I really don't understand how RIM manages to consistently misunderstand their target market so badly.
Not that they have many (or any) fans left, but back when they were the bees knees, they were used by and often mandatory company phones for government departments and fortune 500 companies exactly because they were considered the apex of mobile security.
I know it's been a while since they were the apex of anything but jesus guys, at least pretend to try or something.
Oh they're still the apex of something, now they're the apex of Ontario-Quebec region Canadian technology corporation failures, having taken the place of the previous reigning champion, Nortel.
There are still a good number of federal government offices based in Quebec, including one massive complex (Place du Portage) across the river from Ottawa. BlackBerries are still handed out to a fair number of government employees here.
Not sure if all this applies to corporate BlackBerry environments, which have their own servers, and generate their own sets of keys.
I think you need to ask the company (or government agency) for their keys to decrypt their conversations over the BlackBerry system.
The consumer-mode BlackBerry stuff has long since been open to law enforcement, but the corporate communications are locked by the corporations themselves, and only they have the keys.
Luckily, it turns out no one has a blackberry. I kid, but also I'm pretty sure it's been at least 5 or so years since I've seen someone with one. Are they still prevalent in the states?
Oh you would be amazed at what their management can do, I got told of by a senior manager for asking a question back in 2006 and asked why we were abandoning the business users in favour of the consumers users with the pearl and focus bias towards consumer over business. I left 2007.
Indeed same year I'm recorded in a townhall meeting asking about QA and same manager saying, yes we will be doing that down the line.
Some brilliant and amazing technical people there in my time but darn, some serious seagull management types who failed to fly away. Interestingly most bad management I find have no technical background. Though have known good managers who had no technical background, they are rare and none at RIM that fitted that niche.
For me I feel they used Dilbert as an inspirational guide for running a business at times.
BBM (a consumer-level Facebook Messenger type app) is not BES (the mobile security system for corporate/government enterprises that BlackBerry theoretically does not hold keys to).
It would be like when Microsoft turns over Live Messenger and Skype IM's to law enforcement and people said "well, I guess no company will ever buy/use a Microsoft Server again". And yet, companies still buy Microsoft Servers.
That difference doesn't make this any less bad. But I wouldn't expect any major fallout from it either.
Not that they have many (or any) fans left, but back when they were the bees knees, they were used by and often mandatory company phones for government departments and fortune 500 companies exactly because they were considered the apex of mobile security.
I know it's been a while since they were the apex of anything but jesus guys, at least pretend to try or something.