{"id":41720,"date":"2013-07-10T23:37:38","date_gmt":"2013-07-10T21:37:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=41720"},"modified":"2013-07-11T10:56:40","modified_gmt":"2013-07-11T08:56:40","slug":"what-is-going-on-at-blackberry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/41720\/what-is-going-on-at-blackberry\/","title":{"rendered":"What is going on at BlackBerry?"},"content":{"rendered":"

BlackBerry<\/a> has sidestepped questions on whether it will discontinue the manufacture and shipment of its Playbook tablet amid a poor uptake.<\/p>\n

However, the group has recently taken a decision not to move BlackBerry 10 software to the Playbook device.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday (9 July) the Canadian based firm hinted at a licensing deal, or even an outright sale of the company, following disappointing results and a worrying outlook for its new range of smartphones.<\/p>\n

It was reported that the group shipped only just 2.7 million new BlackBerry 10 devices in its fiscal first quarter, ending at the\u00a0beginning\u00a0June, and making up only\u00a040% of it’s smartphone shipments in the period<\/p>\n

Reuters noted that company\u2019s stock had dropped more than 30% after it posted disappointing second-quarter results in late June and forecast an operating loss in the current quarter.<\/p>\n

By close of play on Nasdaq on Wednesday (10 July, 16h00 Eastern Time) BlackBerry’s shares were trading off 3.72% to US$9.28. This is almost half (49.3%) the value of the company’s 52 week high of US$18.32 it hit on 24 January 2013.<\/p>\n

When BusinessTech queried BlackBerry about whether it would or has stopped shipping its tablet to countries like South Africa, the group responded accordingly:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe made the decision not to move BlackBerry 10 software to the PlayBook device. Our teams have spent a great deal of time and energy to implement solutions that could move the BlackBerry 10 experience to PlayBook.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately we are not satisfied with the level of performance and user experience achieved, and as a result, we made the difficult decision to stop these efforts and focus on our core hardware portfolio.\u00a0 However, we will continue to support PlayBook on the existing software platforms and configurations.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"BlackBerry<\/a>

BlackBerry Playbook<\/p><\/div>\n

BlackBerry 10<\/strong><\/p>\n

In May, BlackBerry told BusinessTech that the Z10 was one of the top five selling smartphones in South Africa.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have seen strong initial demand and interest from South African consumers in the BlackBerry Z10,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

The group said it had 50 enterprise customers fully up and running with BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 in South Africa.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd based on current proof of concepts (POC\u2019s) and trials in process we will have more than 150 customers on BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 by mid-year,\u201d BlackBerry said.<\/p>\n

These include Alexander Forbes, Bowman Gilfillan, Dimension Data, Edcon, Netcare, Tiger Brands, First National Bank, Investec, Absa, Bowman Gilfillan, AEL, PWC, Aveng Grinaker, Edcon, Omnia.<\/p>\n

More news on BlackBerry<\/h3>\n

BlackBerry reports quarterly loss<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

BlackBerry sale still on the cards: CEO<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

BlackBerry announces mid-tier Q5<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

BlackBerry shareholder case dismissed<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

BlackBerry subscriber numbers decline<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

BlackBerry profits off Z10 sales<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BlackBerry has sidestepped questions on whether it will discontinue the manufacture and shipment of its Playbook tablet amid a poor uptake.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":28886,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[6280,6282,161,6281,26,6283,301],"class_list":["post-41720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-alexander-forbes","tag-aveng","tag-blackberry","tag-bowman-gilfillan","tag-headline","tag-omnia","tag-playbook"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41720"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41734,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41720\/revisions\/41734"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}