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trekorvar
For those complaining about audio quality, switch to carriers and devices ...
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Yoshida in Madison: Don't declare BlackBerry DOA
Junko Yoshida
1/31/2013 11:50 AM EST
MADISON, Wis. -- Here we go again.
As soon as Research In Motion--which renamed itself BlackBerry--unveiled Wednesday (Jan. 30) its two new devices--Z10 and Q10--running on the company’s new BB10 operating system, the whole world is now talking about how the new devices failed to impress Wall Street analysts.
BlackBerry’s Z10 phone looks similar to Apple's iPhone 5, or any other new smartphone model. It features an 8- megapixel camera and high-definition video. BlackBerry’s Q10's touch screen is significantly smaller, so that it allows space for a physical QWERTY keyboard. It looks similar to recent BlackBerry Bold models.
The announcement, indeed, did not move the needle for the Canadian company. The company’s Nasdaq-listed shares closed down 12 percent Wednesday at $13.78.
Reuters reports that at least three financial analysts have downgraded the company’s stock.
In an era when a company’s (and/or a technology’s) worth is often measured by “like” tags from the financial community, I shouldn’t be surprised that the general public already seems to agree that BB10--and by extension the whole BlackBerry brand--is DOA.
Maybe so. But, just for the heck of it, let’s consider exactly what in the new Blackberry devices disappointed the financial community. Specifically, the two biggies were pricing and product delay.
Here are the facts we know as of Thursday morning:
Verizon Wireless said it would sell the Z10 for $199 with a two-year contract, or $149 with a three-year contract in the United States. Verizon will offer both Q10 and Z10 on its 4G LTE network. But the company did not announce pricing for Q10.
Sprint is only planning to carry the keyboard-equipped Q10 at this time, with no immediate plans to carry the touch-screen Z10 device. T-Mobile for now is said to be just planning to carry the touch-screen Z10. AT&T said that it will offer the Z10 and the Q10.
The point here is that no one has any information as to how much the keyboard-equipped Q10 is going to cost; nor how U.S. carriers other than Verizon are going to price either Z10 or Q10, let alone how much they will eventually cost in the “emerging markets.”
But apparently it's already been determined that $199 for Z10 is too expensive. And the financial analysts, according to Reuters, noted that “average sales prices might be too high for many emerging market users." They also raised questions about how quickly businesses would adopt the new devices.
As soon as Research In Motion--which renamed itself BlackBerry--unveiled Wednesday (Jan. 30) its two new devices--Z10 and Q10--running on the company’s new BB10 operating system, the whole world is now talking about how the new devices failed to impress Wall Street analysts.
BlackBerry’s Z10 phone looks similar to Apple's iPhone 5, or any other new smartphone model. It features an 8- megapixel camera and high-definition video. BlackBerry’s Q10's touch screen is significantly smaller, so that it allows space for a physical QWERTY keyboard. It looks similar to recent BlackBerry Bold models.
The announcement, indeed, did not move the needle for the Canadian company. The company’s Nasdaq-listed shares closed down 12 percent Wednesday at $13.78.
Reuters reports that at least three financial analysts have downgraded the company’s stock.
In an era when a company’s (and/or a technology’s) worth is often measured by “like” tags from the financial community, I shouldn’t be surprised that the general public already seems to agree that BB10--and by extension the whole BlackBerry brand--is DOA.
Maybe so. But, just for the heck of it, let’s consider exactly what in the new Blackberry devices disappointed the financial community. Specifically, the two biggies were pricing and product delay.
Here are the facts we know as of Thursday morning:
Verizon Wireless said it would sell the Z10 for $199 with a two-year contract, or $149 with a three-year contract in the United States. Verizon will offer both Q10 and Z10 on its 4G LTE network. But the company did not announce pricing for Q10.
Sprint is only planning to carry the keyboard-equipped Q10 at this time, with no immediate plans to carry the touch-screen Z10 device. T-Mobile for now is said to be just planning to carry the touch-screen Z10. AT&T said that it will offer the Z10 and the Q10.
The point here is that no one has any information as to how much the keyboard-equipped Q10 is going to cost; nor how U.S. carriers other than Verizon are going to price either Z10 or Q10, let alone how much they will eventually cost in the “emerging markets.”
But apparently it's already been determined that $199 for Z10 is too expensive. And the financial analysts, according to Reuters, noted that “average sales prices might be too high for many emerging market users." They also raised questions about how quickly businesses would adopt the new devices.
