post Friday April 12, 2013
As smartphone giants Samsung and Apple continue to achieve the lion’s share of the mobile device market, Blackberry is restructuring their company and a great deal of their strategy in order to fight to regain their position in the smartphone market.
Once a pioneer in the smartphone market, Blackberry has struggled to compete and keep up with the recent trends of touch screen phones. Blackberry has generally been associated with predominantly business persons and typically has not fared as well in the realm of social media and other digital content for its users. Additionally, Blackberry has maintained a great deal of focus on using smartphones that still use qwerty keyboard instead of using touch screens. These are two hindrances that have slowed Blackberry's evolution and development of products.
In order to combat Blackberry’s shrinking market share, the company has rebranded themselves from the old name, “Research in motion,” and are now strictly Blackberry. The company has a new slogan, “One brand. One promise.” In addition to these brand changes, Blackberry has developed a new operating system that aims to dramatically improve the user interface of a smart phone. There are a handful of considerable improvements to standard user interfaces, and there is a great deal of market anticipation of the potential for this new interface. The biggest question is if this new Blackberry 10 operating system is innovative enough to draw consumers from their current products, Apple & Samsung, to return to Blackberry’s new phones. Blackberry is also working with recording artist and musician Alicia keys to further develop digital content, specifically the music and music interface of the Blackberry 10 operating system.
These changes could not have come much later, as Blackberry’s market share has fallen as low as less than 2 percent in the core markets of US consumers. This rebranding and development of new products is extremely important to the long term revival of this company. Not all analysts are sold that the new phone with the new operating system is enough to kick start new growth in the mobile device market. Time will tell if these adaptations are enough to salvage the company and prevent further business struggles.
Source:Financial Times
Image Source: Free digital photos
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