This post was published 9 years, 10 months ago. Due to the rapidly evolving world of technology, some material it contains may no longer be applicable.
According to a report from Reuters, BlackBerry is now considering making a new smartphone which runs Android instead of their own Blackberry 10 operating system.
The device is said to feature a hardware keyboard and come with Blackberry’s services and applications pre-installed but little else is known about the any actual device specifically yet. It is also not currently known if this is likely to be a one-off to test the waters, or if it’s intended from the outset to be part of a major shift away from BlackBerry 10.
From Reuters:
BlackBerry (BB.TO) is considering equipping an upcoming smartphone with Google Inc.’s (GOOGL.O) Android software for the first time, an acknowledgement that its revamped line of devices has failed to win mass appeal, according to four sources familiar with the matter.
The sources, who asked not to be named as they have not been authorized to discuss the matter publicly, said the move to use Android is part of BlackBerry’s strategy to pivot to focus on software and device management. BlackBerry, which once dominated smartphone sales, now has a market share of less than 1 percent.
This may seem like a slightly peculiar move as the company have put an awful lot of effort into the development of Blackberry 10 and even built an Android app player to make it easy to run Android applications on the platform. This has however translated to little success in terms of adoption, so perhaps it should not really be so surprising.
Of course, this is not the first time such rumours have come to light and Blackberry have previously denied interest in making Android devices, instead stating that they remain committed to their own platform. But then again, nothing forces change in the mindset of a business quite like financial failure, which is something they have endured heavily of late.
What do you guys think about this, would you purchase an Android-powered Blackberry device and is it too late for the company to make a turnaround?
