BlackBerry already confirmed a couple of months ago that it’s no longer going to develop its own smartphones, it’s going to work with third-party manufacturers to create handsets. We’ve already seen the fruits of such a collaboration, the mid-range DTEK50 and the high-end DTEK60 that was just announced today. The company has reiterated that it’s not going to stop putting out handsets completely.
BlackBerry hasn’t been able to revive its handset business despite pinning hopes on Android. It was only able to sell 400,000 devices in the fiscal second quarter, download from 500,000 units in the first quarter.
During a webcast to unveil the BlackBerry DTEK60, the company’s COO Marty Beard said that the DTEK60 is “absolutely not” BlackBerry’s last smartphone. He added that BlackBerry will continue to “work with more partners” to come out with more Android-powered handsets down the line.
Beard didn’t go into the specifics of the handsets that we can expect to see from BlackBerry in the future, but one can imagine that the company is going to create devices for all segments of the market. However, chances of another BlackBerry 10 OS-powered device are pretty slim now.
He also reiterated the company’s commitment to its iconic QWERTY keyboards, saying that loyal users are still fond of hardware keyboards, saying that “I will be very surprised if we don’t have a keyboard device,” so we can expect some future devices to come with keyboards as well.
Filed in . Read more about BlackBerry and DTEK60. Source: mobilesyrup