BlackBerry 10 Failed as Mobile Company’s Savior: 10 Reasons Why

by Don Reisinger

One of the key components in establishing a trusted brand is to deliver strong marketing that appeals to all of a company’s prospective customers. BlackBerry failed to do that. The company had an initial push showing off its product, but then all but ignored its target market. The company didn’t even think to partner in a strong way with carriers. What was the company thinking?

By announcing the BlackBerry Q10 alongside BlackBerry 10, the company sent the wrong message to customers. BlackBerry 10 was supposed to show that the company had changed. And yet, it offered up a device with a physical keyboard. BlackBerry is supposed to be innovating, not looking like the old company that no one liked.

BlackBerry’s Z10 was a nice step forward, in that it showed the company could actually deliver a product that could mimic the functionality found in the iPhone. The trouble is, the device’s design isn’t special, it lacks a truly innovative feature, and it seems like a product that was created solely to catch up to competitors. That’s a bad, bad thing.

Despite its best attempts to coax developers to its platform, BlackBerry didn’t provide enough high-quality applications at launch to excite customers. Apple’s App Store and the Google Play marketplace still reign supreme–and BlackBerry is still far, far behind.

BlackBerry 10 is a nice operating system that comes with all of the features one would expect, including a solid virtual keyboard, strong camera software and a relatively nice design. But beyond that, it’s hard to find anything that’s truly special or impressive. BlackBerry 10, in other words, is run-of-the-mill. And in the mobile space, run-of-the-mill is a very bad thing.

The enterprise was supposed to save BlackBerry. Instead, BlackBerry promoted the new operating system as a way for consumers to get more from their handsets. That quickly resulted in IT decision-makers ignoring the operating system and opting for something else. It was a major misstep on BlackBerry’s part.

At the same time, BlackBerry did nothing to make consumers care about its products. Sure, the operating system was new and it would run on a touch-screen device, but isn’t that what every other product on the market offers? Consumers weren’t made to feel that BlackBerry was doing something special for them. And it’s failing now because of it.

Apple is still the dominant force in mobile. And despite its best efforts to marginalize the iPhone and the impact that device is having on its business, BlackBerry has failed. BlackBerry 10 and all of the devices running the operating system have nothing on Apple’s iPhone. And until that changes, BlackBerry will be in deep trouble.

If BlackBerry should have learned anything from Nokia, it’s that a single company—save for Apple—cannot win when it’s on its own. BlackBerry is trying to deliver both software and hardware, which is costly and requires deep customer loyalty. Unfortunately for BlackBerry, its customers aren’t that loyal, and the company might have benefited greatly from bundling Android with its devices and moving on.

Apple and Samsung are dominating the mobile landscape, which is making it tough enough for BlackBerry. But to make matters worse, the company is battling against an army of competitors, including HTC, Motorola and Huawei. The competition for mobile profits is fierce. And right now, BlackBerry is buckling under that pressure.