Imagine if the Hershey Company’s future depended in good part on the success of the Reece’s Peanut Butter Cup and you have a pretty good idea why BlackBerry is hoping you’ll like its new Priv smartphone.
BlackBerry, in the midst of a two-year turnaround, needs some good news. On Friday, it said revenue in its most recent financial quarter fell 47 percent to $ 490 million. Analysts had been expecting $ 603 million. Revenue from smartphones fell 52 percent as the number of devices activated in the quarter fell to 800,000 from 2.1 million a year ago. Blackberry introduced new models like the Passport and the Classic but its market share continues to shrink.
As an effort to reverse that trend, BlackBerry has developed a slider phone that runs on the Android mobile operating system and features BlackBerry’s long-loved keyboard. It’s putting Google’s peanut butter (or Lollipop 5.1, but why mix metaphors?) inside BlackBerry’s chocolate. Two great tastes that taste great together…
