Le retour de BlackBerry aux mains de Foxconn et de la startup texane OnwardMobility avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 \u00e9t\u00e9 annonc\u00e9 tr\u00e8s reccemment, mais il a \u00e9t\u00e9 reconfirm\u00e9 il y a quelques jours par un article du Nikkei Asian Review. Il n’y a pas beaucoup de nouveaux d\u00e9tails par rapport \u00e0 ce que nous avons d\u00e9j\u00e0 appris pr\u00e9c\u00e9demment : le seul nouveau d\u00e9tail vraiment significatif est le lancement du nouveau smartphone 5G – naturellement avec un clavier physique, sinon quel genre de BlackBerry serait-il ? \u2013 Il sera au niveau mondial, donc cela affectera aussi notre march\u00e9. Pour le reste, l’information la plus importante est la suivante :<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The exact timetable has not been revealed, but further details will be shared \u00ab\u00a0in the coming months\u00a0\u00bb. 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n