My take on BlackBerry Android
by Volker Weber
Horia asked me to write something about the Reuters piece on "BlackBerry may put Android on new smartphone". The thing is that I don't speculate (much) and that I have no additional insights. But let's look at a few facts:
- BlackBerry 10 runs Android apps today.
- BlackBerry won't run Android apps in the secure container.
- BlackBerry sees its future in secure infrastructure.
- BlackBerry is working with Samsung on securing and managing Android.
- BlackBerry has chosen Samsung for a highly secure Android tablet.
- BlackBerry is educating customers how to write secure Android apps.
- BlackBerry 10 has largely failed to establish itself as a platform.
- BlackBerry is struggling to sell 10 million smartphones a year, the bare viable minimum.
If you connect these dots, you may be wondering why they are not already doing it. Imagine a BlackBerry hardware (with keyboard) running a secure Android platform. They could easily sell 10 million of those.
Comments
Please don't. The very reason I switched to BB10 was that (for me) Android simply sucks.
Am I doomed to always fall in love with mobile platforms soon after ending up in obscurity?
Maybe it's just you ;-) (No offense intended)
I wonder where Nokia would be today if they hadn't put that Microsoft trojan in charge and had adopted Android instead. Just imagine all that beautiful Nokia hardware with Android. I'm pretty sure they could have sold a shitload of those.
I would welcome this step if they doing it right! They take a hugh step with bringing the new BBOS 10.3 at one day for (nearly) all devices. Even the Z10 received this update. This is something which is a real big pain when comparing Andorid to iOS.
Further more there a some really nice features for someone who see a BlackBerry as working device (keyboard, hub, etc.). If they keep this and separeted workspaces which interact without any problems as one with cars (no need to sync or export contacts) Android is more than welcome!
Alot of "if"s, but when ... :-)
BB10, especially the 10.3.2 release, is such a great O/S. That being said, if BB successfully layered their solution onto a Galaxy 6 Edge, it would be a game changer. It seems like a logical step for BB.
I don´t understand why people like that creepy Android-OS much more than BBOS 10. Does it only depends on the Hardware and the brand they don´t like?
It does not really matter why. But I have been there before with OS/2 and Windows.