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<ul><li><keyword id="6354356" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="blackberry" source="Orion">Blackberry</keyword> is ending support to all its legacy devices starting January 4, 2022.</li><li>The company was once a popular mobile phone brand.</li><li>Lack of innovation and the advent of the iPhone was one of the key factors for its end. </li></ul>In the year 1999, Blackberry launched its first handheld device in the form of a two-way pager. And since then, the company has seen it all — the rise, the fall and the end. If we go back in time, Nokia and Blackberry were the most popular cellular mobile brands in the 2000s, however, the advent of <keyword id="6354427" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="apple" source="Orion">Apple</keyword>’s iPhones in 2007 led to the end of both these brands in the mobile phone segment. In the second half of the 2000s, Blackberry released mobile phones such as Curve Bold, Pearl and others that became widely popular among both corporate consumers as well as normal users. It was not just the QWERTY keypad that stood out of Blackberry, but applications such as Blackberry Messenger (BBM) were extremely popular, even among the youngsters. The ability to mail, text and use the internet on the go made the devices popular among business professionals. In late 2008, Blackberry tested a full-touch screen phone, BlackBerry Storm, to take on the iPhone released a year earlier, but the failure of the device due to sluggish performance made Blackberry go back to the full QWERTY keypad phones even on its touch-screen devices that launched later. The release of the iPhone 4 in 2010 was the beginning of the end for Blackberry as it became the most popular smartphone in the US. Although, Blackberry had not considered iPhones and <keyword id="6355645" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="android" source="Orion">Android</keyword>-based phones as a threat because of its offerings primarily focusing on corporates and business professionals. However, the users started to feel what the Blackberry lacked and they started to make switches to the iPhones or the early Android phones. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Lack of innovation" comment="subhead" text="Lack of innovation">Lack of innovation</cmsannotation> One of the key reasons for the fall of Blackberry was a lack of innovation, as the company could not compete with full-touch displays of iPhones. Both iOS and Android-based phones offered their users plenty of applications for their day to day usage, however, Blackberry had no such offerings. Another lacklustre offering of the Blackberry was its front and back cameras. When Apple and Android-based devices started offering better resolutions through their front and back cameras, Blackberry did not consider upping its game and continued to provide basic camera specifications. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="End of an era" comment="subhead" text="End of an era">End of an era</cmsannotation> As the company failed to meet consumer expectations, the company stopped making smartphones based on its own operating system. It started launching smartphones based on Android OS. In 2016, it signed a deal with China’s TCL to design and manufacture BlackBerry hardware while the company provides the software. These phones ran on Android OS, providing users with apps and customisation features while offering better security. The last Blackberry phone launched in the market was BlackBerry Key2. There has been no smartphone release since then. And now with the<a href="https://www.blackberry.com/us/en/support/devices/end-of-life"> announcement of ending the software support</a> and legacy services on its devices with effect from January 4, 2022, the company has ended its operations in the smartphone segment for good. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Who will it impact?" comment="subhead" text="Who will it impact?">Who will it impact?</cmsannotation> According to the announcement, legacy services and software will no longer work be it on Wi-Fi connections or cellular. Users having classic Blackberry devices running on BlackBerry 7.1 OS and earlier, BlackBerry 10 software, BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.1 and earlier versions will stop working. The Blackberry 10 software launched in 2013, so these devices are quite old and Blackberry has supported them for a longer time than promised. So the number of users impacted by this will be significantly small. Users still on these devices will no longer be able to use data, make phone calls, send SMS and or use emergency call services. However, Blackberry smartphones running on Android OS will not be impacted, until and unless a user continues to use Blackberry's email services as they will have to migrate to a new service. If you are still using any of Blackberry's unsupported devices, you do not have an option but to switch to a new smartphone. SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/ces-2022-what-to-expect-from-samsung-sony-intel-lg-nvidia/articleshow/88606703.cms">CES 2022 — What to expect from the biggest electronics show</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/social-media-in-2022-expectations-predictions-and-everything-new-that-may-arrive-on-the-platforms/slidelist/88595320.cms">Social media in 2022 — Expectations, predictions and everything new that may arrive on the platforms</a>

The end of Blackberry mobile: Once owned by millions, now ends all its legacy services

<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:480px"><div class="image">Business Insider / Matthew LynleyThe <keyword id="435971" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="BlackBerry-PlayBook">BlackBerry PlayBook</keyword>.</div></div>David Smith, the <keyword id="6354356" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="BlackBerry">BlackBerry</keyword> executive in charge of the company's PlayBook tablet, will leave the company, the <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424127887323610704578625902060806448-lMyQjAxMTAzMDIwNDEyNDQyWj.html">Wall Street Journal has confirmed</a>.
BlackBerry told the WSJ that Smith is leaving for personal reasons.
However, Smith's departure comes a few weeks after BlackBerry essentially <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/no-blackberry-10-on-playbook-2013-6">declared its PlayBook tablet dead</a>. The device launched more than two years ago to horrible reviews. Since then, BlackBerry tried to improve the device with software updates and boost sales with dramatic price cuts, but shipments were still dismally low.
BlackBerry said it will not upgrade the PlayBook to its new <keyword id="6354485" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="mobile">mobile</keyword> operating system, BlackBerry 10, despite saying it would a few months ago.
It also looks like BlackBerry has no immediate plans to get back into tablets. Recently, BlackBerry's CEO Thorsten Heins said he thinks smartphones are the future of computing and <a href="%20http://www.businessinsider.com/blackberry-ceo-tablets-wont-be-around-in-five-years-2013-4">tablets won't be around in five years</a>.

