BlackBerry Pleads With Users To Keep Believing In Its Future
It's typically not a great sign when a company has to come out and publish an open letter to the public in order to woo them back. Usually, by that point, the war has already been lost. In fact, one could argue that such an act makes the company seem even more desperate. Unfortunately, we aren't talking about hypothetical things; BlackBerry has been forced to do exactly this, just years after ruling the smartphone world. The open letter assured clients far and wide that BlackBerry was "here to stay," despite an announcement weeks back that could see the company taken private in a $4.7 billion deal.
Massive layoffs are ahead, and it will scale back its interest in the consumer market. Despite all that, Frank Boulben, the company's chief marketing officer, had this to say: "Our customers read a lot about BlackBerry these days, as we make the headlines quite often - this has created a lot of noise and confusion. We want customers to know that they can continue to count on us - we are here to stay. We have substantial cash on our balance sheet and we have no debt. We are restructuring our cost base and this is a very painful transition, but it will make us financially stronger and we want to get that message directly to our customers."
The wild part is that he may not be fibbing. BlackBerry could massively cut what it does (say, transitioning to a pure software/app company) and save millions, keeping itself alive for years to come as a shell of what it used to be. Only time will tell how this all plays out for one of the mainstays in mobile, but these are seriously strange times indeed.
Massive layoffs are ahead, and it will scale back its interest in the consumer market. Despite all that, Frank Boulben, the company's chief marketing officer, had this to say: "Our customers read a lot about BlackBerry these days, as we make the headlines quite often - this has created a lot of noise and confusion. We want customers to know that they can continue to count on us - we are here to stay. We have substantial cash on our balance sheet and we have no debt. We are restructuring our cost base and this is a very painful transition, but it will make us financially stronger and we want to get that message directly to our customers."
The wild part is that he may not be fibbing. BlackBerry could massively cut what it does (say, transitioning to a pure software/app company) and save millions, keeping itself alive for years to come as a shell of what it used to be. Only time will tell how this all plays out for one of the mainstays in mobile, but these are seriously strange times indeed.
