Ask anyone over the last 25 years or so “what was the 1 phone to have for business”? The answer for executives and cell phone addicts was Research in Motion which created the “Blackberry Brand”. Having a phone with a physical keyboard that kept you connected to your email, meant you “made it”. I used to use Blackberries exclusively, they were just solid phones, with an OS that was so smooth. Being able to merge all your email accounts on one phone, made life easy. You could even keep work and personal emails separate. The Keyboard was full-sized, and laid out in QWERTY form. Yes, RIM was slow to embrace the internet revolution, and as a company they missed to signs that Apple and Android pushed for consumer usage, which RIM discounted because they had so many government contracts. In the end Blackberry’s pivot towards consumers was too little too late and a disjointed mess. Their BB10 OS was smooth, but as an operating system, years late to the party. BBRY tried to recapture some of its glory as they finally embraced the “Android Revolution”, and released phones with Android as their OS. By then the mobile phone headspace had left them in the dust. CEO John Chen pushed the idea that Blackberry would become a software and services company, as opposed to a “mobile phone company”. The company did license the name to TCL which released a few phones that blackberry fans, nicknamed “crackberries” bought in small numbers. This past year Onward Mobility announced an agreement to create a 5G phone under the Blackberry brand, and fans were looking forward to seeing this phone.
Well this week came news that the license that Onward Mobility had gotten from Blackberry has fallen through. Kevin Michaluk also known as “Crackberry Kevin”, founder of Crackberry.com was offered an NDA by Onward Mobility to see what their(OM) plans for the future would be. Kevin declined to sign one, as the writing on the wall became clearer, although no official announcement from BBRY or OM has been made. Here is an article from GSM arena on the situation.
In another move that signals the end of Phones for Blackberry, it was announced on January 31, 2022 that the company had entered into an agreement with Catapult IP Innovations, a Delaware based company to sell the majority of BBRY’s “legacy” patents, that are no longer needed for the current “core business” for $600 Million Dollars. BBRY will also receive a license back to the sold patents so they can continue to support customers currently using Blackberry branded phones. How Blackberry will use the $600 Million Dollar cash influx is unknown, but John Chen has previously used cash on hand to buy software and security infrastructure.
https://crackberry.com/blackberry-cashing-legacy-patents-tune-600-million
Thanks to Crackberry Kevin for reporting on Blackberry’s for so many years. I am a member of the Crackberry Community, and this is a sad day indeed.
