BlackBerry announces redesigned Passport for AT&T and BBM support for Android Wear
CES 2015 is finally here and there has been a lot of news. AT&T : The Newly Redesigned BlackBerry Passport Arrives Exclusively at AT&T Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch : BlackBerry Pushing BBM Onto Android Wearables Jon Fingas / Engadget : BlackBerry's Passport for AT&T isn't quite so square Stephen Lawson / CITEworld : BlackBerry's IoT plans start close to home: cars, asset tracking Debbie Turner / Phones Review : BlackBerry Classic and Passport heading to AT&T Electronista : BlackBerry adds BBM to Android Wear, redesigns Passport for AT&T Hammad Saleem / Geeky Gadgets : Redesigned BlackBerry Passport Is Coming to AT&T, BlackBerry Classic As Well Brandon Russell / TechnoBuffalo : BlackBerry Passport Redesign Will Be Offered Exclusively at AT&T Ewan Spence / Forbes : AT&T BlackBerry Passport Is A Compromised Vision Of The Modern Smartphone Chance Miller / 9to5Google : BlackBerry says Android Wear support for BBM coming in early 2015 Matt Hamblen / Computerworld : BlackBerry jumps into smartwatches with BBM on Android Wear devices Brian P Rubin / Wearable World News : BlackBerry Announces Forthcoming BBM App for Android Wear Roger Cheng / CNET : BlackBerry unveils redesigned Passport for AT&T, prices Classic Tim-o-tato / Droid Life : BlackBerry Announces BBM for Android Wear, Coming Early 2015 Brad Reed / BGR : AT&T will soon sell an even sexier version of the BlackBerry Passport Eric Jhonsa / Seeking Alpha : BlackBerry unveils IoT platform, AT&T phone deals Tweets: Nilay Patel / @reckless : You know it's bad when BlackBerry will make arbitrary design changes for AT&T. http://www.theverge.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
At CES 2015, BlackBerry made a three-front push: a less-square redesigned Passport headed exclusively to AT&T alongside the Classic, a BBM app coming to Android Wear watches, and an IoT platform aimed at cars and asset tracking. It reads as a company hedging — protecting carrier distribution while pushing its messaging and IoT services onto other people's devices.
That hedge became the whole strategy within a year: by late 2015 the Android-powered Priv was being called the first recommendable BlackBerry in years, and by 2017 hardware itself had been handed to TCL for the KeyOne.
First-order effects
- AT&T gains an exclusive on the redesigned Passport (with the Classic also on its shelves), making it BlackBerry's key US distribution partner ahead of the February on-sale date.
- BBM stops being a BlackBerry-only asset — putting it on Android Wear puts it in front of Google's wearable install base rather than just BlackBerry's own shrinking one.
Second-order effects
- Cross-platform services only make sense if the phone business shrinks gracefully, which is exactly what followed: the Silver Edition Passport surfaced running Android months later, and the WSJ's favorable Priv verdict validated the OS pivot over the keyboard-phone franchise.
- Carriers like AT&T end up selling a BlackBerry whose value proposition shifts from its own OS to security and services layered on Android — changing what they are actually merchandising.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — and it did — the endpoint is a licensed-hardware model where TCL builds the phones and BlackBerry sells the keyboard design, security layer, and brand, with IoT and QNX-style embedded work carrying the company.
- BBM's move to Android Wear fits the broader collapse of messaging apps tied to any single handset maker; once your messenger runs on rivals' watches, the OS lock-in argument for your own phones weakens further.
The trend: BlackBerry spent 2015 converting itself from a proprietary-OS handset maker into a cross-platform services and licensing brand, with AT&T exclusives and Android experiments marking each step.