The Guy In Charge Of BlackBerry's Failed Tablet Is Leaving The Company

<ul class="summary-list"><li><a href="http://blackberry.com/">BlackBerry </a>controlled 50% of the smartphone market in the US and 20% globally at one time.</li><li>Despite being one of the first smartphones, it failed to innovate and became complacent in how the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/smartphone">smartphone</a> market was changing.</li><li>There was an updated iPhone every year, and other smartphones, like the Motorola Droid, began to hit shelves, while BlackBerry struggled to add new features that appealed to consumers.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.</a></li></ul>Following is a transcript of the video.BlackBerry once reigned as king of the smartphone, selling more than 50 million units at its peak in 2011. The Canadian telecom company was originally named Research in Motion and had tens of millions of customers. It started out creating pagers and handsets, but the first iteration of the smartphone, complete with iconic keyboard, took shape within its first 15 years.At one time, BlackBerry controlled 50% of the smartphone market in the US and 20% globally. In the mid-aughts, BlackBerry phones were everywhere. But demand rapidly declined, and in 2016, BlackBerry stopped manufacturing its own phones. So, what happened?In 1984, two Canadian engineering students, Mike Lazaridis and Douglas Fregin, formed Research in Motion. At first, the company dabbled mostly in random projects: an LED system for GM, a local network for IBM, and even a film-editing system that won an Oscar in 1998. In 1989, the Canadian phone company Rogers contracted RIM to work on its Mobitex network, a system specifically designed for messaging, giving RIM a leg up as an early expert in mobile messaging. Fast-forward to 1996, when RIM created its first two-way pager. And for the next few years, the company iterated on that design, gradually adding features like a color display, WiFi, instant messaging, and web browsing. In 2002, the company unveiled its first model that could be called a phone. In 2006, RIM added the trackball so users could scroll around the screen.Avery Hartmans: BlackBerry figured out a way to make its phone indispensable to the wealthy and powerful. And having it really meant something about who you were as a person; it was a status symbol. And that's where we got that name CrackBerry. People were almost addicted to it and addicted to that feeling of always being connected.Narrator: The BlackBerry had a simple design, an easy learning curve, and was clearly marketed to business professionals. The full keyboard made it possible for them to work outside the office. They could respond to emails, texts, browse the web, basically anything they might need to do at a computer. And there was one other beloved feature: BlackBerry Messenger.Hartmans: The BBM messaging service was a key component of BlackBerry's success as well because they figured out really early on that people wanted to have an instant connection to people; they want to be able to message back and forth without limits. And being able to BBM also added you to that really exclusive club of BlackBerry-only users. Narrator: This convenience, paired with inclusivity, paid off. By 2007, the company was pulling in more than $3 billion in revenue with a net income of $631 million.Hartmans: At that point in time, BlackBerry had all these government contracts and big business deals, and those deals in turn spurred more consumer adoption. So at that point, BlackBerry was just dominating the US market.Narrator: So, with all those contracts and dollar signs, the company had nothing to worry about, right? Steve Jobs: The problem with them is really sort of in the bottom 40 there. It's this stuff right here. They all have these keyboards that are there, whether you need them or not to be there. What we're gonna do is get rid of all these buttons and just make a giant screen. A giant screen.Hartmans: The iPhone was something consumers had never seen before. The iPhone was a full-touch-screen device, and that was a huge leap in innovation at that point for the mobile industry. BlackBerry was still using physical keyboards at that point. Narrator: But the iPhone didn't kill RIM immediately. It just signed its death warrant. BlackBerry didn't view the iPhone as competition since it didn't cater to the business market. So it carried on, business as usual. RIM released the BlackBerry flip phone in 2008, quickly followed by the BlackBerry Storm, its first touch-screen device. The Storm was reviewed and trashed by critics, who said it was "a definite letdown because of the phone's sluggish performance and bugginess." But BlackBerry phones still continued to sell for a few reasons. The iPhone was more expensive than the BlackBerry and exclusive to AT&amp;T until 2011, forcing customers in the US to either switch providers or pick a new phone. And, very simply, people just didn't wanna give up their keyboards.So, for a while, BlackBerry was fine. But RIM underestimated how quickly the smartphone market was changing. There was a new updated iPhone every year, and other smartphones, like the Motorola Droid, began to hit shelves. RIM tried to keep up. It rolled out innovative new devices, like the PlayBook tablet and Torch, but the devices were not well received. The PlayBook even shipped without an email app, which made it useless to BlackBerry's business-minded customer base. In June 2010 came BlackBerry's death rattle with the release of the iPhone 4. Soon after its release, Apple's phone sales surpassed BlackBerry for the second time. But this time, they stayed there.Hartmans: BlackBerry was slow to change. Its company ethos was built around designing a great product that just worked and iterating on it very slowly. To that end, they would add small features over time, but they weren't shooting for big, sweeping changes that would shock and delight consumers.Narrator: It wasn't the fact that there was no well-established BlackBerry app store, although that was big.Comparatively, Android and Apple were more top of mind for app developers. BlackBerry wasn't. The phones missed out on a bunch of features that appealed to consumers, like front and back cameras. These shortcomings ultimately led to RIM's downfall. RIM's global market share began a downward spiral, going from 20% in 2009 to less than 5% in 2012. By the time RIM finally released its spec-competitive touch-screen phone in 2013, it was just too late.That same year, RIM officially changed its name to BlackBerry. BlackBerry thought its loyal customers would wait around for it. Spoiler: They didn't. At this point, people were locked into either iPhone or Android. And in the last quarter of 2016, out of more than 432 million smartphones sold worldwide, only 207,900 were BlackBerry devices, which officially made RIM's smartphone market share 0%. And in 2016, Chinese consumer-electronic company TCL essentially bought the BlackBerry phone brand, which led to their departure from the smartphone market, 14 years after the release of its first phone. But the phones live on, sort of.Commercial: Introducing the new BlackBerry Classic with more power and control than ever before.Narrator: The deal was for TCL to design and manufacture BlackBerry hardware while the BlackBerry company provides the software. Today's BlackBerry phones still have the iconic keyboard but run on Android, not the BlackBerry OS, giving users their beloved app store and much more customization options. The phones are still marketed to a specific type of user, people who want enhanced privacy and security features, with the marketing materials spotlighting the phone's security protections and battery life. But the latest BlackBerry phone, the Key2, was released in 2018. These days, a new model comes along every year, and 2019 has come and gone without any new BlackBerrys. Whether we see a new BlackBerry anytime soon or not, the phones will always be a brick in the foundation of smartphone history. A fitting place for a company so set in its ways that it cemented its own demise.<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/intelligence/bi-intelligence-daily?IR=T&amp;itm_source=businessinsider&amp;itm_medium=ctgr_bii&amp;itm_term=ctgr_subscription&amp;itm_content=apple&amp;itm_campaign=bi-intelligence-daily"></a>

How BlackBerry went from controlling the smartphone market to a phone of the past

<div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image on-image">REUTERS/Dado Ruvic </div></div><keyword id="6354356" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="BlackBerry">BlackBerry</keyword> announceed a management shakeup this morning. Its COO and CMO are out of the company. Its CFO has been replaced. 
Kristian Tear was BlackBerry's COO. Frank Boulben was the CMO. James Yersh will replace Brian Bidulka as CFO.
The news comes as part as a larger reorganization of BlackBerry. The company's CEO, Thorsten Heins, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackberry-ceo-thorsten-heins-out-2013-11">left the company earlier this month</a>. Heins was replaced by John S. Chen, who is acting as interim CEO.
All of these shakeups are due in part because of a failed effort by BlackBerry to sell itself and go private. Equity firm Fairfax Financial Holdings made a $4.7 billion offer to buy BlackBerry, but the deal fell through. Instead, Fairfax invested $1 billion in BlackBerry and Heins left the company.
Refresh this page for updates. Here's the press release: 
BlackBerry Limited BBRY -0.64%CA:BB +2.84% , a world leader in mobile communications, today announced that as part of the on-going reorganization of BlackBerry, Kristian Tear, the Company's Chief Operating Officer, and Frank Boulben, the Company's Chief Marketing Officer, will leave the Company. BlackBerry also announced that James Yersh will replace Brian Bidulka as its Chief Financial Officer. Yersh, who has worked at BlackBerry since 2008, previously served as Senior Vice President, Controller and as the Company's head of Compliance. Bidulka will stay on as a special advisor to the CEO for the remainder of the fiscal year to assist with the transition.
"I thank Kristian and Frank for their efforts on behalf of BlackBerry. I look forward to working more directly with the talented teams of engineers, and the sales and marketing teams around the world to facilitate the BlackBerry turn-around and to drive innovation," said John Chen, Executive Chair and CEO of BlackBerry. "I also thank Brian for his eight years of dedicated service to BlackBerry. I look forward to working with James and his Finance team as we move forward, execute on our plans and deliver long-term value for our shareholders."
Chen added, "BlackBerry has a strong cash position and continues, by a significant margin, to be the top provider of trusted and secure mobile device management solutions to enterprise customers around the world. Building on this core strength, and in conjunction with these management changes, I will continue to align my senior management team and organizational structure, and refine the Company's strategy to ensure we deliver the best devices, mobile security and device management through BES 10, provide multi-platform messaging solutions with BBM, and expand adoption of QNX embedded systems."
BlackBerry also announced today that Roger Martin, a Board member since 2007, has resigned. "Our Board has benefitted from Roger's expertise and insights over the past six years and we wish him the best," said Barbara Stymiest, Board Member and Former Chair of the Board.
James Yersh has more than 15 years of experience in the technology and telecommunications industries. Yersh previously served as the Senior Vice President, Controller and head of Compliance for BlackBerry. Prior to joining BlackBerry in 2008, he held various senior positions at Cognos Incorporated and Deloitte.
Third Quarter Fiscal 2014 Results Conference Call Details
BlackBerry will discuss additional details around this announcement when it reports results for the third quarter of fiscal 2014 on December 20th, 2013. A conference call and live webcast will be held beginning at 8 am ET, which can be accessed by dialing 1-800-814-4859 or through your BlackBerry(R) 10 smartphone, personal computer or BlackBerry(R) PlayBook(TM) tablet at http://ca.blackberry.com/company/investors/events.html. A replay of the conference call will also be available at approximately 10 am by dialing (+1)416-640-1917 and entering pass code 4612570# or by clicking the link above on your BlackBerry(R) 10 smartphone, personal computer or BlackBerry(R) PlayBook(TM) tablet. This replay will be available until midnight ET January 3, 2014.

