Over the past few years, much has been written about BlackBerry’s historic fall from grace. In a turn of events that already has the trappings of a classic Business School 101 case-study, the famed Canadian tech giant once ruled the smartphone market with an iron fist before Apple swooped in out of nowhere and pushed them to the brink of irrelevance.
Once it became clear that Apple’s take on the modern-day smartphone was where the entire industry was headed, BlackBerry tried to implement all sorts of gimmicks, strategy re-shifts, and executive shuffling in an effort to stay afloat. Alas, there was nothing that BlackBerry could do to remain relevant in a smartphone market that quickly became a two-horse race between Apple and Android.
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Amid mounting losses, BlackBerry earlier today signaled its intention to stop developing BlackBerry smartphones in-house. Instead, the company will pivot (yet again!) and will now focus its efforts exclusively on security and software while leaving the hardware to third parties.
Interestingly enough, Apple now appears to be taking up more and more ground in the enterprise, an area that BlackBerry once dominated. In the wake of Apple inking a new and sweeping iPhone/iPad deployment deal with Deloitte, the Financial Times asked Tim Cook about BlackBerry’s aforementioned announcement.
Not one to mince words, Cook said: “I think their sales have been fairly low for a while. We are very focused on the opportunity and we see it as massive.”
Indeed, with Apple looking for more ways to grow the iPhone line, the company in recent years has been paying increasingly more attention to the enterprise.
