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It’s been a pretty dire year for BlackBerry, as shown by its £2.69bn loss in just three months. But the fat lady hasn’t sung yet for the troubled Canadian mobile maker. In fact, we could see BlackBerry’s enterprise productivity and security features come to rival platforms, according to the company’s CEO.
“We’d love to do it,” CEO Jon Chen said, when asked if BlackBerry would ever come to iOS and Android. So maybe we could see the company mutate into a different kind of beast, rather than die altogether.
Android Central has a recording of the financial call in which Chen admitted he’s keen to port the BlackBerry experience onto other platforms. Chen bigged up BlackBerry’s productivity and security credentials, and then added: “I would love to find a way to make our BlackBerry experience on the Android and the iOS.”
But it might take a while. “It’s not without difficulty, as you all know,” Chen said. “But it’s something that we’re very interested in trying.”
He even managed a chuckle when the person asking the question thanked him and added, “Best of luck.” Suppose you need a sense of humour when your company is going through one of its toughest periods ever.
It was thought BlackBerry could be bought out, but all hope of that was extinguished last month. It cut 40 per cent of its workforce, replaced its boss, and decided to focus on the business side of things rather than making phones for us consumers.
Chen is hoping to avoid any further layoffs though. Well, “if [he] can avoid it,” he said, according to Engadget. Let’s hope he can.
Would you like to see BlackBerry come to iOS and Android? Should the Canadian company focus on the business market and give up on us consumers altogether? Or should it stick to its guns? Fire me a business missive in the comments below, or on our always business-like Facebook page.