BlackBerry's COO And CMO Are Out

BlackBerry has come out of the wild and announced its peculiar looking Passport smartphone for the Indian market. Innovation hasn’t really been the order of day in the mobile space lately, most of the brands focusing on enhancing their products via hardware upgradations. And this is where BlackBerry is now trying something that’s really not part of any manufacturers playbook, atleast for now. Passport was globally announced last week and now makes way to the Indian shores, available for pre-order on Amazon.in and at BlackBerry stores from today up to October 10, bundled with gift card worth Rs 5000. Once the pre-booking is done and dusted, you'll be able to buy the Passport for Rs 49,990. 
 
So how is Passport any different from the existing set of BB devices? For starters, the phone is not rectangular-shaped, instead you’ll find the device squarely shaped that fits in perfectly inside your pocket, unlike most of the smartphones or phablets around. Then BB continues to offer the dual QWERTY along with touch option to its consumers that nobody else has managed to prolong in this touch-experience era. It’s not the lightest devices around at 194 grams and heavily built at 9.3-mm thickness, at a time when slim figure has become talk of the town. 
 
BlackBerry Passport comes with a 4.5 inch fairly bright display at 1440x1440 pixels and offering Corning Glass 3 protection. It’s running on the BB 10.3 platform and packs a quad-core Snapdragon 800 CPU with 3 GB RAM and offering 32 GB expandable memory. It’s fitted with a 13 MP rear snapper and a 2 MP front camera but what’s the selling point for a BB device is its secured processes and email-friendly set-up. The phone’s power gets well supported by a 3450 mAh battery which has never been a concern for BB users over the years. Much like the Q10, the Passport is aimed at business consumers and anyone who's been bored out by the familiar shape and size game.

BlackBerry takes a different Smartphone route with Passport in India

<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:400px"><div class="image"></div>Timothy A. Clary/AFPResearch in Motion CEO Thorsten Heins</div>Update: We've just been informed that the roadmap was an April Fools' Day joke. We apologize for the confusion.
A leaked BlackBerry roadmap, first <a href="http://www.technobuffalo.com/2013/03/30/blackberry-roadmap-2013/">uncovered by TechnoBuffalo</a>, suggests the Canadian company is gearing up to launch a new tablet, and two "<keyword id="999344" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="phablet">phablet</keyword>" devices within the next year. 
According to the roadmap, BlackBerry will release a tablet, dubbed the B10, around Q3 of this year. Before Q1 2014, it looks like BlackBerry will introduce a phablet device. And by Q2 2014, we may see a new tablet-like device with a QWERTY keyboard.
The roadmap also depicts the already-released <keyword id="1542593" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="BLackBerry-Z10">BlackBerry Z10</keyword>, and the forthcoming Q10 with a QWERTY keyboard — both devices sport the new <keyword id="858672" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="BlackBerry-10">BlackBerry 10</keyword> operating system. 
BlackBerry made its first attempt at a tablet device with the launch of the 7-inch PlayBook tablet in 2011. Despite it being one of the most-hyped consumer gadgets at the time, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/lame-tech-2012-11?op=1">it ended up not doing well</a>, as it lacked a lot of basic functions like email and calendar when it first shipped. BlackBerry eventually added that functionality, but by then, it was too late. 
Head on over to TechnoBuffalo to take a look at <a href="http://www.technobuffalo.com/2013/03/30/blackberry-roadmap-2013/">the leaked roadmap</a>.

Leaked Roadmap Reveals BlackBerry's Second Attempt At An iPad-Killer*

What is <keyword id="6354356" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="BlackBerry">BlackBerry</keyword> up to? At least in the <keyword id="47445" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="Indian-market">Indian market</keyword>? Just a couple of days ago, the Canadian handset-maker has launched yet another mid-segment touch-and-type phone – <keyword id="1864957" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="BlackBerry-9720">BlackBerry 9720</keyword> – priced at around Rs 16,000. It’s not exactly cheap and the specifications won’t thrill you either. The latest BB10 operating system is missing once again, so is Near Field Communication (NFC). The new device has been fitted out with the old-fashioned 7.1 OS, but you will find the signature <keyword id="713967" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="QWERTY-keyboard">Qwerty keyboard</keyword> (it has 35 keys upfront), a 2.8 inch capacitive touchscreen, an optical track-pad for navigation, a 5 megapixel rear camera that can record video (but no front-facing camera), FM radio, 3G connectivity, Bluetooth 2.1 and the BBM Voice for free chat over Wi-Fi. 
 It is definitely a dampener, prior to a big event BlackBerry is apparently planning in line with <keyword id="10591" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Samsung">Samsung</keyword> and <keyword id="6354427" type="CITY" weightage="40" keywordseo="Apple">Apple</keyword>. Checking reviews and user opinions on various news and shopping sites (one of them is Amazon’s Junglee.com), we have found that the product has drawn flak from most people due to lack of originality and innovation. Is that why the tech giant is repeatedly failing to get its act right in <keyword id="3658" type="COUNTRY" weightage="80" keywordseo="India">India</keyword> and abroad? Simply upgrading its operating system and producing more updated handsets are not enough to keep it going. Somewhere along the way, BlackBerry has lost its cool and something amazing needs to happen now to pull it out of the rut. But there are more reasons than one that we would like to explore. 
 
