J
Jared Peters
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BlackBerry has been a struggling company for several years, but their latest Priv seems to have put the company on the right track. That might not be enough to sustain success, though, especially if BlackBerry fails to compete in the extremely important budget-friendly spectrum of the Android market.The BlackBerry Vienna was rumored to be this other device to complement the Priv, but MWC came and went without any whisper of the keyboard-equipped phone. Some analysts seem to think that this device going missing from the lineup is signaling BlackBerry’s exit from the hardware business.
BlackBerry is already expected to see revenue drop 31% year-over-year, so despite the Priv doing relatively well, the smartphone market is still brutal and dominated by just a handful of bigger names. Outside of hardware, BlackBerry excels in their enterprise software department, so they could theoretically step out of the hardware business and focus only on software. This would drastically cut the amount BlackBerry would need to spend on R&D and would significantly bump up their profit margins, which is the single biggest pain point for a majority of Android OEMs.
We’ve already seen BlackBerry team up with Samsung for their KNOX software, so it’s clear that the company can make Android work for them without having to have a hand in the hardware.
This is all analyst speculation at this point, so there’s no guarantee that BlackBerry will leave the hardware space. Their CEO has already mentioned that another Android-powered BlackBerry phone is coming by the end of the year, so there are arguments on the other end, too. No need to panic just yet.
source: Value Walk
via: Phone Arena
Come comment on this article: Analyst suggests BlackBerry will soon step out of the hardware business
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