BLACKBERRY PHONE’S NEXT CHAPTER

The countdown is on for the final smartphone designed in-house by BlackBerry. Waterloo, Ont.’s smartphone-turned-software company revealed on Twitter that the longawaited keyboard phone will be released at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Feb. 25. Codenamed “Mercury,” this will be the third BlackBerry device made by China’s TCL Communication. BlackBerry and TCL first revealed the phone at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier in January. No specifications were provided. BlackBerry first forged a partnership with TCL to manufacture its DTEK50 and DTEK60 devices, both released in summer 2016, based on TCL’s Alcatel phone models. BlackBerry announced in September that it will stop designing phones itself so it can focus on software, fulfilling CEO John Chen’s promise to exit the hardware business if he couldn’t make it profitable by fall.