Been there, done that, but to what effect? 
For some time now, BlackBerry has tried to do anything and everything that came its way, trying to save the sinking ship. The company is considering going private and looking for a strategic partner. It is also mulling a split-up and sell-off plan concerning its handset/hardware business. But it could be difficult to convince private investors or potential buyers that its current and upcoming range of smartphones and devices would have a long-term future with enterprises and business customers unless the company makes up its mind about what it wants to do on a priority basis and does it fast. Like when it decided to take BBM™ (BlackBerry Messenger) cross-platform or introduced the BBM Channels. Smart and timely moves – both of them. 
 As for hardware, Blackberry has its finger in every pie, but can we really call it earth-shattering? Some good things are happening though, in spite of the not-so-wow <keyword id="28168" type="TECHNOLOGY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Smartphone">smartphone</keyword> models we get to see. Its next-generation (but undoubtedly overpriced) smartphones Z10 and Q10 running on the latest BB10 OS were launched in January this year, and it is leaked that the company has already developed a new 10.2 OS with lots of features like app manager, actionable notifications, Wi-Fi Direct and more. That can push sales, especially if the upgraded OS is integrated with all BB10 devices without the price shooting up too much. But these are, after all, ‘essentials’ nowadays and Samsung already has some of these features. Although it has moved away from the tablet segment after the PlayBook failed to impress, the firm is reportedly developing a 5 inch phablet (in direct contention with Samsung?) dubbed as the Z30. It has been leaked a number of times and is expected to be released by the year-end. Do we have a game-changer there? Let us wait and see. 
 
Price points a pain, at least in India If BlackBerry has lost its focus globally, that is also getting reflected in the kind of products it is pushing in India without any specific pricing strategy. Apart from the popular Curve, we don’t see too many cheap handsets (below Rs 10K) here. Of course, the company was never about volumes or mass market, but price points should be right if one is actually targeting the emerging markets and have competitors like Samsung, <keyword id="6354716" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Nokia">Nokia</keyword> and Sony in the mid-range price segment. BlackBerry has never rolled out a sub-$100 (about Rs 6,000) device like Nokia or Samsung – so it is already at a disadvantage to capture the mass market. As for high-end phones like Q5, the cheapest BB10 device in the Indian market, one needs to shell out a whopping Rs 25,000. 
 
Old tags are passé; innovations need a future window Although pricing plays a crucial part in a price-sensitive market like India, one cannot ignore the innovation factor. Think of the latest offerings from Nokia or Sony or even HTC (I am excluding Samsung and Apple from this as they have so many firsts to their credit). There is always something new – be it the best smartphone camera (Nokia 808 PureView or Lumia 1020) or the biggest RAM (the upcoming Sony Xperia Z2 is rumoured to have 3 GB RAM) or the best audio (HTC One). After all, we are living in a world of ‘dual persona’ smartphones where the thin line between business and personal worlds often overlap. So the ‘business only’ tag of BlackBerry is not likely to cut the ice with the Millennials and the products must live up to their definitions of work, fun, thrill and entertainment. The BYOD issues world over is proof enough that most of us want the best of personal and professional worlds on the same gadget. In fact, that could be one of the reasons why Apple’s latest <keyword id="6354606" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="iPhone">iPhone</keyword> comes with a fingerprint sensor. What would keep business data more secure while we have some fun and frolic off work? 
 
It matters when you get more users 
Business communities are die-hard BB fans, of course. But if BlackBerry requires a facelift or even a complete changeover from its traditional business image to survive the future, it makes sense to work across several niches and come up with different products even. Imagine a different kind of BlackBerry for college-goers, young professionals, mid-level managers, senior corporate, home-makers and senior citizens. In addition to generic features, each could come pre-loaded with relevant apps and smart technologies. It’s not as impossible as we think. We are the BlackBerry Boys (an Indian commercial) already shows you the tilt and the change. Incremental upgrades, even from a company like Apple, spell the death of innovation (and that’s when it boils down to gold versus plastic). So all we need now is just an amazing BlackBerry with some real value and the magic could be back again.

Four Reasons Why
BlackBerry Is Missing The Mark

<div class="image-container float_right"><div class="image">Timothy A. Clary/AFPBlackBerry CEO <keyword id="910584" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Thorsten-Heins">Thorsten Heins</keyword>.</div></div>BlackBerry plans to fire up to 40% of its work force, or the equivalent of about 5,000 employees, <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424127887323808204579083250005557232-lMyQjAxMTAzMDEwODExNDgyWj.html">according to The Wall Street Journal</a>.
The layoffs will happen by the end of the year.
BlackBerry has largely failed to gain traction for its new mobile operating system called <keyword id="858672" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="BlackBerry-10">BlackBerry 10</keyword> and the flagship phones it runs on, the BlackBerry z10 and BlackBerry Q10. In its <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackberry-earnings-2013-6">last earnings report</a>, BlackBerry said it lost $84 million and only sold 2.7 million BlackBerry 10 devices.
The company has also abandoned its PlayBook tablet business.
BlackBerry will report earnings for last quarter next week.

BlackBerry Plans To Fire Up To 5,000 Employees

<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:355px"><div class="image"></div>By Justin Sullivan/Getty Images</div><keyword id="6354356" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="BlackBerry">BlackBerry</keyword> CEO <keyword id="910584" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Thorsten-Heins">Thorsten Heins</keyword> made a bold prediction yesterday about the tablet market.
"In five years I don’t think there’ll be a reason to have a tablet anymore," said at a conference, <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-30/blackberry-ceo-questions-future-of-tablets.html">according to Bloomberg</a>. He continued, saying, "Maybe a big screen in your workspace, but not a tablet as such. Tablets themselves are not a good business model."
Tablets are a pretty good business for <keyword id="6354427" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Apple">Apple</keyword>. It sold 19.5 million units last quarter, generating $8.8 billion in revenue.
For BlackBerry, they've been a terrible business. Practically nobody bought the PlayBook, an over-priced 7-inch tablet from BlackBerry that didn't come with built-in email. It never followed up the PlayBook with a second model.
Heins has talked in the past of using <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2013/03/blackberry-testing-phone-powered-tablets-laptops/">a smartphone to power laptops and tablets</a>.
In March he said, "This is your personal computing power. Think about what you can do with that. How many personal computing devices do you carry? Why not unify this to one device that executes all your computing needs?"
In other words, your smartphone could dock into one place and your hardware just becomes peripherals.
It's an enticing idea. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/motorola-atrix-4g-review-2011-2">Motorola tried doing it a few years ago, and nobody bought it</a>.
It turns out there are advantages to having multiple devices. The computing power of a dedicated tablet or PC is advantageous over the computing power of a smartphone running those devices. Also, multitasking is a pain if you just have a phone doing everything.
But, maybe Heins is right! Maybe in five years we have one gadget to rule them all.

