BlackBerry may release one last phone
New device approved by FCC awaits go-ahead by CEO following testing
TORONTO Loyal BlackBerry fans may still be able to get their thumbs on a last new, in-house designed handset despite the company’s decision to stop developing hardware internally by the end of its fiscal year.
BlackBerry Ltd. CEO John Chen is in the midst of testing a handset prototype — it sounds like it features the beloved keyboard — that was already in the works when the company decided to give up hardware development to focus on software, he told reporters at a roundtable discussion at the Waterloo headquarters on Wednesday.
“The one with the keyboard, I guess it’s kind of resting in my office .... I’m testing it right now,” Chen said.
But an enigmatic Chen refused to go into details of when, or if, BlackBerry intends to release this phone to the market.
“We’re not making any announcement of whether there is one or isn’t one. There exists in this world one,” he said.
It is standard for BlackBerry personnel to test devices before they go to market, Chen said before adding that some carriers have already seen the device. BlackBerry expects to make a decision on its release once they come back to him with a business case.
“We’ll go from there, we’ll make a decision from there,” he said.
Chen indicated the company had at least two mid- to high-range smartphones in development when it released financial results in June. In July, the company unveiled the Android-powered DTEK50, a modified version of a phone built by China’s TCL Corp.
Last week an apparent leak of the DTEK50’s successor was posted on BlackBerry’s website, but the company took down the page marked “do not publish” shortly after technology websites noticed the specifications for a new phone dubbed the DTEK60. (Specifications for this particular phone didn’t appear to include a keyboard.)
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission approved a new BlackBerry device last Friday, according to an FCC filing. (This device appears to be the so-called DTEK60.)
Chen was clear that BlackBerry will follow through with its promise to stop designing phones, but was less direct when answering questions on the future of a device (or devices) that appears to be quite far along in the development process.
“I guess if I decided to go ahead with the phone, then that might be the last BlackBerry-designed phone in terms of hardware,” he said.
“If I decide not to go forward with the phone, then you might have seen the last BlackBerry-designed phone (the Priv).”
The Priv, released in November 2015, got great reviews but didn’t sell well due to its high price.