BlackBerry to stop smartphone production

This may come as no surprise to many, but it’s news nevertheless. Many of you may have already anticipated this, but it seems that BlackBerry is finally giving up on making smartphones. The company thought that it could have kept its smartphone division stay afloat by entering (albeit late) the Android bandwagon. However, the decision came a bit too late as the company behind the QWERTY phone wave couldn’t even create a ripple with its Android-based devices. From now on, the company says it will only focus on what has been at the core of all BlackBerry devices – security. According to the company statement, BlackBerry will now solely focus on creating software that makes security a priority.

Of course this doesn’t mean BlackBerry is entirely giving up on the smartphone industry; after all, there’s always room for more. Just because BlackBerry will no longer make smartphones, doesn’t mean there would no longer be BlackBerry smartphones in the market. According to the spokesperson, the company has decided to outsource the designing and production of its smartphones, just as it did in the case of the DTEK 50.

According to SmartIO and more. The Canadian-based Research In Motion’s CEO, John Chen says it’s all a strategic decision to direct company resources in a direction that suits the company’s expertise. “We are reaching an inflection point with our strategy,” he says. “Our financial foundation is strong, and our pivot to software is taking hold. The company plans to end all internal hardware development and will outsource that function to partners.”

Regardless of what the company says at this point, and all the strategies in play, the reality is that the BlackBerry brand is losing out in the smartphone rat-race. The company was once a force to be reckoned with in the mobile device market. There was, however, a major paradigm shift when smartphones became synonymous with mobile computing and operating systems became tailored around mobile applications like games and content transfer app. The new ballgame, which started with the first iPhone, soon became competitive with Android’s entry, and the rest is history. Other mobile operating systems simply couldn’t keep up, and device manufacturers lost out unless they offered Android.

As mentioned before, even though BlackBerry tried to get back into the game with Android-based devices, other companies like Samsung and Huawei had mastered the Android sector and were way ahead. BlackBerry’s first attempt at Android was the BlackBerry Priv. However, the device didn’t deliver. Of course, it carried the quintessential BlackBerry footprint in terms of security and design; however, the price wasn’t as competitive as users would have liked. In the Android consumer base, price takes precedence over design and sadly even security. If you want to get an idea of how bad things were, initially, CEO Chen announced that if the Android-based Priv managed to sell 5 million units in the span of a year, the company could keep the hardware division open for business. When shipments started, the numbers looked so dismal that the company decided to cut down the goal to 3 million. Unfortunately, even that seems overly ambitious. What’s you take? Are you will to say goodbye to Blackberry devices… at least those manufactured by the company?