BlackBerry CEO: Tablets Won't Be Around In Five Years

Cheaptrick.comNieslen, Zander, and Nielsen's son Daxx on drums.There's a <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/were-all-alright-deluxe/id1231992557?app=itunes&amp;ign-mpt=uo%3D4">new Cheap Trick record out</a>, the group's second in as many years, and I'll just cut to the chase: it rock n' roll is your thing - you know, the real basic stuff - then you've got to cue this thing up. It's titled "We're All Alright," and that message is an understatement (it's a reference to their late-1970s staple "Surrender") .Cheap Trick is one of those 1970s bands that, because it's lasted so long, is hard to categorize or really even to know what to expect from. They've been a jangly rock unit, a garage-glam effort, a Really Huge Band thanks to extensive FM radio play in the '70s and '80s, an arena group, an MTV act, and true road warriors. Their live performance at Budokan in Japan hit hugely in 1978 and was thereafter inescapable. Cheap Trick has also flirted with self parody, thanks to guitarist Rick Nielsen's penchant for trotting out axes with a few too many necks. The group also don't get no respect - not like bands that avoided pop flirtations at all costs. But then "I Want You to Want Me" comes on the radio and BOOM! you're singing right along."We're All Alright" isn't exactly a return to form because Cheap Trick hasn't ever lost its form, although the lineup has shifted a bit over the decades. Nielsen and singer Robin Zander have remained constant, but bassist Tom Petersson checked out for while, and these days Nielsen's son Daxx is the drummer (it sort of the same idea as Eddie Van Halen's son Wolfgang taking over on bass for Van Halen). Cheaptrick.comThe new record.What "We're All Alright" does achieve is a very tasty smorgasbord of thick electric-guitar licks with a definite garage-rockabilly vibe and just enough hair-metal in the mix to keep the whole thing appealingly gnarly. Cheap Trick is often labeled a power-pop band, but they're got a little too much crunch on top of their whole debt-to-the-Beatles reputation to make that work.Which isn't the say that Beatles mainlining isn't in the playbook. "Blackberry Way" from the new record is as pure a Fab Four homage as your likely to hear all year, right down to Zander's twinge of British elocution and Nielsen's George Harrison-derived moves on the six-string.The real show here happens right at the top, with the straight-up Kinks/Led Zeppelin slammer "You've Got It Going On," which its chugging chords rolling underneath some niftier lead guitar filigree while Zander belts it out in a lower, blues-y register and does a bit of screeching at the end. Then we're on to "Long Time" coming, which continues the the whole London circa 1971 feel and pulls it forward into Def Leppard territory. It's a wonderfully dumb, blunt rocker that, like so many songs before, Cheap Trick redeems itself with a whole lot of really catchy music, including some cool keyboards in the backgrounds - the entire tune is a summary of the 1969-1989 trajectory of rock, right dow to a punky slap of non-sequitur noise from Nielsen as it conks out.If you miss the Ramones, "Nowhere" is a classic punk grinder that explains why Joey was a fan of the Trick. My personal favorite number is "Brand New Name on an Old Tattoo," the title of which speaks volumes about where Cheap Trick is at these days, but which like so much of this record grabs some pop licks, roughs them up, and performs some musicology by connecting Jimmy Page's slabby chords and ringing fills with an overall composition that evokes Aerosmith.If Cheap Trick had never existed as a group and pioneered this genre-defying pastiche style forty years, you'd listen to "We're All Alright" and think that you were hearing the greatest cover band in human history trying out its own material. As old bands releasing new records go, Cheap Trick's latest doesn't quite touch the highs of Blondie's album from this year, "Pollinator," and in particular the astounding "My Monster," written by former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr. But here's the thing about Cheap Trick: I listened to the record via Tidal streaming and when it ended, my queue looped over to "Feel," the epic opener from Big Star's 1972 debut, "#1 Record," which came out a year before Cheap Trick formed and established the power-pop mantle that Nielsen, Zander, and the band would take up. Big Star's failure is one of the great oversights in modern music, now well documented. Cheap Trick was paying attention back then and understood that heavier, punkier pop could attract a following. They ran with it - and they're still running. <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-model-x-america-electric-car-road-trip-elon-musk-2017-6">We drove a brand-new Tesla Model X from San Francisco to New York - here's what happened</a></h3> Please enable Javascript to watch this video

This is why you should listen to the new Cheap Trick record

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image">AP</div></div></div>Samsung is a company that hates to fail.That may seem obvious (who actually revels in failure?), but most companies don't react to setbacks the way Samsung does.The best example? That famous story from 1995 where the company's chairman set 150,000 defective phones ablaze in a giant bonfire in front of Samsung's factory in Gumi, South Korea with thousands of employees watching.The demonstration doubled as a dire warning: Don't let it happen again.Two decades later, with Samsung reeling from the damage of its defective Galaxy Note 7 smartphones, employees are bracing for another bonfire.Only this time insiders expect Samsung to burn a lot more than faulty electronic devices. It's almost certain that the playbook that transformed Samsung into a consumer electronics powerhouse will get substantial revisions. And as Samsung prepares for its annual executive reorganization - a yearly purging of the top ranks that's coming up in a few weeks - it's likely we'll see a lot of heads roll, especially at the top. This wasn't just any screwup. It was one that erased billions from Samsung's market cap and gave Apple and Google an opportunity to reap the rewards from those fed up with the Samsung brand.<h2>Lockdown</h2>Internally, Samsung is on lockdown. Even people I normally talk to within the company have been unusually tight lipped as the investigation continues into what exactly caused the Galaxy Note 7 to explode. The theory among those I have spoken to seems to be that Samsung is withholding all the information it can until the annual reorganization happens. Then the healing can begin.To recap: After weeks of reports that the Note 7 devices overheated or exploded, causing dozens of injuries and the evacuation of a Southwest Airlines flight, Samsung made the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/samsung-halts-galaxy-note-7-production-2016-10">decision last month</a> to recall the phone and cancel the Note 7 line for good. A separate product recall <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-samsung-to-recall-28-mln-washing-machines-in-the-united-states-2016-11">involving washing machines</a> that have injured consumers when the lids flew off has further tarnished Samsung's reputation. One person close to Samsung told me the company's electronics group is currently reevaluating everything from marketing to design to engineering to make sure nothing like this ever happens again. That means changes in leadership as well as in culture. Samsung built its brand by being first to market with the coolest and newest technologies, from smartphones to televisions. The company released 6 smart watches in the year before Apple released the Apple Watch, and Samsung is regularly among the first to showcase slick new breeds of televisions like curved OLED displays.But that strategy now looks like a liability.As <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-18/samsung-crisis-began-in-rush-to-capitalize-on-uninspiring-iphone">Bloomberg reported</a>, Samsung's rush to beat Apple's iPhone 7 could've been one of the reasons why the Note 7 turned out to be defective.Normally, Samsung would've solved the Note 7 problem and moved on by now, this person told me. But in this case, the company is slowing down and evaluating everything in its product development cycle. Given the urgency under which Samsung has operated for so long, this deliberate pace investigating the matter may well represent the first sign of a major culture shift. <div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">APA Samsung Galaxy Note 7 that exploded.</div></div></div><h2>If we don't change, we don't survive</h2>The stakes couldn't be higher. Samsung appears to be aware that it could suffer the same fate as other former industry leaders like Nokia and BlackBerry unless things drastically change. People I've spoken were optimistic that the Note 7 crisis could be the catalyst the company needed to change how things work at the company."If we don't change, we don't survive," another person close to Samsung told me. And, for the first time, insiders are getting the sense that things actually are changing.Part of that change, it seems, is to make sure products are fully baked before releasing them to the public. Moving quickly is admirable, especially in the tech world, but not at the expense of making a product that's safe to use. Samsung learned a hard lesson. Now it's getting ready for a change.The change won't be easy. The culture of urgency is deeply entrenched in the company and broadly diffused across disparate operations that include everything from the production of semiconductors to batteries.It's especially important going into 2017. Before the Note 7 turned out to be a dud, Samsung was gearing up for its next major flagship device that should launch early next year. Unfortunately, those plans have been tainted by the Note 7, and Samsung will have to rethink how it pitches the phone to the public. The device is said to be another radical transformation in design, according to early rumors, and I've been told to expect some impressive new products throughout the year. (Sorry, I wish I had more details than that.)But if Samsung wants those devices to be successful, it'll have to prove that it's learned its lesson and has the processes in place to make sure all future products are safe.Do you know anything about what's happening at Samsung following the Galaxy Note 7 debacle? Email me at skovach@businessinsider.com. (I'm discreet!) <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/2016-best-smartphone-camera-iphone-google-pixel-samsung-galaxy-2016-11">Here's the best smartphone camera you can buy</a></h3> <div> <div> <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="IwMml5NjE6hro7DMfJ1lfnixZM2460YL" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div> </div> </div> </div>

