At BlackBerry HQ in Waterloo yesterday, I sat down with Research In
Motion CEO Thorsten Heins, and the company's newly appointed CMO, Frank
Boulben. We covered a lot of topics, including the ramifications of BlackBerry 10 launching in the first quarter of 2013 vs. the previous target of Q4 2012.
The CrackBerry community, myself included, has not been very forgiving
to RIM on this delay since word of it came out via the company's recent
earnings announcement. After speaking to both Thorsten and Frank, I have
a much clearer understanding of why the decision was made to wait. Not
only do I understand it now, but I
get it. From a product
quality, marketing and carrier support standpoint, it actually makes a
lot of sense. Of course, that won't make waiting for BlackBerry 10 any
easier.
Heins Could Have Delivered a BlackBerry 10 Phone in 2012
Talking style after the interview: My long hair and Heins' awesome motorcycle helmet
Heins understands just how frustrated we are with the delays and made it
clear that he wasn't happy about the having to change the timeline
either, but he simply won't allow RIM to ship anything that is less than
100 percent. That probably wouldn't have happened under the old guard.
"Don't get me wrong," Heins told me. "I'd have loved to stick to that
schedule, and I could have, if I would have sacrificed quality for it.
We're not going to put product out there that isn't ready. We're done
with that. That's over. This is not what we will be doing. So we gave
the team the time to get it done and do it properly."
The primary concern over maintaining quality was squarely focused on
maintaining platform stability while integrating new blocks of code into
the main "trunk." Basically, RIM locked down the features it wanted in
BlackBerry 10 for launch, and the software group went to work in teams
to tackle it. The individual teams were very successful at getting their
individual pieces built, but when it came time to drop all the new code
into the main codebase, they found things were a bit messy (some
inconsistency in the way APIs were being introduced between different
software teams, etc.). At that point they made the decision to halt the
process and clean things up to ensure all future code drops would go
more smoothly.
Heins says the real cost of this process is a 6 - 8 week shift on the
timeline of launching the full-touch BlackBerry 10 phone. As I
hypothesized in a previous editorial,
Heins also confirmed the delay in the launch of the full touch phone
doesn't impact the timeline of the qwerty version, so the lag between
the two devices being launched will be reduced from what was originally
planned. As for when, Heins is confident Q1 2013 will not slip.
"I'm very confident about the first quarter, whether it's January or
February," Heins told me. "You'll see lab entry and technical acceptance
already kicking in, in Q4. Just the ramp up and launch with carriers
will happen in Q1."
It's Better to Launch in Q1 2013 than No Man's Land 2012
One of the primary concerns expressed by myself and the CrackBerry
community over the delay to 2013 was that RIM will miss out on important
holiday sales.
Heins acknowledged this as the major detriment to the delay and noted
that him and Boulben had intense discussions around this subject. The
consensus was that even without the delay to 2013, getting into stores
late in Q4 may have proved to be less than ideal.
Boulben, the chief marketing officer, echoed that sentiment.
"The carriers want to take full advantage of Q4," Boulben told me. "So
if you want to have a real push from the carrier you need to be there in
September / October. Then you have the marketing money, the share of
voice and the staff would have been trained in September. If you are
going to come to market in the second half of November or beginning of
December, you won't get the full efficiency of the marketing of the
carrier."
Heins said they actually refer to this late November/December period at
RIM as "No Man's Land," and, he continued, "you never want to launch
during 'No Man's Land.' "
Boulben added that some carriers reached out to him directly and advised
him that RIM should target a January launch for BlackBerry 10 to which
Heins made note, "It actually gives us more focus and attention in Q1."
Why Launch a Full Touch BlackBerry phone before the QWERTY model?
With the talk of delays out of the way, I shifted my focus to another question that comes up on CrackBerry a lot.
Why launch the full touch BlackBerry 10 phone first? I have my theory on it, so wanted to hear the real answer straight from the BlackBerry CEO himself.
"There's two reasons for this. The first reason, without being arrogant,
I think we own the full qwerty market. The Bold 9900 is doing a good
job of this in the market with our corporate customers. In the US we're
most under pressure with the BYOD movement in enterprises, so we need to
get in the battle. That's why we need the entry card, which is the full
touch device, so we can go to enterprises and say, hey look at this,
this is the full touch from BlackBerry and it does things way better
than what you have today. And I think it's going to be way better. And
then the qwerty comes
immediately thereafter."
"The second reason is technology. Building the full touch device on this
platform is more complicated than the qwerty one. So it's natural that
you make the more complex product first that actually clears the
pipeline for the platform."
So that's that.
The One, Two Punch - Announcing the first two BlackBerry 10 phones together
New CMO Frank Boulben is already making an impact at RIM
Another benefit of moving the launch of BlackBerry 10 to Q1 2013 is that
it gives more time for RIM's new CMO to get the marketing plan
together. That said, only four weeks into the role it's clear that
Boulben has hit the ground running.
Says Heins:
"Frank has a great marketing plan together for BlackBerry 10. Frank
presented it to the board and the management team and they were really
excited by it. It's really the first integrated, focused marketing
campaign that RIM has done. I'm really looking forward to this. I think
the world is going to be surprised by how well we execute. Not just on
the product but also on the marketing side of it.
"We will announce them together and not in sequence. We'll just come out
and say full touch available at (this date) and full QWERTY available
at (this date)."
I couldn't help but let out a big grin at this news. It just makes so
much sense. We've seen a lot of misreporting in recent weeks that RIM
would be abandoning having a physical keyboard with BlackBerry 10. Those
who follow the BlackBerry beat know this isn't true, but the average
consumer is not as informed. Announcing BlackBerry 10 with a full
touchscreen and qwerty version together ensures there will be absolutely
no confusion in the market place. As marketing ramps up from day one,
everybody will know BlackBerry 10 is available in both full touch and
physical keyboard flavors. They'll be announced the same time, and the
marketing efforts will benefit both devices. And it's clear that RIM
will want the world to know they have the best typing experience on both
qwerty and touch phones.
And maybe the best part is that RIM is targeting a global co-ordinated launch effort here and the carriers are on side.
"The carriers are with us," Heins told me. "All these things with the
carriers are progressing: launch windows, launch plans, and Frank is all
over this with the sales force. We have that support. The carriers want
this platform out there. They see the Samsung / Apple duopoly and they
don't like it. They want another third force. They believe we can do
this. They've seen BlackBerry 10. They've had their hands around it.
They can see it. And I think they like what they see. So that's on
track."
Full Touch or QWERTY... That is the Question!
Knowing BlackBerry 10 phones will be announced together and that the
full touch and qwerty versions will launch in quick succession, the
question for upcoming BlackBerry 10 owners now becomes, full touch or
qwerty?
It's a tough call. Go for the screen real estate? Or go for those
buttery smooth buttons a la the Bold 9900? I guess with BlackBerry 10
six months away we'll have plenty of time to contemplate this one. Or
better yet, use the time to save up and just buy both.