Blackberry 10 reveal video

[Mitlov]

Looks kind of awesome if you ask me. Particularly the camera functionality, which I could see being the single biggest selling point for consumers.

Gallery: BlackBerry 10 unveiled | The Verge

Thoughts?

[Varjak]

The Times reported on this; but said the video was very misleading. The 'alpha' prototypes they've distributed don't do any of those things, much less the more basic things. And the phone is due in October, 6 months away.

[Mitlov]

The Times reported on this; but said the video was very misleading. The 'alpha' prototypes they've distributed don't do any of those things, much less the more basic things. And the phone is due in October, 6 months away.

Wow, that's disappointing.

The camera struck me as a "too good to be true" sort of thing.

[rkevwill]

Until I see it sending and receiving email, doing BBM, SMS, and viewing websites on a Bold styled device.........with weather, bloomberg and Open Table, I'm from Missouri (well my parents are) and I will believe it when I see it. And maybe.......buy it!

[Mi An]

I'd love to see a smartphone turnaround story from someone. Palm came out with a great product, years too late and died a long nasty death. MS is trying to claw their way back from the brink, and if anyone can, due to sheer resources, surely they can. Nokia is betting on MS's resources to turn their fortunes around -- but even if MS wins, Nokia still has to break at the right moment to profit from it. HTC dominated Android 1.x and watched Motorola and then Samsung take the mantle.

Public disposition towards Blackberry especially reminds me of public disposition towards Palm back in the waning days. I was reading some BGR rants the other day and had a flashback of the kneejerk pissy Engadget flame on the Foleo. I've read other posts, detailing Blackberry delays and stops and starts and was reminded of my own frustration waiting for Palm to stop cobalting us and do something as we spun our wheels with frankengarnet.

The smartphone space reminds me of a final destination movie, only not quite as funny. Once you're marked for death, it's just a matter of time.

[rkevwill]

Agreed Mi An. The blackberry saga looks amazingly like what happened with Palm. I have quietly been discussing that professionally, with some of my peers, but they don't understand (nor are they as technically oriented as those of us here in the Forums). I gave up on Palm when they couldn't advance. I gave up on my BB over a year ago, when I saw nothing advancing at their Developers conference. (all they talked about at that conference in 2011 was their playbook). Moved to the iPhone exclusively (already had one) since it was finally getting corp support. I would say BB has the rest of this year to show SOMETHING.....but it may just not be enough.

[Mitlov]

Mi An is right with the Final Destination comment. Once a company has had a couple bad years, it doesn't have the R&D money to make a top-tier product that'll win customers back, and at that point the clock is ticking.

Sadly (because I'm a more-competition-is-better sort of guy), I think the only hope for BB is to partner with MS. RIM's been hemmoraging money. And now they need R&D money for (1) a new OS and (2) an entirely new lineup of hardware (as BB 10 won't work on preexisting hardware). I don't see that happening without a massive influx of capital.

If they partner with Microsoft, the cost of (1) gets reduced to "apps and features that will work with WP8 Apollo," a far cheaper investment than building an OS from the ground up. And they'll probably get a loan or investment to help with (2). That's why I think BB's choice at this stage in the game is MS partnership or eventual bankruptcy.

[Mi An]

Mi An is right with the Final Destination comment. Once a company has had a couple bad years, it doesn't have the R&D money to make a top-tier product that'll win customers back, and at that point the clock is ticking.

I don't even think it's about how good their products are. I think Palm did make a good product and was praised for it a lot even by former detractors, and even managed to muster serious marketing dollars in a final push. If a comeback is possible in this space, I think you need more than a good product and even more than buzz on it.

[brightbird]

It looks awesome. But I don't like the BB system.

[Drillbit]

The Playbook OS itself was awesome (tried it), but that didn't help at all. It doesn't matter how good your OS looks, what matters more now are the killer services with it.

If you ever played a game of Go (game of envelopment, spatial mastery) vs. a game of Chess (game of attrition, sacrifice and exchange), I feel like Go makes a much better strategic viewpoint for a business.

Fighting with the OS is a chess strategy. Its like going headlong with your Queen. Its not going to work. A Go strategy for Blackberry would be to allow BIS infrastructure and BBM to work with Android and iOS. Try to create, sell and service your own security solutions with iOS and Android. That keeps you relevant with the enterprise and the user base. Create new services and content delivery systems. All that can spearhead your own platform later. One of the Blackberry cofounders was on track with this, before he got the boot.