Samsung's culture needs to change if it wants to survive

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image">ReutersUS President Barack Obama with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and US Secretary of State John Kerry during a meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Monday.</div></div></div>Russia's incursion into Syria and expanding influence throughout the Middle East have offered the Obama administration something it has sought since the Syrian civil war erupted in 2011: a way to stay in the background."If you think the Obama administration is upset at recent events in Syria, you have it wrong," Emile Hokayem, a Middle East analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, <a href="https://twitter.com/emile_hokayem">said on Twitter</a> last week. "Embarrassed? Yes, but it never wanted to lead."On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin took the stage at the UN General Assembly in New York for the first time in a decade. There he <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/here-comes-putins-big-speech-at-the-un-2015-9">called</a> for a "genuinely broad alliance against terrorism, just like the one against Hitler."Putin also used the speech to reiterate Russia's support for the Syrian government and emphasize how he thought US intervention in the Middle East had destabilized the region.Russia has been building up its military presence in Syria since late August to keep the embattled regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad from being overthrown by the many rebel groups gaining territory within Syria.In his own speech before the UN, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-un-speech-watch-video-2015-9">Obama said</a> Assad should not ultimately remain in place. But he did advocate a "managed transition" to a new leader, a compromise that Russia and Iran - which are doubling down on propping up Assad - will certainly welcome as the military stalemate continues.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><a href="http://www.iswresearch.blogspot.com/2015/09/perspectives-on-syrian-civil-war.html?utm_source=Perspectives+on+the+Syrian+Civil+War%3A+September+27%2C+2015&amp;utm_campaign=What%27s+Next+in+Syria%3A+A+Six+Month+Forecast&amp;utm_medium=email">ISW</a></div></div></div>"If the Russians had someone else they could propose that would guarantee the survival of the regime as it is now, they would have done so already," Tony Badran, a research fellow at the Foundation for the <keyword id="6354810" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="Defense">Defense</keyword> of Democracies, told Business Insider."The whole point of Putin's intervention is to move Obama towards accepting Assad staying, which has, for the most part, already been won," Badran said."Putin has now given Obama the perfect cover to do nothing about Assad."<h2>'Obama has used Putin as a foil'</h2>Barack Obama's signature foreign-policy achievement - a comprehensive nuclear deal with Iran - was finalized in July after more than a decade of coercive diplomacy and 20 months of grueling negotiations.During talks it became clear that the Obama administration's <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-its-my-name-on-this-if-iran-nuke-deal-backfires-2015-5">determination to secure a nuclear deal with Iran</a> most likely informed its decision to refrain from intervening in Syria, which Obama saw as an Iranian sphere of influence, Badran <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-startlingly-simple-reason-obama-ignores-syria-2015-7">told Business Insider</a> in July.And as The New York Times <a href="http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/10/23/world/middleeast/obamas-uncertain-path-amid-syria-bloodshed.html?referrer=&amp;_r=0">reported</a> in 2013, Obama seemed disinterested in the subject of Syria "even as the debate about arming the rebels took on a new urgency.""Mr. Obama rarely voiced strong opinions during senior staff meetings. But current and former officials said his body language was telling: he often appeared impatient or disengaged while listening to the debate, sometimes scrolling through messages on his BlackBerry or slouching and chewing gum."<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">Courtesy of the White HouseObama with his national-security staff to discuss Syria in the Situation Room of the White House on August 30, 2013.</div></div></div>Haunted by the war in Iraq and the disastrous campaign in Libya, and wary of mission creep, Obama has always been "deeply ambivalent" - and, as a result, deliberately ambiguous - on the subject of Assad's removal, and Russia has taken notice, according to Badran. "Russia has never been too worried about Obama accepting a continued role for Assad, because it is clear that Obama was never comfortable with Assad leaving," Badran said.As Badran sees it, the president - knowing that Tehran could "precipitate a crisis that would corner the White House," derail negotiations, and sabotage any hope for an opening with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani - never had any intention of intervening against Assad, which may be why Obama agreed so quickly when Russia offered to oversee the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons in September 2013."Obama has used Putin as a foil since day one," Badran said. "He's just been moving the goal post incrementally."<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">ReutersPutin and Obama during their meeting at the UN General Assembly on Monday.</div></div></div><h2>'Reading from the same playbook'</h2>So far, Obama has done little to counter Russia's expanding political influence in the region. With the help of Iran's cash flow and proxy militias, Putin has given a new lifeline to Assad, who has lost control over more than a third of his country since 2011.Assad is already reaping the benefits of Russia's intervention and coordination with Iran: Western leaders - including British Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and US Secretary of State John Kerry - have become increasingly accepting of Russia's assertion that the jihadists in Syria can only be defeated if Assad remains in power, at least in the short-term."It will be very difficult to push Assad out now," Ayham Kamel, director of the MENA program at Eurasia Group, told Business Insider. "Germany, the UK, and France have become openly accepting of his role in the transition."<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image">REUTERS/Yves HermanPutin and Obama with fellow G-8 leaders Angela Merkel of Germany, David Cameron of Britain, and Francois Hollande of France at a working session during the G-8 summit in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, in 2013.</div></div></div>"Russia's incursion has changed the parameters of what's possible," Kamel added.Initially, the US moved to block the buildup by asking countries such as Greece, Bulgaria, and Iraq to shut their airspace to Russian transport planes. While Greece and Bulgaria complied, Iraq did not, going so far as to shut the US out entirely and strike a deal with Russia, Iran, and Syria to begin sharing "security and intelligence" information about ISIS.During a one-on-one meeting on Monday, Putin <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/russia-is-trying-to-coax-the-us-into-sharing-intel-with-iraq-iran-and-syria-in-baghdad-2015-9">reportedly asked</a> Obama to join Russia's Baghdad-based intelligence-sharing coalition that includes Iraq, Iran, and Syria."What the Russians have done is a clever move," Yezid Sayigh, a senior associate at the Carnegie Middle East Centre, <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/syrias-assad-gets-chance-despite-military-setbacks-155236771.html;_ylt=A0LEVjaymwlWEkIAE7FjmolQ">told AFP</a> on Monday."It has shifted the balance again, helped buy Assad some time, made the Russians look important, put the Americans on the defensive, and all without actually changing much on the ground."<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image">REUTERS/Kevin LamarqueThe luncheon at the UN General Assembly in New York on Monday.</div></div></div>The Washington Post's Liz Sly <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/russias-move-into-syria-upends-us-plans/2015/09/26/6b285a06-5bba-11e5-8475-781cc9851652_story.html">recently reported</a> that Russia's activity in Syria has all but upended three years of US policy planning on Syria, derailing Washington's hope that Iran and the US would ultimately find some common ground.But ultimately, the administration may not be too upset about it: By forcefully pushing himself to the forefront of the Syrian quagmire, Putin has finally taken the weight of addressing "the Assad problem" off of Obama's shoulders."This gives Obama the opportunity to say 'we have to rethink' our priorities in Syria," Badran noted."Play for time, and let the dynamics of an ever worsening situation improve your position diplomatically. In a way, Obama and Assad are reading from the same playbook." <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/weirdest-phrases-used-military-2015-7">The 5 weirdest phrases only people in the military understand</a></h3> <div> <div> <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="B5Y3k4djoaekwXrjHjf2cthDact7A38R" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div> </div> </div> </div>

