BlackBerry CEO John S. Chen, in an interview with the New York Times Bits blog:
“My view of BlackBerry is broad,” Mr. Chen said in an interview following a speech at the Oasis conference here. “I’ll let the software determine what kind of device we make.” This could mean embedding Blackberry communications in other products, or making new ones, and forming partnerships, he said.
It’s a seemingly big change for BlackBerry, which became famous with its raised keyboard phone, but is getting hurt in that business. Mr. Chen, who earlier saved Sybase, a database company, by moving new businesses over several years, thinks creating assets apart from phones are key to BlackBerry.
Chen did a masterful job reinventing Sybase, taking them from a somewhat precarious position into a big growth juggernaut before retiring. He’s now signed on for a five year commitment with BlackBerry. I hope he is successful. There are a lot of jobs at stake.
BlackBerry has to spend some money on marketing to ensure it has a customer profile, in preparation for the possibility that it returns to broad health. Mr. Chen said, however, that being in the consumer eye is not the priority at the moment.
For reassurance, he has turned to a most consumer-oriented showman who once found himself in a position similar to Mr. Chen.
“I watched Steve Jobs on YouTube, when he came back to Apple,” said Mr. Chen. “He got up and said, ‘I don’t have a new product, I’m insanely focused on my customer base.’ That’s me now.”
In Mr. Chen’s case, that is not consumers, but large, regulated enterprises and the government. The good news is, they pay more money. The hard news is, they want innovation, too.
Though some might bristle at the comparison, (Chen can’t possibly be comparing himself to Jobs, can he?) I think in one narrow way, he’s right on. Focus on the customers. The innovation part is the big question mark. Time will tell.
I got the sense that Chen is not comparing himself to Steve Jobs, but rather is comparing the sorry, sad state of Blackberry today to the sorry, sad state of Apple in 1996. The fact that a Blackberry CEO realizes that Blackberry is totally broken represents progress for Blackberry.
A year ago I would have said that Blackberry and Microsoft should just give up on mobile, that Apple had it locked up, but since iOS 7, I think the field is wide open.
Perhaps the only analyst who predicted big things for Apple when Jobs returned also was bullish on Blackberry a couple of years ago. He cited similarities to Apple, including insanely loyal users. Problem is that was 2-3 years ago and those folks already left. And unlike Mac users who left for a product that many felt was a have to, not want to, BB users switched to a product in iOS/Android that was a better experience. BB should change their name back to Research in Motion and focus on the services side, which, especially in enterprise could be profitable. I don’t see them gaining hardware traction, and perhaps that is Chen’s thought as well.
Blackberry should give up on mobile hardware – Chen is trying to position it as a software company. It is what he knows and where there is potential. Competing with Apple and Google is masochism right now. Even Microsoft, a company with deep pockets, is struggling. What rescued Apple from the dark days of 1997 was keeping it’s shrunken, dispirited base. But the majority of the Blackberry base is comprised of consumers. I assume Chen is referring to the corporate base which dictates what employees can use. That’s a very different scenario. Good luck to him, but it would be a mistake to count on well-funded competitors to fail. Chen is basically going back to RIMs roots which means consumers are short-term cows (as Jobs famously said, before re-joining Apple, about milking the Macintosh).
using Jobs as a role model is a great idea, not a bad one.
Bristling at the idea that someone compares himself to Steve Jobs makes it seem like Steve was some sort of saint like Jesus.