End of an era, anyone?
BlackBerry has announced that it will discontinue its BlackBerry Classic smartphone. The company’s Chief Operations Officer and General Manager for devices, Ralph Pini, made the announcement via a post on the BlackBerry’s official blog. He states, “To keep innovating and advancing our portfolio, we are updating our smartphone lineup with state of the art devices. As part of this, and after many successful years in the market, we will no longer manufacture BlackBerry Classic.”
This marks the end of an era for BlackBerry, where the company attempted to revive its dying fortunes with a device aimed at focussing on the company's strengths. While the BB Classic aimed to fuse touch input with its customary QWERTY keyboard, it never managed to critically appeal outside its loyal fan base.
It is possible that BlackBerry may be making room for a new device that will replace the Classic. A few days ago, VentureBeat reported that the company might be planning to launch three new Android-powered smartphones, codenamed Neon, Argon and Mercury. The BB Neon is tipped to be a mid-range device, while the Argon is expected to be the most expensive of the three, powered by a 5.5-inch QHD display and Snapdragon 820 SoC. The BB Mercury is also tipped to feature a physical QWERTY keyboard laid out differently than BB's implementation with the Priv.
On such note, the Mercury may just be the successor to the BlackBerry Classic. The BB Priv was the company's attempt to reenter the smartphone industry with an Android-powered device, and has since faced reasonable appreciation without managing to majorly catapult BlackBerry's sales numbers. With upcoming Android-powered smartphones nearly confirmed for launch some time later this year, will BlackBerry manage to reclaim the market that it once ruled?
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Shrey Pacheco
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