BlackBerry recently came under scrutiny for supposedly ending the production of its BlackBerry 10-powered devices. However, the Canadian company has denied any such information and claims that it has never sent any letter detailing such a decision.
For those unfamiliar with the matter, as we reported on Sunday, July 3, a letter that was sent in the U.S. Senate to the chief clerks, system administrators and administrative managers revealed that the BlackBerry devices were officially being phased out for the legislative body.
This decision, according to the letter, was taken as the company had apparently informed carriers AT&T and Verizon that it had discontinued the production of all devices powered by the BlackBerry 10 OS such as the Z10, Q10, Passport, Z30 and Classic.
"Once we have exhausted our current in-house stock, new device procurements will be limited, while supplies last, to warranty exchanges only," the letter reportedly stated.
Now, BlackBerry has refuted all claims and denies ever sending out such a memo to carriers AT&T and Verizon to inform them about ceasing production of BlackBerry 10 OS-powered devices.
The OEM has issued a statement to online publication CrackBerry confirming that it has not stopped production for the Z10, Q10, Passport, Z30 and Classic or completely phased them out as alleged by the supposed letter to the carriers.
BlackBerry states that it has only informed its partner network operators in the U.S. that the "manufacturing cycle" for the BlackBerry Classic will stop, but customers will be able to buy it online, unlocked, or they can check with carriers for availability.
"The statement about discontinuation of BlackBerry 10 at AT&T and Verizon is incorrect. BlackBerry's device strategy is based on a cross-platform model where we'll continue to support our BlackBerry 10 platform while expanding our device offering to include Android-based devices," stated the company.
The Canadian OEM also put to rest rumors saying support for the Z10, Q10, Passport and Z30 are ending by revealing that it was poised to release the BlackBerry 10 version 10.3.3 next month for the existing devices. The second software update for the OS will follow in 2017.
As BlackBerry has not released a BlackBerry 10 OS-powered handset for a while, speculation pertaining to the future of the platform has been rife. Adding fuel to the fire is that the next generation of BlackBerry devices are anticipated to run on the Android OS.
However, with BlackBerry now confirming that it is aspiring to become cross platform and will not phase out support for BlackBerry 10 OS devices, fans of the existing devices can breathe easy.
