Chen: Time for BlackBerry to focus on profits

We haven't heard from BlackBerry CEO John Chen for some time. But the man put in charge of turning around BlackBerry, now is focusing on profitability. The business-centric BlackBerry Passport has been a success, selling out twice on BlackBerry's website. Chen had a limited quantity of the device produced to prevent inventory from getting overloaded.

Chen says that BlackBerry is now officially a survivor, and that the worse is over for the one time smartphone leader. Prior management failed to take seriously the new touchscreen era, ushered in with the introduction of the Apple iPhone in January 2007. BlackBerry was known for its physical QWERTY keyboards and its top executives just couldn't understand why people would rather type on glass.

Orders for the square-screened BlackBerry Passport continue to rise. It is the first 'Berry in the touchscreen era that features top-shelf specs, including a Snapdragon 801 processor under the hood, along with 3GB of RAM. The 13MP snapper on the back is the best camera ever employed on a 'Berry and some users are getting two days without a charge thanks to the 3450mAh battery employed by the manufacturer.

Chen said that he hasn't finalized plans for 2015, although we should see a new device with unique capabilities. Speculation has the company working on a phone with a hide-away QWERTY. We should also see refresh models for the BlackBerry Passport, the yet to be released BlackBerry Classic and the Foxconn produced BlackBerry Z3.


source: Reuters