Research In Motion, which is now called Blackberry, rolled out two new phones on Thursday morning in Sydney. These phones, Z10 and Q10, will run on the company’s new operating system, Blackberry 10. This announcement came amidst a lot of buzz, after several delays and much waiting. The Canadian tech giant that introduced the world to secure mobile emailing has a lot riding on these new phones, as it struggles to gain back its lost market share. Mathew Ball, Australian Managing Director for Blackberry, has announced that Telstra and Optus will be offering the new devices some time in March.
Vodafone was conspicuously missing from this list of companies that will offer the phones, even though Ball is himself an ex-Vodafone employee. This move is even more curious since Vodafone is housing the product globally. Ball was quoted saying that the team has shown and demonstrated Blackberry 10 to Vodafone and while the mobile carrier liked it, it just has different priorities right now. Ball is positive that Vodafone will change its mind after seeing the success of the phone at other operators. Vodafone reportedly said that it would like to continue working with Blackberry, just not on these phones right now.
The phones are launching in UK, Canada and UAE about a month before they come to Australia and the U.S. According to Ball, about two thirds of Blackberry’s Australian market is made up of enterprise customers. With the touchscreen integrated, user friendly Blackberry 10, the company is hoping to capture more of the consumer market. The ratio that Ball targets is 55 percent enterprise to 45 percent consumers.
Blackberry is also launching a large-scale marketing campaign in Australia under the tagline “keep moving.” Global Chief Marketing Officer, Frank Boulben, was quoted saying that this is the biggest Blackberry marketing campaign Australia has ever seen and is aimed at conveying how easy the device makes it to switch between work and personal use. The social media branch of the campaign has already begun. The company faces a huge challenge to win back customers that have given up faith and tell them that the new Blackberry 10 has a whole new futuristic unique design. Globally too a lot of money has gone into marketing, including a glitzy New York launch event and the brand’s first ever Super Bowl ad.