Putin has now given Obama the perfect cover to do nothing about Assad

LOS ANGELES (AP) - More than six weeks after hackers attacked Sony Pictures Entertainment, its computer network is still down but the studio has not lost a single day of production on any of its films or television shows, CEO Michael Lynton told The Associated Press on Thursday.
In a wide-ranging interview Lynton talked about the company's isolation and the uncertainty that was created by the pre-Thanksgiving attack, which the U.S. government has attributed to North Korea. Sony's experience as the target of such an unprecedented corporate cyberattack is undoubtedly being closely watched in boardrooms around the world.
"We are the canary in the coal mine, that's for sure," Lynton said. "There's no playbook for this, so you are in essence trying to look at the situation as it unfolds and make decisions without being able to refer to a lot of experiences you've had in the past or other peoples' experiences. You're on completely new ground."
Among the details Lynton discussed:
- Sony Pictures' computer network was so crippled employees dug through a basement for mechanical paycheck cutters and old BlackBerry devices so that senior managers could communicate securely. Employees are still being paid by paper check. The network will be down for another two to three weeks while it is being rebuilt, Lynton said.- While most of Sony's 7,000 employees already were on the Everbridge emergency notification system, Lynton said workers recruited the rest by word-of mouth to sign up. If he had to do it again, Lynton said he would have made it mandatory to do so. Senior managers created text and phone trees to communicate and held twice-daily meetings. The technology team created a temporary email system for all employees that was up and running one week after the Nov. 24 hack.
-The Federal Bureau of Investigation and investigative firm Mandiant were brought in within the first week. The FBI set up shop in a special set of rooms in the center of Sony's lot and conducted multiple hour-long "clinics" on a sound stage for 400 to 500 Sony employees at a time. The meetings covered identity theft - personal information on tens of thousands of current and former Sony employees was stolen and made public - and also some computer security tips.
- Most forensic on-site work is complete and remaining techs are trying to get the system back online.
- As news leaked, managers worked to dispel rumors, making themselves visible at Sony's commissary during meal times to answer questions, and sending out communications two to three times a week. About half of the company's 7,000 employees are on site. Managers also held town hall meetings and went from building to building speaking with groups of 80 to 90 employees at a time.
- Sony always planned to release "The Interview," but did not initially know how in the wake of theater chains cancelling screenings, and then was surprised by the FBI announcement pointing to North Korea. Cable, satellite and digital companies told Sony they were wary of running the film during the holidays, a traditionally high-selling period, out of fear of becoming targets for hacker attacks too.
- Sony purposely priced the online version of "The Interview" at $5.99 rather than a typical $9.99 or higher to avoid accusations of price gouging and to ensure more people could see it after the free-speech criticisms it had weathered. The studio still views the release of a film on on-demand video and in independent theaters as experimental. Lynton said the theatrical experience is important, especially for comedy "because people love to laugh with each other."
- Losses are still being calculated but Lynton said estimates thus far have been inaccurate. "What I'm hearing so far is that they're very manageable," he said. "They're not disruptive to the economic wellbeing of the company."

__
Tami Abdollah can be reached at <a href="http://www.twitter.com/latams">http://www.twitter.com/latams</a> .
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Copyright (2015) Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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This article was written by Tami Abdollah from The Associated Press and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.

