BlackBerry Acknowledges That ‘The Future Is Really Android’ For Its Smartphone Ambitions

BlackBerry experimented with Android for the Priv precisely because of the app ecosystem.

At the start of 2016, BlackBerry chief John Chen revealed the company’s plans for this year, which included an important statement, that Blackberry would only produce Android smartphones in 2016. However, the transition to being an Android manufacturer would not be immediate.

Damian Tay, BlackBerry senior director of APAC product management, tells the Economic Times that BlackBerry will not keep going with two platforms in the future – BB10 and Android – as it does now.

BlackBerry ran some Android apps to temporarily solve the lack of apps on BB10. They have been sticking to the outdated (albeit secure) BB10 for years, but the BlackBerry Priv could have simply been the first of many Android devices to come. So, at least for now, BlackBerry will continue along a two-pronged BB10 and Android path, but its future will end up with only one. He also indicated that the enterprise solutions that BlackBerry produces have all been cross-platform.

Even though it says that its own BlackBerry OS will receive an update in the coming months that will add security and privacy enhancements, the company is yet to confirm if it’s going to release another BB OS powered handset in the near future. Therefore, it is a “natural progression towards Android”. And that may probably be due to the fact that several governments and departments still use the BB10 for security purposes, and so they can not give those up just yet.

It’s hard to compete with Android, and it looks like BlackBerry is ready to shift its focus away from that fight. And if the company is planning to transition completely to Android, it’s highly likely that the aforementioned were the last devices to be launched which are powered by the BB10 platform.