On: Blackberry might switch to Android as OS

They should have done this 6 years ago. They make good devices, shitty OS.

As far as shaking your head, I don't see you pushing a better plan ... maybe they should continue with BB OS? HA. Maybe they should develop a new OS? HA. This is their only option.

Stop making phones altogether. Focus on what they do well -- BBM and MDM solutions. Being an Android OEM is death by slow cuts at this point. Players who have a much bigger head start in making Android handsets are doing poorly. Even the big "winners" like Samsung are selling a lot of units at low margins. What's Blackberry got that every other Android vender doesn't? Don't say keyboards, Motorola's first Droid had a keyboard, there's a reason they haven't made a new keyboard phone since 2012. And those are slider keyboards -- nobody is making Android apps optimized for the screen size and ratio of a classic style Blackberry. Making Android devices would be throwing good money after bad.

A lot of people really hated BBM and are happy to see the back of it. It was hard to manage as an internal service, and a massive privacy concern as a cloud one. MDM is very competitive if they're going to be an Android vendor, why would someone pay Blackberry when there are tons of competitors already in that enterprise space and already offering top notch MDM?

The problem is that back when Blackberry were big they had few competitors. BBM was one of the few services which could be used internal-only, and MDM was non-existent on most other vendors or operating systems.

Sorry, but to my eyes, if Blackberry made this their business then they would go out of business. A lot of the people who used to have the displeasure of managing this stuff don't want it back, and they will fight tooth and nail to keep that from happening.

I've literally seen wine opened when BES was removed once and for all.

PS - We no longer do MDM since users BYOD, all we have the ability to do is remove the company's Exchange archive (like deleting a PST on a PC). Plus it is encrypted anyway, so if they cannot login then they cannot review it.

Blackberry will be out of business soon regardless of what they do.

Pretty much. Throwing what little money they have at trying to sell commodity phones just hastens that outcome.

FYI BlackBerry is releasing a 16x9 slider phone later this year, which has fed into the Android rumors. The only glimpse BlackBerry fans have seen of that device so far looked like a Galaxy S6 Edge with a slide-out keyboard.

I wish Blackberry had a strong data firewall between Android apps and QNX apps.

My plan was indirect but they should refine their OS. Heck they could even partner with Microsoft to allow portability. But the moment they give up their OS is the moment they are throwing in the towel, for mobile.

Why HA? Have you used it?

I'm pretty sure most people would agree their OS is inferior.

I switched from Android to Blackberry because I consider the OS superior. To each their own, I suppose.

Inferior as an android competitor perhaps but as an OS for soft real time, or embedded or secure systems, QNX is extremely good.

In what way ? ... out of the box the BB does everything I need. I have to reboot my iPhone6 sometimes and the rest of the family reboots their androids weekly. I dont reboot the BB... it just works.

For games... sure android and iphones are great but some of us dont use these devices as toys

You must be joking.

iPhones and to a lesser extent Androids are ubiquitous now in the enterprise. So unless you think people who work there in are just using their phones for games then I would be taking your statement with a grain of salt. I work for an enterprise (market cap 50 billion) and our tens of thousands of employees all use iPhones.

Company I work for only has a market cap of 29Billion * sad face * . Work provides me with an iPhone6 and I have a q10. The iPhone6 is a hotspot with games and needs rebooting. The Q10 just works. Just because everyone is using something doesnt mean its the best tool for the job. I reiterate. I find the blackberry to work out of the box for anything I would need to do at work and its more reliable. I didnt say you couldnt use an Iphone for work... just said its not as good

I'm not the parent poster, but it is hard enough to find a similar Android app, let alone build your own ecosystem. Pairing with Google should have been an early move—it is what I would have done immediately—announce that new RIM tech will be more secure than ever, but with more apps than ever. (Yes, tech folks would shake their heads, but that doesn't matter)