In response, the CEO himself took to the Blackberry blog to calm their supporters and millions of Blackberry users.
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BlackBerry CEO John Chen said that the Priv has been a well-received device, and for that reason, he added that the company will be releasing a couple of new Android-based smartphones in 2016.
Most smartphone OEMs embrace multiplatform strategies as a way to hedge their bets and diversify their product portfolios, so while BlackBerry supporting both Android and BlackBerry 10 wouldn’t be unheard of in this respect, BlackBerry’s handset business has always been in a precarious financial position.
And yet, it seems that Chen’s ideas on the subject are far clearer than he’s letting on.
Moreover, BlackBerry will push the Priv to 31 new countries over the next few quarters. Chen confirmed to CNET that its traditional BlackBerry OS will be ditched and instead Android smartphones will be released for the 2016 calendar year.
The BlackBerry 10 OS can be found in some of the Canadian company’s current smartphone models out there, including the BB Passport and the BB Classic among others.
The decision to switch to the Android OS could perhaps be attributed to the performance of BlackBerry’s proprietary OS.
Customers can get the BlackBerry Priv through the company’s official site.
The move comes as a surprise for everyone as Blackberry had committed to its home-grown operating system for the better part of the decade, even though Android and iOS took over the mobile software industry.
Does it matter?The notion of BlackBerry ditching BlackBerry 10 makes plenty of sense, considering BlackBerry 10’s lack of popularity among average consumers.
As such, it could be that BlackBerry will focus on creating new handsets based on Android, while just providing software updates for BB10.
In February 2011, BBRY stock was trading near $70.00 per share. In January 2015, BBRY stock showed signs of recovery, though the stock never made it past the $12.60 mark.
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Yet BlackBerry stock can recover, as the Chen’s leadership, after focusing on deep cost-cutting efforts, can devote more effort to growth. It is also guiding for sustained operating profitability sometime in fiscal 2016.
