[Developing]: According to CNN, BlackBerry has announced that it is abandoning plans to be sold. Current CEO, Thorsten Heins, is stepping down, and the company's market share is down by 18% in pre-market trading.
More information as we get it.
Things still aren't looking up for BlackBerry, as the struggling Canadian phone maker revealed Thursday it will lay off 250 more employees as part of a continuing plan to cut costs and rescale its operations.
Via: AppleInsider.com
Starting in 2014, the Pentagon will be opening up its internal network to platforms other then BlackBerry – including Android and iOS.
Speaking to web site AppleInsider.com, Lt. Col. Damien Pickart said the change“won’t be a shotgun approach, where everyone will get the same apps and devices.”
Pickart also noted that it won’t be a BYOD policy just yet:
“It’s not BYOD; it is the department migrating to a multi-vendor environment that is going to include more than BlackBerry currently. BYOD is a long-term objective, but we’re just not there yet. The technology is there, but things like security, we’re not quite there yet.”
The Pentagon is currently evaluating the BlackBerry 10. However, Col. Pickart believes that both Android and iOS have come a long way and will be able to meet the Department’s Security Requirements:
“Other systems are maturing in their capability to provide greater security with their systems, the level of security with BlackBerry has been above most, but others are moving toward that and are achieving that.”
Cross posted from androidscoopnews.wordpress.com:
Blackberry 10 is Blackberry’s last ditch efforts at reclaiming some market share and some of its former glory, and so far based on what we’ve seen, it certainly holds a lot of promise. However the question we’re sure many are wondering is will it be enough? There has been talks in the past that Blackberry might sell itself off, and CEO Thorsten Heins has even suggested that there could be a day in the future where Blackberry might have to license out its operating system. All of that suggests that Blackberry will still continue operating Blackberry in some degree, but Apple’s co-founderSteve Wozniak seems to think otherwise.
Speaking to media outlets, Wozniak offered up his opinion that perhaps instead of licensing out Blackberry 10 to other hardware manufacturers, Blackberry will instead make the switch to the Android operating system, following in the footsteps of other hardware manufacturers like Samsung, LG, HTC, Motorola and so on. Considering that Nokia pretty much abandoned its Symbian and MeeGo operating system in favor of a revolutionary change to Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform, it is not entirely out of the realm of possibility that Blackberry could make that move someday, but what do you guys think? Will Blackberry continue to hold onto its operating system or do you agree with Steve Wozniak that Blackberry could switch to Android one day?
Source: Ubergizmo.com
