Internet of Things, BlackBerry has bled red ink, posted sharp sales declines and lost customers. The company is also no longer in danger of going under, a legitimate concern investors had before he took control. BlackBerry now has about $2.5 billion in cash and investments on its balance sheet - money for a proverbial rainy day”.
The media outlet further reported: “BlackBerry will need all the cash it can get. The company also reported Wednesday that its latest quarterly sales fell about 30% from a year ago. And BlackBerry said it expects to break even this fiscal year at best. That’s still better than the loss analysts had forecast”.
The “Los Angeles Times” revealed a bit more in this context: “The once-dominant smartphone maker BlackBerry Ltd said it will stop developing its phones in-house and shift that work to outside companies so it can focus on software manufacturing. In a regulatory filing Wednesday, the Canadian company said it plans to “end all internal hardware development” on its BlackBerry brand phones and “outsource that function to partners”.
Earlier, in January 2016, Messrs Lenovo, which had bought Motorola Mobility from Google in 2014, had stated it would unify its two phone businesses under the name of ‘Lenovo’, adding it intended to use Motorola’s ‘Moto brand’ for high-end products and its homegrown ‘Vibe brand’ for budget devices.
Research shows that the Motorola phase-out was notable because this firm had once represented the pinnacle of wireless technology. The company had made history by inventing the cell-phone. It is worth recalling that Google had bought Motorola’s phone business in 2012 and sold it two years later.
On January 8, 2016, the “Guardian” had stated: “Motorola, the brand which invented the mobile phones, brought us the iconic “Motorola brick”, and gave us both the first flip-phone and the iconic Razr, is cease to exist.
Bought from Google by the Chinese smartphone and laptop powerhouse Lenovo in January 2014, Motorola had found success over the past two years. It launched the Moto G in early 2014, which propelled the brand, which had all but disappeared after the Razr, from a near-0 percent market share to 6 percent of sales in the UK.
The Moto G kick started the reinvigoration of the brand, which saw Motorola ship more than 10 million smartphones in the third quarter of 2014, up 118% year-on-year. But now Lenovo has announced that it will kill off the US mobile phone pioneer’s name. It will keep Moto, the part of Motorola’s product naming that has gained traction in recent years, but Moto smartphones will be branded under Lenovo”.
Motorola was an American multinational telecommunication company. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company was divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011. Google sold Motorola Home to the Arris Group in December 2012 for $2.35 billion. Motorola Mobility was acquired by Lenovo in 2014 for $2.91 billion. With 40,000 employees on its payroll in 2014, Motorola’s 2013 assets were valued in 2013 at $11.851 billion. Remember, in 1969, Neil Armstrong spoke the famous words “one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind” from the Moon on a Motorola transceiver.
