Advertisement

  • News
  • Columns
  • Interviews
  • BW Communities
  • Events
  • BW TV
  • Subscribe to Print
BW Businessworld

Will Android Work For BlackBerry?

Photo Credit :

For the past few years BlackBerry has managed to hang around in the market with their production cycle going on an all-time low. The company’s last handset was the Leap which was an expensive deal and didn’t manage to grab any attention. However, according to a well known source on Twitter, BlackBerry might be preparing to launch a flagship device very soon and surprisingly it will not be running on BB OS.
 
The BlackBerry Venice could come in as the first ever device from the company that will run on Android and will also boast some high-end features. The handset is said to feature a curved 5.4-inch QHD (2560x1440) display and will have a slider form factor with a full QWERTY keyboard, something that BlackBerry fans can’t live without. Other features point to a 16MP rear camera, a 5MP front camera, 3GB of RAM, and a hexa-core CPU by Qualcomm. The Venice might not be the only one as there is a possibility that the company might be launching more than just one Android based handset. This news comes from the same source and suggests that another device looking similar to the BlackBerry Passport could see the light of day.
 
BlackBerry couldnt manage to catch up to Android, iOS or Windows Phone even after tweaking their mobile system to support Android apps last year. The company’s 43% US market share in the year 2010 has now slipped to just 1.5% and it is similar around the global market. It seems that experimenting with the new mobile system is another attempt from the company to regain its loyalty among its fans. This move could turn out to be a wise choice as Android is statistically the most used mobile operating system and moving to it might improve BlackBerry’s dwindling sales.
 
Having said that, BlackBerry is still one of the top makers of secure and high reliability software for industrial applications and mobile device management. If thecompany can manage to provide a seamless integration of all its services and software along with the Android ecosystem, it could be a win-win situation for BlackBerry.  Not to mention, Google could definitely use BlackBerry’s proprietary software to improve certain features on Android.  
 


Tags assigned to this article:
blackberry venice android enterprise smartphone bb