Blackberry OS 10:

Blackberry has finally come out with a survival plan. A new OS 10. New models of phones Z10 and Q10. I wonder what the alphabet stand for. Perhaps Z for ‘Last’ attempt at touchscreen type OS. While Q may stand for ‘Question mark’ on continuing with qwerty keyboard.
Many good reviews are already on the net which give detail review of features of OS. Here is a review from the perspective of a consumer called upon to decide if it is a time to shift his loyalty away from Blackberry.
OS 10 is based on QNX which is a Unix like OS. It is the same platform on which all the previous touch devices of Blackberry were based. Take a look:

BlackBerry OS 10 Screenshot.

BIS and Pushmail is gone

For the un-enlightened it will come as a shock that BB is not pushing the mail from its servers to new phones. It may be the beginning of end or just a change. The phone comes with a built in client which is pop3/imap and it fetches the mail from any mailbox that supports POP3/IMAP. This email client works on regular data connection and does not require BIS. I would welcome the change if this client works better than existing alternates to BIS. The Enterprise Server Customers shall be unaffected by change.

An admission of guilt

The fact that BlackBerry has provided a generic email client, proves the fact that BB has admitted that it is guilty as charged; i.e. Monopolizing/overcharging the customers through BIS which did not help it to reach masses. But it also marks an eagerness on the part of BB to change the fundamental model of its business. With this change BB will become a phone vendor like Nokia/Iphone/Samsung and not an integrated ‘data service provider’ what it was, until now. Even though it continue to support BBM, which is its bread and butter now.

Punishment for loyalty.

The aforesaid drastic turn around was on the cards. However it means the customers who remained loyal to the company inspite of its failure and who were sponsoring BlackBerry would be left in a lurch. Presently this email client is not available to existing phones. No reason why? It would be an interesting issue for Anti-trust department to deal with. It is unfortunate that BB has left all these issues open to speculation.
Perhaps it considers that the existing customers were too dumb to continue and are too dumb to understand the changes in the air or to ask any questions. I only wonder.

Related Posts:

Pushmail on BB without BIS
Selecting right smartphone
Backing up Contacts on BlackBerry.
BlackBerry Curve 9220 Review.
Ideal Mobile Phone.

© Sandeep Bhalla