John Chen: Hardware Still Important To BlackBerry

It is no secret that BlackBerry isn’t doing so hot at the moment in terms of smartphones. They used to be at the top used by companies and governments around the world, but that scene has since changed where companies are now adopting a BYOD system where BlackBerry is no longer king.

In fact according to BlackBerry’s CEO John Chen, just last month he stated that the company would be cutting down on the number of devices they produced a year. While this might sound like they’re about to call it quits on hardware, that’s actually hardly the case. In an interview with Fox Business, Chen reiterated BlackBerry’s commitment to hardware.

According to Chen, “Hardware continues to be a valuable part of BlackBerry’s end-to-end platform. That said, there is an incredible opportunity for BlackBerry to capture a greater share of enterprise revenues and service those customers who depend on the enterprise-grade mobility solutions that we provide.”

However at the same time, Chen also reaffirmed that internally, the company’s strategy has shifted more towards the software and security side of things. In fact no one said that the hardware had to run on BlackBerry OS. There have been rumors that suggests that BlackBerry could turn to Android, thus allowing BlackBerry to continue churning out hardware, but leaving the OS side to Google while they focus on the security side of things.

Either way we guess only time will tell if BlackBerry’s strategy will pay off, but for now would the move to Android be the step in the right direction?

Tyler Lee
Categories: Cellphones
Tags: BlackBerry