BlackBerry’s CEO Outraged Over T-Mobile’s Stunt

Just the other day, T-Mobile began a promotion in which they trolled BlackBerry users into switching to the iPhone 5s, calling it an “upgrade”. Technically in terms of hardware, it would seem like an upgrade, but at the same time it does seem somewhat insulting when your carrier is mocking your choice of platform/device, doesn’t it? T-Mobile’s CEO, who has been known to be rather vocal, issued a response on Twitter in which he claimed that he would clear this up with his team and get back to them.

However in the meantime, BlackBerry’s new CEO, John Chen, is obviously not too happy about T-Mobile’s latest stunt and in a post made on BlackBerry’s blog, Chen expressed his outrage over what had happened. “Late last week, T-Mobile emailed an offer targeting BlackBerry users on its network asking them to switch their BlackBerry devices to a competitor’s smartphone. As we were never told of their plans in advance, I can only guess that T-Mobile thought its “great offer for BlackBerry customers” would be well received. T-Mobile could not have been more wrong.” 

Chen later adds, “I can assure you that we are outraged too. What puzzles me more is that T-Mobile did not speak with us before or after they launched this clearly inappropriate and ill-conceived marketing promotion.” Apart from John Legere’s statement on Twitter, T-Mobile has yet to make a statement regarding the matter as it is turning out to be a bigger deal than we had initially thought. What do you guys think? Should T-Mobile apologize for their stunt?

Tyler Lee
Categories: Cellphones
Tags: BlackBerry, T-Mobile