BlackBerry CEO Aims during Samsung and Apple with a Launch of BlackBerry Z10
For BlackBerry (formerly RIM) currently has been a prolonged time coming. A year and a half after previewing BlackBerry 10, a totally overhauled program for phones, it is finally rising a initial phone formed on a height in a U.S. Starting today, a BlackBerry Z10 will be on sale during ATT stores for $199 with a two-year contract. It will be accessible during Verizon and T-Mobile subsequent week.
But a launch comes during a tough time for a Canada-based company, that has mislaid signficant marketshare in a final few years. The dual vital smartphone players, Google and Apple – who unseated BlackBerry in a initial place – are pulling their things even harder during a moment. Just final week Samsung announced a latest Galaxy S4 Android phone to most pushing and Apple has now started to pull a iPhone 5 even some-more to contest with it.
WATCH: BlackBerry CEO Talks Apple, Samsung, New Phones
But BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins isn’t fazed. He’s prepared for a fight, he told ABC News in an interview, and believes a new BlackBerry provides something wholly opposite and better.
“They are innovating, they are always improving a hardware, for example,” Heins said. “But from a pristine user knowledge perspective, we did something that was new. We did something opposite and that is some-more appealing to users since it only creates their lives easy.”
A Distinct Position
Heins knows a foe is extreme and simply knocking a competitors out is scarcely impossible. Instead he has focused on fixation BlackBerry in a possess position – a position he hopes will win a association a bronze in a smartphone race, behind Android and a iPhone’s bullion and silver.
“It’s a extreme foe especially driven in a U.S. market,” Heins said. “In a mature market, to be everyone’s heavenly doesn’t work. Apple has a position, Samsung has a position and BlackBerry has a position, and we am rebuilding BlackBerry‘s position.”
BlackBerry‘s position still is really most like a aged position, in that a device is still directed during a connected professional, or what Heins calls ” a hyperconnected multitasker.”
Yet a new phones leave behind BlackBerry‘s repute of creation old-fashioned and indolent hardware. The Z10, as we wrote in a review, has all a specifications of a high-end smartphone: a dual-core processor, 2GB of RAM, LTE and a 4.2-inch HD touchscreen. The all-touchscreen device will be assimilated by a some-more traditional-looking BlackBerry Q10, that has a hardware keyboard, in a few months.
But a BlackBerry 10 program is what sets a inclination apart, says Heins. This week he even went so distant to call a iPhone’s program interface aged in an talk with Australian Financial Review.
“When hold inclination got introduced 5 years ago, it was a insubordinate user interface, with apps and a focus grid,” Heins told ABC News. “But what we did was take this to a subsequent turn and reinnovated a focus grid.”
MORE: BlackBerry Z10 Review
BlackBerry 10 facilities singular multitasking features, including Peek and Flow, that concede we to appropriate adult and over to and see your notifications or messages from any screen. A underline called BlackBerry Balance creates seperate work and personal areas on a phone.
Focus on Applications and a Future
And since it’s a complicated smartphone it has apps too. Despite program developers’ carrying to emanate all new applications for a new platform, BlackBerry has cumulative over 100,000 BlackBerry 10 applications in a store. There are renouned ones too, like Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Amazon Kindle, Skype, Rdio and more.
However, some pivotal apps like Instagram and Netflix are still missing. Apple and Google have over 700,000 in their particular app stores. Microsoft’s Windows Phone faces identical hurdles to BlackBerry; as of Dec 2012, it had 150,000 apps in a store.
“Both app stores are flourishing in numbers and are fast stuffing out their preference of ‘table stakes’ apps,” Michael Gartenberg, Gartner investigate director, told ABC News. Yet notwithstanding a numbers both Microsoft and BlackBerry are hold behind by Apple and Google’s lead. “Long tenure it isn’t about perfect numbers though peculiarity of a App Store curated experience, where new ‘must have’ apps go initial and a peculiarity of an app on a given platform,” Gartenberg added.
While Microsoft and BlackBerry (then RIM) once ruled a smartphone market, a dual fell distant behind after a introduction of a iPhone and afterwards Android phones. Shipments of BlackBerry phones fell from 46 percent in 2008 to dual percent in 2012, according to Research Firm IDC. App makers now prioritize a biggest platforms — Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android.
Heins concurred BlackBerry‘s “downward spiral,” though says it has schooled a doctrine from station still and not gripping adult with a industry’s rate of innovation.
“You always have to be on your tippy toes,” he said. “Yes, BlackBerry 10 is a success, though theory what? We are already operative on a subsequent things already, since we know a competitors are good innovators as well.” At a finish of a talk Heins discussed one of those innovations — a phone-powered inscription or laptop.
“To me, this is not only a subsequent smartphone. This has a energy of a laptop. This is not only a smartphone anymore,” he said. “This is your personal computing power. Think about what we can do with that. How many personal computing inclination do we carry? Why not harmonize this to one device that executes all your computing needs?”
MORE: BlackBerry Testing Phone-Powered Tablets, Laptops
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