{"id":52966,"date":"2015-06-24T20:02:59","date_gmt":"2015-06-24T12:02:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=52966"},"modified":"2015-06-24T20:02:59","modified_gmt":"2015-06-24T12:02:59","slug":"questions-persist-over-blackberrys-future-but-ceo-john-chen-vows-to-fight-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/06\/24\/questions-persist-over-blackberrys-future-but-ceo-john-chen-vows-to-fight-on\/","title":{"rendered":"Questions persist over BlackBerry’s future, but CEO John Chen vows to fight on"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Blackberry<\/a>
Blackberry phone (Photo from Blackberry’s official Facebook page)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

WATERLOO, Ont. \u2013 Whatever enthusiasm still existed for Blackberry\u2019s recovery in the smartphone market appears to have faded, at least for now.<\/p>\n

From financial analysts to BlackBerry investors, few seemed impressed with the latest details on Tuesday as the company delivered another quarter of losses that sparked a new round of questions about how quickly it hopes to recover.<\/p>\n

The annual shareholders\u2019 meeting in the company\u2019s hometown of Waterloo, Ont., didn\u2019t do much to raise spirits either, despite CEO John Chen\u2019s occasional attempt to lighten the mood.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease turn off any device which is not BlackBerry,\u201d Chen quipped as he opened the meeting, a subtle reminder that even the company\u2019s most loyal supporters might not be carrying a BlackBerry smartphone any longer.<\/p>\n

Wherein recent years the annual meeting was an epicentre of passion \u2013 generating bursts of applause from supporters and moments of tension between executives and a few shareholders \u2013 this year the audience almost seemed exhausted.<\/p>\n

After all, it has been a long and turbulent journey towards what Chen hopes will be a turnaround of BlackBerry\u2019s fortunes, though he admits there are still many hurdles to overcome.<\/p>\n

Some of the biggest ones were laid bare in the first-quarter financial results, as the company grew its software and licences business, but at a pace that would not offset the decline of its smartphone sales.<\/p>\n

BlackBerry (TSX:BB) posted an adjusted loss of US$28 million or five cents per share, worse than analyst expectations of a three-cent per share loss, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters.<\/p>\n

Revenues of $658 million were about $21 million softer than analysts anticipated.<\/p>\n

Investors made their dissatisfaction clear in the company’s stock price, which dropped about 3.9 per cent, or 44 cents, to C$10.88, while on the Nasdaq market its shares were down 39 cents to US$8.81<\/p>\n

Chen was hired in late 2013 to reshape BlackBerry, cut costs and lead an effort to find a better footing in the highly competitive technology industry. Before he took the job, he helped turn software company Sybase into a profitable operation focused on mobile business technology.<\/p>\n

Over the past year and a half, Chen has focused on transitioning BlackBerry away from falling handset revenues and towards sales in its software business.<\/p>\n

What has puzzled some analysts is his unwavering determination to keep its handset business alive, since even he acknowledges the fading popularity of the devices has been \u201ca problematic area\u2019 of its financial results, despite high-profile launches for the BlackBerry Passport and Classic models.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Chen reaffirmed his intention of hanging onto phones through new manufacturing agreements with Compal Electronics and Wistron Corp., both of which operate lower cost facilities in Taiwan.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to give up the hardware business,\u201d he told shareholders. \u201cI think there\u2019s a shot at still making money in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The company, which only recognizes revenue on devices when they\u2019re sold to customers, booked revenue on 1.1 million BlackBerry smartphones during the latest quarter, a steep drop from the 2.6 million phones sold in the same period a year earlier.<\/p>\n

That has left analysts on edge.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem continues to be with the (phone) demand,\u201d said Brian Colello, a technology analyst at Morningstar.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re still failing to reach an increasingly low bar.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also Tuesday, the company announced a deal with network equipment manufacturer Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) that will see BlackBerry receive unspecified patent licence fees as part of a long-term agreement.<\/p>\n

Further details on the agreement weren’t disclosed, which left some analysts concerned over whether BlackBerry was propping up its software division with revenues that won’t last.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a turnaround there\u2019s a lot of uncertainty,\u201d said Desmond Lau, a technology analyst at Veritas Investment Research Corp.<\/p>\n

\u201cInvestors prefer to see something more consistently trending on the upswing \u2013 as opposed to one good quarter, one bad quarter, one mixed quarter.\u201d<\/p>\n

While many questions persist, Chen is remaining steadfast in his goal to bring software revenue to US$500 million by March of next year.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s also not looking to sell BlackBerry to another company any time soon.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh no, not at this price,\u201d he said, in response to a question about whether the company was looking for suitors.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve put in a lot of hard work and put ourselves in the position to fight.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WATERLOO, Ont. \u2013 Whatever enthusiasm still existed for Blackberry\u2019s recovery in the smartphone market appears to have faded, at least …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":52971,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[35],"class_list":["post-52966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-original","mauthors-david-friend","mauthors-the-canadian-press1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}