BlackBerry is returning to the Chinese market, but have the problems it encountered been resolved?

2007 was a very interesting year, with many major events happening at the same time. For example, Nokia launched the N73, which was extremely important to the series. With the help of Windows Mobile system, HTC brought out the S1, which still looks very beautiful today, and paved the way for Diamond in the following year. Samsung and Motorola both had an inextricable relationship with thinness and lightness, and they launched the U600 and Moto V8 respectively. Even ten years later, these two products are still worth recalling.

However, in 2007, another mobile phone company far away on the other side of the Pacific Ocean was rarely mentioned. It was BlackBerry from Canada. That year was equally important for it. Because in August 2007, BlackBerry's stock price was pushed to a high price of $236 by the market, which was also the highest price since the company was founded in 1999. Its market share in North America was close to 50%. However, although BlackBerry was in high spirits, they were facing a major turning point.

Now let's turn the clock forward seven months to January 2007. This is a story that everyone knows. Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, released the first generation of iPhone at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. He demonstrated on site how to use the iPhone's built-in Safari browser to browse maps, display music and videos in real time, and announced a cooperative subsidized sales contract with AT&T.

When Mike Lazaridis, the founder of RIM (early BlackBerry), saw this scene for the first time on a treadmill, he was shocked and couldn't help but wonder: "How did they do it?" At the time, although BlackBerry was also sold with the help of AT&T, AT&T clearly stipulated that mobile phones were not allowed to have full-featured web browsers built in. Apple not only broke this "regulation", but also made smartphones provide an experience that was previously impossible.

So the next day, Mike Lazaridis quickly called Jim Balsillie, then co-CEO of RIM, to his office and asked him to watch a demonstration of the iPhone's functions. Lazaridis expressed concern that Apple's move might make the situation in the US market more severe. After all, no one had successfully pried AT&T apart before.

However, in the face of concerns, Balsillie simply chose to ignore them. In the following months, the CEO of RIM still did not pay enough attention to the iPhone. Even in a subsequent interview, when faced with questions about the iPhone, Balsillie only said: "The rumors that BlackBerry will face a huge change are obviously exaggerated."

Now, let's go back to 2017. In the 2016 smartphone market report released by market research company Gartner at the beginning of the year, iPhone sales in the fourth quarter reached 77 million units, while BlackBerry smartphone sales totaled 207,900. Its market share in the list was even shown as 0%, which means that BlackBerry phones, which once dominated an era, are now dead in name only in the global smartphone market.

However, things always turn around. Just before this year's MWC, BlackBerry suddenly announced that it would cooperate with Chinese manufacturer TCL, which will be responsible for the manufacturing of BlackBerry phones and provide technical support in the future. Recently, BlackBerry, which has been silent for a long time, finally revived on Weibo and announced that it will hold a new product launch conference on August 8. The protagonist of the conference is the KeyOne launched at MWC, which means that after Nokia, another sentimental manufacturer has announced its return.

But we wonder, can BlackBerry avoid the reasons for its previous failure?

The obsession with technology once blinded BBer's eyes

Many people attribute BlackBerry's failure in the North American market to the sudden emergence of the iPhone. This is not groundless. In fact, in the North American market, the sales growth of the iPhone and the decline in BlackBerry's sales showed a corresponding trend. It can be said that although the two seemed to be targeting different target groups at first, they unexpectedly overlapped in terms of end users.

However, BlackBerry executives never saw this clearly. In 2008, when iPhone 3G returned with the App Store, BlackBerry still said that if the iPhone could succeed in the market, it would be sought after by users who did not pay much attention to efficiency and security applications, while RIM users paid more attention to secure and efficient communication systems. At the same time, BlackBerry also sneered at mobile Internet content and insisted that providing mobile Internet access was not the area in which BlackBerry's business should be involved.

To be fair, BlackBerry is not the only company squeezed by the iPhone. In fact, many traditional smartphone manufacturers such as Nokia and Palm ignored the industry changes brought about by the iPhone in the early days, but the latter two quickly made changes in their business and products, while BlackBerry chose a more wrong path.

For example, the company insisted that people would soon get bored with the "touch toy" that had a battery life of no more than 8 hours, and launched the Storm, a disaster in the history of smartphones, the following year.

BlackBerry's failure: Storm

BlackBerry finally came up with a product to compete with the iPhone at the end of 2008 - Storm, which was BlackBerry's first full-touch phone. In fact, BlackBerry had already started developing Storm at the end of 2007, and its prototype was well received by Verizon officials, so Verizon even promised to spend $100 million to promote Storm. However, after it was launched on the market, Storm became a nightmare for both companies.

Perhaps it was due to Verizon's huge subsidies that Storm received a good response in its early days on the market, with 1 million units sold within two months, and even a shortage of units outside. However, in sharp contrast to the high sales volume, BlackBerry engineers within RIM were worried about Storm, because they all knew that the company was selling a product with problems.

Soon, the Storm's quality problems became known, such as frequent freezes, reboots, and touch screen failures, which annoyed consumers. These phenomena eventually led to Verizon paying a large amount of repair costs up front, and almost every Storm phone sold initially needed to be replaced.

