Le retour de BlackBerry aux mains de Foxconn et de la startup texane OnwardMobility avait déjà été annoncé très reccemment, mais il a été reconfirmé il y a quelques jours par un article du Nikkei Asian Review. Il n’y a pas beaucoup de nouveaux détails par rapport à ce que nous avons déjà appris précédemment : le seul nouveau détail vraiment significatif est le lancement du nouveau smartphone 5G – naturellement avec un clavier physique, sinon quel genre de BlackBerry serait-il ? – Il sera au niveau mondial, donc cela affectera aussi notre marché. Pour le reste, l’information la plus importante est la suivante :
The return of BlackBerry will happen on a large scale
The high-end smartphone segment is inseparable from the BlackBerry brand, which has done so much for the industry and remains one of its undisputed pioneering names.
The smartphone will go on sale during 2022.
The exact timetable has not been revealed, but further details will be shared “in the coming months”. At one point, a launch towards the end of 2021 was expected, perhaps just in time for the Christmas period. The Texas-based startup OnwardMobility was founded by Peter Franklin, who previously worked for Microsoft and Zynga. OnwardMobility will be responsible for designing the device, while Foxconn will take care of manufacturing it.
As mentioned above, 5G connectivity and a physical keyboard are expected.
In keeping with the tradition of BlackBerry smartphones, OnwardMobility is promising to put the emphasis on cybersecurity, which is more important than ever now that so many of us are working from home.
BlackBerry and its past
BlackBerry enjoyed huge success in the past, but was hit hard by the rise of smartphones and, for the most part, was never really able to recover. The formerly Canadian company tried several different paths: it stuck with its own proprietary operating system while attempting to adapt to a world of touchscreens and apps, then it moved over to Android, and then it chose to focus on services and licence out the brand. None of these moves truly succeeded.
Ambitions worthy of the brand
The goal OnwardMobility has set itself is very ambitious: the smartphone market is saturated and there no longer seems to be much space for smaller manufacturers. You could probably say the same about physical keyboards: they tried to hold out during the early Android years, but now Android has clearly taken over and BlackBerry has been pushed into the background. At most, you can blame autocorrect. There have been a few experiments more recently, but nothing really meaningful has come from them.
The BlackBerry Key3
This is how the BlackBerry Key3 will be launched in the near future. It promises to be highly capable, and its backers are sure it will hold its own, even against its famous rivals – namely Apple’s iPhone and Samsung Galaxy handsets. So it is very much a case of wait and see!