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de_la_rosa
1/31/2013 2:41 PM EST
Why do articles relating to BlackBerry always talk about how secure their phones are compared to others?
Who exactly needs such security? Why would a company use email to send such secure data in the first place?
Blackberry's were just cool for a while. Now they're not. End of story.
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chanj
1/31/2013 8:54 PM EST
In the age of smart device, I don't think any makers would have much choice in terms of form factor. Probably, not until a retractable screen or a projection screen out of thin air are used, all devices are going to look very similar to each other - a rectangular box with a glass.
Soon after iPad coming out to the market, there have been a movement of security in mobile device. I haven't seen a major product until Blackberry's announcement. The questions are how secure and why corporation would rather have it. Now, it's a test to Blackberry marketing. Stay Tune!
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WW Thinker
2/1/2013 2:30 AM EST
BB could offer the most secure system end-to-end in the past. Today, this is no longer true. Even if BB still own the title, given BOYD and given that it pretty much lost the war among consumers, whatever it had in the enterprise market will simply have a slow death. Those in the rank and file at BB should start to think about the exit plan. Any investors who keep singing cheerfully are simply trying to offload their investment to those with less intelligence. BB will remain a small niche company and become extinct if it is not careful. For those who argue BB still have the chance, please consider what Microsoft can offer in the enterprise.
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iniewski
2/1/2013 12:24 PM EST
Comparisons to iPAD are really misleading...iPAD for Apple was a new device in a cool form factor that people liked...new BlackBerry is just another phone, I don't see how that can change the sales significantly...they will not disappear but they will nt crush Apple either
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BobsView
2/1/2013 3:16 PM EST
Why is it every time a new cellphone is launched, they tell us consumers how great the camera is. Who cares?
I have never, nor will I ever, use my phone for a camera. I have an HD camera that runs rings around any phone camera for taking pictures.
My wife didn't heed my advice and lost some very important pictures of her now-deceased parents when the phone went dead. It was not recoverable.
Why don't they tell us how great the audio quality of the new phone is? That's what really matters.
Every new phone introduced seems to have worst audio quality than the previous generation. And Blackberry's audio quality, in my opinion, is one of the worse, although the others are quickly catching up. Don't know why that is, but that is my experience with Smart Phones.
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C VanDorne
2/4/2013 11:30 AM EST
I'm an audio kind of guy and I totally agree with Bob. But unfortunately good, quality, duplex audio (and therefore pleasant phone conversations) went out as soon as phones started to get sold on gadgetry instead of audio quality, which conincided with the emergence of digital over analog. Also, as the number of users grew exponentially spoken words necessarily became multiplexed packets of data instead of continuous transmissions of expression. Since that is never coming back, I think guys like us will be left wanting.
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Bert22306
2/4/2013 4:07 PM EST
Unfortunately for digital telephony, the digital voice standards use the old analog 4 KHz limit (3KHz audio in practice) as the gold standard, and attempt to approach that with perceptual coding techniques. So audio quality will never be good.
But there is a way around that: Skype. Audio over Skype easily beats the quality of compressed ~9.6 Kb/s cellular audio.
As to the picture quality, actually I like that improvement. Was once a silver halide photo buff of sorts. Now that you can't even find decent film anymore, I've gotten to rely on my cell phone as a handy camera, always available. But it could stand a lot of improvement in terms of resolution.
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rick.merritt
2/4/2013 11:07 AM EST
It's interesting that neither Microsoft with its Wi8ndows franchise or Blackberry with its "crackberry" momentum could keep pace with Apple and Android so far.
Blackberry 10 is a solid effort, but I don't see it helping them catch up. Rather I think it will let them sustain their position a while longer.
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BobsView
2/4/2013 4:50 PM EST
Maybe I'm in the minority, but I still think if a company came out with a cellphone that had at least as good audio as you get with Skype or Magic-Jack, sales would be brisk. Only problem is, both parties would have to have the same cellphone or the audio would be no better.
It's absolutely amazing to me that with today's technology, phones don't routinely have 20 Hz to 10 KHz audio response. If they can send video over a cellphone, why not high-fidelity audio? Audio takes a lot less bandwidth than video. I guess we need more engineers making technical decisions.
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trekorvar
2/5/2013 11:43 PM EST
For those complaining about audio quality, switch to carriers and devices supporting HD Voice,
http://www.gsma.com/technicalprojects/hd-voice
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