BlackBerry 10 = BleakFuture
This week there's no hiding the fact that the public remains uncertain that they've been convinced by BlackBerry 10 after its first launch event. The company known until this week as RIM has re-branded itself as BlackBerry as they should have done long ago, this also creating an unacceptable amount of confusion for the consumer at large. Now we've got a "new" operating system on a couple of "new" smartphones created by a company with a "new" name – investors certainly must be praying for some additional tricks to be pulled out of the company's sleeve quickly.
The pricing of the all-touch smartphone BlackBerry has revealed this week as the BlackBerry Z10 has a price point of $199 – that's in general and not solidified as subsidized or off-contract. Several carriers in the USA and many abroad have let it be known that they are ready for BlackBerry 10 action without precisely targeting timeframes or pricing on their units, with many questions about how much business users will be paying both initially and through the course of time for their BlackBerry 10 machines and service.
When you experience a launch event for a brand new rebirth of an operating system complete with two new hero devices for that OS, you see one of two things. The first is a clean "this is what we have and this is why you want it" showing that depends on the quality of the products and their solid presentation of their total package – BlackBerry did not do this. The second way of presenting a new era in your company is to bring in a collection of videos that do not reveal new information while you show the products you've got here and there between odd announcements about new staff members and special offers for "early adopters". This is what BlackBerry did.
BlackBerry did not inspire confidence in the public to the degree that they needed to, and the products they showed this week were not as groundbreaking as the position RIM has been in recently required. While BlackBerry has a chance to ride BlackBerry 10 out for a few seasons more, the products and services we've seen so far cannot be the full extent of the company's offerings. BlackBerry needs to show something wholly unique and they need to do it soon.