

Blackberry had its first good idea in years - boston1999
http://www.wired.com/2014/04/blackberry-invests-nanthealth/

======
malanj
What I've read about Blackberry it seems like they entered the phone war when
it was at level 1 and then tried to reinvent themselves when it had reached
level 10. Guys like Mike Lazaridis talk as if they didn't realise that shift
had happened. That the smartphone game had become so intensely competitive
that their problem went far beyond picking the wrong strategies; they simply
didn't have the ability to execute at the level required by the upgraded game.

This seems like a common mistake made by people who win early and win big,
they don't necessarily have a proper perspective on the components of their
success that were luck or timing.

~~~
mwfunk
Yep. Success hides failure. A company can do 9 things right and one thing
wrong, but if the company does really well then people assume that all 10
things are right. In Blackberry's case it was a lot more than one thing wrong.

------
dmalik
I'm surprised that the author of the article left out QNX. QNX is already the
OS of choice for the medical industry and is doing well in other "niche"
markets like automotive. QNX in Action: Audi FPK Driver Information Display:
[http://youtu.be/Wlm6lD23d0g](http://youtu.be/Wlm6lD23d0g)

They're still playing off the good idea the had for buying QNX 4 years ago
now.

~~~
johnward
Without reading the article I had assumed they were going to be talking about
QNX. That is basically keeping the company alive.

------
quanticle
_“That might be exactly the right transition for BlackBerry to make,” says
Dulaney. “The problem is, you just can’t make that transition in the eyes of
Wall Street.”_

In that case, Wall Street is the problem.

~~~
fbndki
No, Wall Street is the owner.

~~~
Shog9
You're not actually contradicting his statement, you know. A good many of
Blackberry's problems trace back to the company's owners.

------
vjvj
Sensational headline. Blackberry has made many mistakes in the past 5 years
but to say that this is its first good idea is wrong.

------
51Cards
Buying QNX was the true brilliant move on Blackberry's part, it is a very
strong platform IMO. Their downfall has been a failure to think laterally on
how to leverage it outside of what their core market was. They are now being
forced to do that and I think it will work very well for them if it hasn't
come too late. I very much want to see them succeed.

~~~
valarauca1
QNX is still licensed though black berry (and has been before and after the
recent rebuilding). If you buy hardware having anything to do with Optical
Rings or Fiber Routers, it likely runs QNX. The goal of their 'restructuring'
was to increase profits from software sales (I.E.: Licensing QNX).

The problem is QNX was perfectly profitable on its own doing nothing but that.
Now Blackberry has a phone and OS division, one is pulling both down.

------
jacquesm
Having an investment from a company like Blackberry may on the surface look
just the same as any other investment. But in fact things are dramatically
different. You may very well end up having your stock sold to the highest
bidder at some future liquidation auction (there is a definitive chance of
Blackberry ending like that) and then suddenly you find yourself with a new
partner that you didn't choose. One that may even be in competition with you.

Another resource that Blackberry owns (QnX) is at risk of having the same
happen to it, fortunately for the QnX users there are a very large number of
companies that depend on the QnX for their real time needs including various
governments so likely QnX will survive a meltdown.

~~~
kristoffer
The QNX kernel was released under open source in 2007. Not all other
middleware is released though ...

~~~
jacquesm
Right, but it was closed again in 2010 and I'm not quite sure what the status
is today but as far as I am aware you can not just go and fork it or even
build it.

~~~
icefox
And note it was closed by blackberry after they purchased qnx.

------
rollthehard6
The hyperbole of this line demeans the whole article, 'one of this century’s
biggest corporate disasters ' 14 years into the 21st Century? Come on.

~~~
tvanzyl
Off the top of my head Enron in 2001, WorldCom in 2002, Lehman Brothers and
AIG in 2008, and GM and Chrysler in 2009 all seem to be better fit than
Blackberry for the 'century's biggest corporate disasters'.

------
Ensorceled
The biggest _Canadian_ corporate disaster this century swamps this hiccough
from BlackBerry. Nortel was worth almost $400B in 2000 and is now worth $4M,
essentially losing $400B of shareholder value this century.

This bodes ill for the rest of the article ...

------
fit2rule
Blackberry just doesn't have traction outside of the US, since most of the
rest of the world deeply distrust the architecture of the Blackberry system
(i.e. all data sent back to US-based servers). I think this is the one thing
they must fix - the perception by the world that Blackberry is just a front
for the CIA. Laugh all you want: I've heard this expressed in more than one
location here in Europe, enough so that even if its a falsehood, its a solid
one that isn't going anywhere. RIM(/Blackberry) haven't done very much to
assuage this fear, alas .. and more to the point, seem resistant to doing so,
which make the suspicions even more warranted.

~~~
dmalik
"since most of the rest of the world deeply distrust the architecture of the
Blackberry system (i.e. all data sent back to US-based servers). I think this
is the one thing they must fix - the perception by the world that Blackberry
is just a front for the CIA"

I found that funny because that's the exact opposite of what actually
happened. BlackBerry was to secure and certain governments couldn't spy on
their citizens. Here is an article from where this misinformation stemmed
from: [http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-
east-10830485](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-10830485)

I'm guessing people only read headlines and a lot of them had "BlackBerry" and
"Security" in them and most people jumped to conclusions.

BlackBerry has many NOC's and not one is in the US.

