The BlackBerry Challenge

Research in Mo… sorry, BlackBerry on Monday launched its long awaited brand new flagship phone, the BlackBerry Z10 in Jakarta, Indonesia, one of the company's remaining stronghold markets. The Z10, a completely rethought and redesigned approach to BlackBerry is expected to win the hearts and minds of not only the company's faithful but also those looking to get a modern smartphone. The biggest hurdles facing the Waterloo company, however, are the extreme lack of compelling apps despite BlackBerry 10's ability to run ported Android apps, and the ability to draw new consumers and those from other platforms.

At the launch, BlackBerry's managing director for South Asia Hastings Singh highlighted the heavily social nature of Indonesian smartphone users, citing the consistency of Jakarta topping Twitter's list of the most active cities in the world and the regularity of which it creates trending topics on Twitter.

Singh also said that being the most active users of social features and the most enthusiastic BlackBerry community, feedback from Indonesians were strongly considered in the design of the Z10. "Indonesia gave us impetus and direction of the design of the product".

Recognizing the significance of the Indonesian market and talent, Singh reiterated BlackBerry's commitment to the country in creating the BlackBerry Innovation Center at Bandung Institute of Technology, spending US$5 million in the project to train students on entrepreneurship and application development. He also highlighted the company's team in Bali which is responsible in curating, managing, and maintaining the quality of applications being submitted to BlackBerry World.

Convincing companies The situation facing BlackBerry right now is not too different from what is facing Microsoft with Windows Phone. Both platforms are equally compelling, offer fresh approaches to the mobile landscape, yet considered devoid of applications. It seems that no matter how anyone would spin the story, it all comes back to the collection of apps that are available for the platform.

No doubt BlackBerry has placed a number of innovative features into BlackBerry such as the Hub, the separation of work and non-work environments through Balance, not to mention the full touch interface, having dismissed the home button, in a move reminiscent of Nokia's now defunct MeeGo operating system. For all the nifty features however, consumers will keep asking about applications and they will compare their existing devices with any new offering.

At the launch of Windows Phone 8, Microsoft kept making the point that it had 46 out of the top 50 mobile apps on any platform available on Windows Phone, yet the pull isn't enough. Even after two versions of Windows Phone since 2010, the number of Windows Phone users is still considerably small despite rapid growth following the launch of Windows Phone 8.

In a previous post, we said,

It’s never about the number of apps, it’s about whether the apps you need and want are available, and perhaps further down the track, the possibility of even better apps. You start with the core essential and popular apps and you expand from there. You figure out what your consumers want to do with their devices, make sure the apps for those activities are available from the start or shortly after.

It's important that BlackBerry gets these core apps on its platform but even more important to convinces companies that the effort to reward ratio is significant.

BlackBerry actually has made it very easy for developers to create applications for BlackBerry 10. With an array of options including native applications, web-based applications, and even the ability to run ported apps originally made for Android, BlackBerry 10 should have had a lot more apps than 70 thousand by now. As it stands, "only" 28,000 of those were ported from Android and the big name apps are still missing from the company's line up.

Deddy Avianto, a notable figure among the Indonesian BlackBerry developer community, said, "apps are a business decision and a matter of negotiations. Porting apps from Android is easy and requires almost no effort. If they can be convinced to approve ported apps, maybe down the line they'll be willing to create native apps".

BlackBerry Elite Developer Prasetyo Andy W. thinks that convincing companies that there is a market for their apps will be challenging. "Apps are a big part of getting people to switch and it's a matter of convincing major companies that there will be a market for bb10. But that's probably the most difficult part", he said at the BlackBerry 10 coaching clinic held on Tuesday night by XL Axiata.

Getting the salesAccording to BGR, half of Z10 sales in Canada went to current Android and iOS users with the rest of the sales going to new smartphone buyers and existing BlackBerry customers. In the UK, the switchers make up 30% of the Z10 sales.

In Indonesia however, BlackBerry needs a mass market phone. Singh said that the Z10 is the company's flagship phone and it's pricing certainly reflects that. At Rp 7 million (US$730) it's more expensive than the popular Galaxy Note 2 and S3 phones from Samsung and it's only $100 less than the iPhone 5.

The average Indonesian BlackBerry owner however, generally has the older BlackBerry Curve models which currently cost around $250 instead of the high end models costing upwards of $500. Singh confirmed the plans for the company's more affordable models running BlackBerry 10 t be released later in the year but would not disclose the models nor the cost as they have yet to be formally announced. The BlackBerry Q10, which has the more familiar feel to existing BlackBerry owners thanks to having a physical keyboard, is yet to be announced for the Indonesian market.

The challenge for BlackBerry is significant. Not only does it need to convince companies that there will be a market for their apps so that they will at least consider creating apps for the new platform, it also needs to convince consumers that the BlackBerry 10 is a viable platform. Even if or when the core and top apps become available, it remains to be seen if BlackBerry 10 has enough of a pull to draw in new consumers and more importantly keep them around.