Blackberry’s aggressive push will benefit consumers: Steve Makris

The BlackBerry annual Live Conference I attended ended this week in Orlando, Florida on a positive note.

More than 5,000 global partner and app developers attended seminars on BlackBerry back-end administration techniques and new ways to create apps and services for BlackBerry phones.

The Waterloo based mobility company, is on a comeback with the recent launch of two newly designed BlackBerry Z10 and Q10 smartphones on a new operating system and a money-making last quarter.

BlackBerry may never return to its old glory days but the company is pushing all the right buttons to assert itself as the phone of choice for business as well as consumers wanting a fresh way to efficiently slide and swoosh fingers on screen  between menus and programs.

Still the dominant phone for large companies, financial institutions and government agencies world-wide, BlackBerry has been steadily losing users to mostly iPhone and a collectively growing Android market share.

In his keynote address CEO Thorsten Heins announced a third BlackBerry Q5, a visibly cheaper but chic looking plastic keyboard model.

It’s light with a surprisingly sharp and bright screen, a smaller 5 megapixel camera and available in several colors including pink. I found it more attractive than previous affordable BlackBerry models. To shave costs, the back is not removable for battery or additional memory upgrades.

Priced right, the Q5 may very well become the company’s new global flagship model in developing countries, a new trend for electronics makers targeting emerging markets.

Canadians may still be able to get a Q5 according to Andrew MacLeod, BlackBerry Managing Director Canada. “I wouldn’t discount the Q5 not being available in here, we are looking at all markets,” he said.

In a bold move Heins also announced the high traffic BlackBerry Messenger for iPhone and Android phones, available this summer. This could be a double edged sword for BlackBerry while it makes itself visible in competitive phones, it may also give one less reason for folks to buy a BlackBerry phone for BBM.

BlackBerry also quietly dropped its monthly license data fees for its new BlackBerry 10 models in North America. The fee, unknown to most consumers, was passed on to more expensive “BlackBerry” plans. Canadian cellcos I talked to described the fee as an annoying friction point with customers.

Giving away signature features like BlackBerry Messenger, allowing for a small fee, competitor phones to its cash cow administrative BES back office technology and dropping usage fees might make investors cringe.

But Heins’ Trojan Horse philosophy is to connect to any mobile device with BlackBerry technology and sell as many of his phones globally with an equal emphasis to business and consumer users.

BlackBerry has invested heavily in shoring up its application eco system with more efficient programming for third party developers to write business and leisure BlackBerry phone software.

“I think they are doing a good job with us developers,” said David MacFarlane with Ottawa based smarter-apps.com They are much more responsive to our needs with great support.”

Setting its own standards for consistent looking programs and finding new ways to reward and promote developers, BlackBerry has shown early success in its fledgling online BlackBerry World store front.

Now more than 120,000 apps, up from 70,000 earlier this year, the store just added Skype and much awaited audio synthesiser Moog, iHeart Radio and Bloomberg Hub.

BlackBerry even hired gaming veteran Anders Jeppsson, Director Global Head of Gaming Category.  He thought he was out of a job when BlackBerry acquired hid startup SouthEnd Interactive best known for The Astonishing Tribe, in 2010. He was surprised when he was offered the post. “If I thought BlackBerry’s gaming strategy was just lip service, I would have left a long time ago”, said the 17 – year gaming veteran.

But with the absence of competitors solid winner apps like Vine and Instagram, BlackBerry is still fighting a lack of quality content perception.

The conference brought on some criticism from big business customers on BlackBerry’s important business Balance feature which allows the same phone to securely switch between work and home mode.

An open forum with big BlackBerry customers like Bank of America voted its number one wish list: a BlackBerry Balance smart phone with two sim card slots to accommodate a second phone number for easier administration of employees phone use at home.

BlackBerry was all ears at the conference and taking as many notes as attendees.

Heins’ goal is to be number three behind Apple and Android phones, something already achieved in Canada. “We are unquestionably there,” said McLeod noting a perfect storm between company marketing and a patriotic like enthusiasm from Canadian cellcos Telus, Rogers and Bell.

“We made an incredible amount of noise around this…that’s the sizzle but the steak is the product,” said McLeod.