Sony's Computer Network Is Still Down

<table class="image-container float_right" width="200"><tr><td><div class="image"></div><a href="http://www.apimages.com/OneUp.aspx?st=k&amp;kw=steve%20jobs&amp;showact=results&amp;sort=relevance&amp;intv=None&amp;sh=10&amp;kwstyle=and&amp;adte=1317899518&amp;pagez=60&amp;cfasstyle=AND&amp;rids=7f7ba8e9b63347a4893106ec9b98d57e&amp;dbm=PY2008&amp;page=1&amp;xslt=1&amp;mediatype=Photo">AP images</a></td></tr></table>SAN FRANCISCO/SEOUL (Reuters) - It was the late Steve Jobs' worst nightmare.
A powerful Asian manufacturer, <keyword id="10591" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Samsung">Samsung</keyword> Electronics Co Ltd, uses Google Inc's Android software to create smartphones and tablets that closely resemble the iPhone and the iPad. Samsung starts gaining market share, hurting <keyword id="6354427" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Apple">Apple</keyword> Inc's margins and stock price and threatening its reign as the king of cool in consumer electronics.
Jobs, of course, had an answer to all this: a "thermo-nuclear" legal war that would keep clones off the market. Yet nearly two years after Apple first filed a patent-infringement lawsuit against Samsung, and six months after it won a huge legal victory over its South Korean rival, Apple's chances of blocking the sale of Samsung products are growing dimmer by the day.
Indeed, a series of recent court rulings suggests that the smartphone patent wars are now grinding toward a stalemate, with Apple unable to show that its sales have been seriously damaged when rivals, notably Samsung, imitated its products.
That, in turn, may usher in a new phase in the complex relationship between the two dominant companies in the growing mobile computing business.
Tim Cook, Jobs' successor as Apple chief executive, was opposed to suing Samsung in the first place, according to people with knowledge of the matter, largely because of that company's critical role as a supplier of components for the iPhone and the iPad. Apple bought some $8 billion worth of parts from Samsung last year, analysts estimate.
Samsung, meanwhile, has benefited immensely from the market insight it gained from the Apple relationship, and from producing smartphones and tablets that closely resemble Apple's.
While the two companies compete fiercely in the high-end smartphone business - where together they control half the sales and virtually all of the profits - their strengths and weaknesses are in many ways complementary. Apple's operations chief, Jeff Williams, told Reuters last month that Samsung was an important partner and they had a strong relationship on the supply side, but declined to elaborate.
As their legal war winds down, it is increasingly clear that Apple and Samsung have plenty of common interests as they work to beat back other potential challengers, such as BlackBerry or Microsoft.
The contrast with other historic tech industry rivalries is stark. When Apple accused Microsoft in the 1980s of ripping off the Macintosh to create the Windows operating system, Apple's very existence was at stake. Apple lost, the Mac became a niche product, and the company came close to extinction before Jobs returned to Apple in late 1996 and saved it with the iPod and the iPhone. Jobs died in October 2011.
Similarly, the Internet browser wars of the late 1990s that pitted Microsoft against Netscape ended with Netscape being sold for scrap and its flagship product abandoned.
Apple and Samsung, on the other hand, are not engaged in a corporate death match so much as a multi-layered rivalry that is by turns both friendly and hard-edged. For competitors like Nokia, BlackBerry, Sony, HTC and even Google - whose Motorola unit is expected to launch new smartphones later this year - they are a formidable duo.
THE WAY THEY WERE
The partnership piece of the Apple-Samsung relationship dates to 2005, when the Cupertino, California-based giant was looking for a stable supplier of flash memory. Apple had decided to jettison the hard disc drive in creating the iPod shuffle, iPod nano and then-upcoming iPhone, and it needed huge volumes of flash memory chips to provide storage for the devices.
The memory market in 2005 was extremely unstable, and Apple wanted to lock in a supplier that was rock-solid financially, people familiar with the relationship said. Samsung held about 50 percent of the NAND flash memory market at that time.
"Whoever controls flash is going to control this space in consumer electronics," Jobs said at the time, according to a source familiar with the discussions.
The success of that deal led to Samsung supplying the crucial application processors for the iPhone and iPad. Initially, the two companies jointly developed the processors based on a design from ARM Holdings Plc, but Apple gradually took full control over development of the chip. Now Samsung merely builds the components at a Texas factory.
The companies built a close relationship that extended to the very top: in 2005, Jay Y. Lee, whose grandfather founded the Samsung Group, visited Jobs' home in Palo Alto, California, after the two signed the flash memory deal.
The partnership gave Apple and Samsung insight into each other's strategies and operations. In particular, Samsung's position as the sole supplier of iPhone processors gave it valuable data on just how big Apple thought the smartphone market was going to be.
"Having a relationship with Apple as a supplier, I am sure, helped the whole group see where the puck was going," said Horace Dediu, a former analyst at Nokia who now works as a consultant and runs an influential blog. "It's a very important advantage in this business if you know where to commit capital."
Samsung declined to comment on its relationship with a specific customer.
As for Apple, it reaped the benefit of Samsung's heavy investments in research and development, tooling equipment and production facilities. Samsung spent $21 billion (23 trillion won) on capital expenditures in 2012 alone, and plans to spend a similar amount this year.
By comparison, Intel Corp spent around $11 billion in 2012, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC) expects to spend $9 billion in 2013.
But component expertise, cash and good market intelligence did not assure success when Samsung launched its own foray into the smartphone market. The Omnia, a Windows-based product introduced in 2009, was so reviled that some customers hammered it to bits in public displays of dissatisfaction.
Meanwhile, Samsung publicly dismissed the iPhone's success.
"The popularity of iPhone is a mere result of excitement caused by some (Apple) fanatics," Samsung's then-president, G.S. Choi, told reporters in January 2010.
Privately, though, Samsung had other plans.
"The iPhone's emergence means the time we have to change our methods has arrived," Samsung mobile business head J.K. Shin told his staff in early 2010, according to an internal email filed in U.S. court.
Later that year, Samsung launched the Galaxy S, which sported the Android operating system and a look and feel very similar to the iPhone.
STANDOFF
Jobs and Cook complained to top Samsung executives when they were visiting Cupertino. Apple expected, incorrectly, that Samsung would modify its design in response to the concerns, people familiar with the situation said.
Apple's worst fears were confirmed with the early 2011 release of the Galaxy Tab, which Jobs and others regarded as a clear rip-off of the iPad.
Cook, worried about the critical supplier relationship, was opposed to suing Samsung. But Jobs had run out of patience, suspecting that Samsung was counting on the supplier relationship to shield it from retribution.
Apple filed suit in April 2011, and the conflagration soon spread to courts in Europe, Asia and Australia. When Apple won its blockbuster billion-dollar jury verdict against Samsung last August, it appeared that it might be able to achieve an outright ban on the offending products - which would have dramatically altered the smartphone competition.
But Apple has failed to convince U.S. judges to uphold those crucial sales bans - in large part because the extraordinary profitability and market power of the iPhone made it all but impossible for Apple to show it was suffering irreparable harm.
"Samsung may have cut into Apple's customer base somewhat, but there is no suggestion that Samsung will wipe out Apple's customer base, or force Apple out of the business of making smartphones," U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh wrote. "The present case involves lost sales - not a lost ability to be a viable market participant."
Samsung, meanwhile, came under pressure from antitrust regulators and pulled back on its effort to shut down Apple sales in Europe over a related patent dispute.
A U.S. appeals court recently rejected Apple's bid to fast-track its case, meaning its hopes for a sales ban are now stuck in months-long appeals, during which time Samsung may very well release the next version of its hot-selling Galaxy phone.
THE WORLD IS OURS
The legal battles have been less poisonous to the relationship than some of the rhetoric suggests.
"People play this stuff up because it shows a kind of drama, but the business reality is that the temperature isn't that high," said one attorney who has observed executives from both companies.
Still, the hostilities appear to have put some dents in the partnership. Apple is likely to switch to TSMC for the building of application processors, according to analysts at Goldman Sachs, Sanford Bernstein and other firms. But analysts at Korea Investment &amp; Securities and HMC Securities point out that Apple will not be able to eliminate Samsung as a flash supplier because it remains the dominant producer of the crucial chips.
Apple declined to comment on the details of its relationships with any one supplier.
Meanwhile, both companies are deploying strategies out of the other's playbook as they seek to maintain and extend their lead over the pack.
Samsung has developed a cheeky, memorable TV ad that mocks Apple customers, and dramatically ramped up spending on marketing and advertising, a cornerstone of Apple's success. U.S. ad spending on the Galaxy alone leaped to nearly $202 million in the first nine months of 2012, from $66.6 million in 2011, according to Kantar Media.
For its part, Apple is investing in manufacturing by helping its suppliers procure the machinery needed to build large-scale plants devoted exclusively to the company.
Apple spent about $10 billion in fiscal 2012 on capital expenditures, and it expects to spend a further $10 billion this year. By contrast, the company spent only $4.6 billion in fiscal 2011 and $2.6 billion in fiscal 2010.
But Apple and Samsung retain very different strategies. Apple has just one smartphone and only four product lines in total, and tries to keep variations to a bare minimum while focusing on the high end of the market.
Samsung, by contrast, has 37 phone products that are tweaked for regional tastes and run the gamut from very cheap to very expensive, according to Mirae Asset Securities. The company also makes chips, TVs, appliances and a host of other products (and its brethren in the Samsung Group sell everything from ships to insurance policies).
Apple devices are hugely popular in the United States; Samsung enjoys supremacy in developing countries like India and China. Apple keeps its core staff lean - it has only 60,000 employees worldwide - and relies on partners for manufacturing and other functions. Samsung Electronics, part of a sprawling "chaebol," or conglomerate, that includes some 80 companies employing 369,000 people worldwide, is far more vertically integrated.
It is those differences, combined with the formidable strengths that both companies bring to the market, that may render quiet cooperation a better strategy than all-out war for some time to come.
Said Brad Silverberg, a former Microsoft executive who was involved in the Mac vs. Windows wars, "Apple had learnt a lot of lessons from those days."
(Reporting by Dan Levine and Poornima Gupta in San Francisco, and Miyoung Kim in Seoul; Editing by Jonathan Weber, Tiffany Wu and Peter Cooney)
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