Storm's quality problems caused the relationship between Verizon and RIM to deteriorate completely, because RIM rejected Verizon's offer of $500 million in compensation, and Verizon obviously suffered a great loss in this matter.

Confused strategy BB10 or Android?

The power of iPhone finally became apparent in 2010, when Apple launched the most important product in the series, iPhone 4, which quickly became the most popular product in the market. BlackBerry was dreaming of building a new platform to compete with iOS and the emerging Android, and the core of this plan was QNX.

QNX, which was born in 1980, had been active in the automotive industry long before BlackBerry got involved. QNX's customers include most of the world's well-known automobile manufacturers, including Audi, BMW, Porsche, Land Rover, Honda and other companies that use the QNX system. BlackBerry's mission is to bring QNX to its familiar mobile platform to strengthen its strength in the operating system field. So in 2011 we saw the first tablet computer equipped with the QNX system - PlayBook.

PlayBook is a tablet device with a 7-inch display. Although it attracted widespread attention when it was first launched, the actual experience did not make users open their wallets. The high price and lack of basic functions (version 1.0 did not even have an email browser) caused PlayBook to fail again.

At this time, the voices calling for BlackBerry to switch to Android were getting louder and louder, but RIM remained unmoved due to security concerns and plunged into the development of the BB10 system. However, BlackBerry was still troubled by the keyboard or touch version at this time. Mike Lazaridis insisted that the keyboard version should be the top priority to meet the needs of BlackBerry's loyal fans: "This is our livelihood product and our iconic device. The keyboard is also a reason for users to buy BlackBerry."

I don't know whether maintaining the keyboard phone product line distracted BlackBerry too much, or whether it was just the company's own indecision. In any case, it wasn't until 2013 that we actually saw the first smartphone equipped with BlackBerry 10 - Z10, and it had been two years since BlackBerry started developing it.

Two years not only made its old rival Apple stronger, but also gave its Android rivals enough time to develop. In 2013, the success of Galaxy S3 pushed Samsung to the altar, and mobile phone manufacturers from China also made efforts in almost the same year, so the living space left for BlackBerry has become smaller and smaller.

Therefore, the success of BlackBerry 10 almost determines whether BlackBerry can continue to stay in the mainstream market.

However, the subsequent story is just like the Storm a few years ago. The slow pace of BlackBerry 10 updates and application support cannot stimulate ordinary users to buy. They are fed up with BlackBerry's nonsense about security and mobile office. They are more willing to indulge in Facebook and Twitter, and Z10 can't even do these two things well. For core fans, BlackBerry 10 products lack the efficiency and calm experience of BlackBerry in the past. Z10 doesn't even have a keyboard, so they are naturally not satisfied.

Until the first quarter of 2014, BlackBerry had only sold 2.7 million BlackBerry 10 devices. At this time, BlackBerry began to consider developing Android devices, but when BlackBerry's first Android phone Priv was launched, it was already the end of 2015.

BlackBerry's New Life

At the end of last year, BlackBerry and TCL signed a licensing agreement. According to the agreement, TCL Communications can use BlackBerry's security software, service suites, and related brand images and assets to design, manufacture and sell BlackBerry mobile devices after obtaining BlackBerry authorization, while BlackBerry itself will further invest in the security field and no longer produce hardware products. This means that another era we are familiar with is leaving us, and after TCL took over, a new life for BlackBerry is slowly brewing.

Soon we saw KEYOne at this year's MWC. It is still a smartphone with BlackBerry full keyboard, but its operating system has changed to Android. Just last month, BlackBerry's official Weibo account in China was reopened, and the first post greeted all Chinese users, "Hi BlackBerry!" At the same time, domestic technology media including Aihuo.com received invitations, confirming that BlackBerry will hold a new product launch conference on August 8, and the focus of the conference is naturally the KEYone, which was released overseas for half a year. Undoubtedly, TCL still hopes that the BlackBerry brand can gain some success in the Chinese market.

Considering the recent performance of TCL Communication, it is understandable to have such an idea. In fact, BlackBerry is the third overseas traditional mobile phone brand acquired by TCL after acquiring Palm and Alcatel in 2015. Currently, the main revenue of TCL's mobile phone business comes from the performance of Alcatel overseas. However, in the first half of 2017, the terminal sales volume of TCL Communication decreased by 36.16% year-on-year, and only 21.17 million units were sold, which means that TCL Communication needs a new growth point to maintain its performance throughout the year.

However, this is not so simple, because the space left for emerging brands in the Chinese market is getting smaller and smaller. According to the second quarter report of the Chinese market in 2017 released by market research company Counterpoint this month, although China has become the world's largest smartphone market, its growth has gradually slowed down, and the increase is lower than that of markets such as India. At present, tablets led by Huawei, OPPO, vivo and Xiaomi have divided nearly 70% of the market share, followed by Apple and Samsung, and the remaining 10% is also eyed by a number of manufacturers such as Sony and Gionee.

It has been 10 years since the release of the iPhone in 2007. BlackBerry has missed two opportunities to catch up. With the help of TCL's resources, can it seize the third opportunity to fight back? Although the hope is not great, I still have expectations.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.