BlackBerry will not be exiting the device space, says BlackBerry India’s Managing Director Sunil Lalwani but they will be ending support for BlackBerry legacy devices on December 2015 as they plan to focus on BlackBerry 10 and will offer BBOS 7 users an option to upgrade.
Updated statement from BlackBerry:
“BlackBerry intends to support the BlackBerry operating system indefinitely. Any comments to the contrary are not correct.”
In a lengthy interview Mr. Lalwani elaborated on BlackBerry’s future plans to focus on software and services in emerging markets. Why focus on software and services? Mr. Lalwani says BlackBerry strongly believes “this strategy will be key to our turnaround and profitability in 2014, and we are extremely bullish about the future of BlackBerry.” Focusing on BBM is what BlackBerry plans to bank on once they figure out exactly how they will monetize it and probably build an in-app advertising feature to have it self-automated.
While BBOS devices have outsold BlackBerry 10 devices in recent quarters he did state that once lowering prices on BlackBerry 10 devices sales began to pick up and the already affordable Q5 will be getting another price cut in India later this month.
As far as tablets go, there are still no plans to enter that specific market. Looks like CEO John Chen has the same belief as former CEO Thorsten Heins where the market for them is pretty slim, in their minds.
For more on the interview visit DNA India.