What do new BlackBerry phones, desktop BBM mean for the company?
Tech analyst Carmi Levy and CBC Kitchener-Waterloo online host Andrea Bellemare held a noon live chat about what's next for smartphone maker BlackBerry. Check out the replay of the chat at the bottom of the page.
BlackBerry posted a $423 million US loss for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014 on Friday even as the company told Reuters it was looking to target business executives with high-end keyboard phones and was considering bringing the BBM app to desktop.
Revenue for the smartphone maker over the three-month period fell to $976 million — a 64 per cent decline from $2.68 billion a year earlier.
Despite its struggles, CEO John Chen told CBC's Amanda Lang, host of The Lang & O’Leary Exchange in an interview that he has "no interest" in selling the company any time soon, which he says has a lot of value.
"I think the shareholder will not be as rewarded by selling at this point because our full value hasn’t been realized," he said.
Chen has also said that the company has designed at least three different handsets as they work to bring phones to market that will appeal to government workers and business users.
The company is also considering bringing the BlackBerry Messenger service app to desktop users, a move aimed at corporate users and transition group chats from computers to phones.
Many are pinning their hopes for the company on Chen, but could these moves be enough to change BlackBerry's fortunes?
Here's the replay of the BlackBerry live chat with Carmi Levy.
