A senior director at BlackBerry dropped heavy hints that the company will forego BB10 OS in the future, going all in with Android.
When BlackBerry launched its first Android smartphone, the BlackBerry Priv, many feared that BlackBerry 10 was approaching its demise. BlackBerry's CEO recently said that the company will not ditch its own BB10 platform, but here's the deal.
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. The BlackBerry Priv marked the transition to Android and in the future Google's OS may be the only one powering BlackBerry smartphones.
For now, however, the company will keep going with both BB10 and Android side by side for its smartphones.
"The future is really Android. We went for Android essentially for its app ecosystem," says Tay. "In addition, all the enterprise solutions that we have been doing have been cross-platform for a long time now. So it's a natural progression towards Android," Tay adds, explaining the move.
Just to make things clear, when BlackBerry CEO John Chen recently said the company was not ditching BB10, he talked about more support for the platform, upcoming updates and additional security improvements. Chen made no mention of new BB10 devices set to hit the scene this year.
With this in mind, Tay's new comments don't exactly contradict Chen's previous statement, but shed more light on the matter. BlackBerry will keep supporting its BB10 OS, but its future devices will run Android. Somewhere down the line, Android will likely remain the only platform for BlackBerry smartphones.
BlackBerry Vienna is widely expected to make its debut soon as the second Android-powered BlackBerry smartphone, but this is just the beginning. Back at CES 2016, John Chen said that BlackBerry plans to launch "at least" one new Android smartphone this year, bolstering claims that more Android BlackBerrys are in the works.
The company is making efforts to strengthen its bond with Android, and is also betting big on security with its BES12 and Android for Work.
For now, BlackBerry will keep selling and supporting BB10 smartphones such as the BlackBerry Passport or Classic, but it remains to be seen for how long.
