Recent events have been very disheartening for Blackberry. I don’t think I would ever want to be in a company that loses something as big as $10B in one go, for one thing. And to close your doors to public shareholders and to go back to being a private firm, after general success for so many years? Insufferable. If their CEO were Japanese, he’d fallen on a sword by now.
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| The 9220 is my current unit. |
Be that as it may, though, I think it’s safe to say that I will remain a fan of the phone, and the service, for the next three years or so. Despite the rather lackluster roster of apps available to the phone, Blackberry has three things going for it that works out so well for me.
Moxy
It takes a lot of nuts to survive a $10B profit loss for a single quarter (wasn’t it?). It takes even more moxy to keep powering on despite said loss, and despite having to lay off a huge chunk of your work staff. Facing all of those employees, and telling them that as of today, they were no longer under the employ of RIM / BlackBerry isn’t easy, and being able to do that, and moving on past it, is admirable. It’s not good, and it’s not fair to the workers who were laid off, but cutting off your own limb when it’s gangrenous shows a cold determination to survive.
Dedicated Network
I love the BB network. Not only is it cheaper Internet on the go here in the Philippines, but it’s showed itself to be secure and reliable. I get to use my social media whenever I need to, and I get work emails wherever I am (and so long as there’s a decent enough cell signal) I own a 2G handset of the company, and when I need to get some work done, I bridge the connection over to my Playbook. Despite the toll it has on the battery life of the phone, I find that I haven’t had any problems with this set-up. 2G is, as of now, still plentiful in the Philippines, and I don’t think it’ll change anytime soon – so I have no doubt that I can continue doing this indefinitely for the next few years.
BBM
Blackberry Messenger is, hands down, the best messenger service I have ever seen. I can’t help but think that all of these unlimited messaging services – Viber, KaKao Talk, and WeChat – are just built upon the service that BBM has already proven itself capable of providing. YM was the benchmark for computer chatting – BBM is the one for mobile messaging. I don’t need those stickers, or even all those emoticons. I just need to be told that my message was delivered, that it has been read, and that the person I’m talking to is trying to get in touch with me as well.
And these three are the main reasons why I won’t be switching from Blackberry any time soon. If the quality of any of these three take a dip within the next three years, then I may reconsider. But the fact is, I stuck with a beat-up old Nokia CBE (cheap bastard edition, courtesy of my friend Jon Abaca) for several years, and then with a Nokia C3 for several more years after that. I’m in no hurry to upgrade.