BlackBerry has unveiled at the Mobile World Congress its latest smartphone, the BlackBerry Leap, which sees the phone maker remove the hardware keyboard.
The device comes as a surprise to many because of the fact that BlackBerry executives have been quoted as saying that BlackBerry devices would be very keyboard-focused going forward. How does the Leap position the company for the future?
The fact that BlackBerry has removed the physical keyboard is a big step for the company. While previously it seems as though BlackBerry was a little stuck in the past, playing to the few people that preferred the physical keyboard, the move brings the company into the 21st century.
The BlackBerry Leap also includes a 5-inch 720p display, an 8MP rear-facing camera and 16GB of internal storage. As far as specifications go, the Leap isn't all that impressive, and they even, in a way, detract from the step forward that BlackBerry has taken with the display.
The new device, coupled with the previous suggestion that BlackBerry was going to stick with the physical keyboard, suggests that the company is struggling to find its target market. While previously the company was targeting the business-minded, it seems as though that market has predominantly turned to companies like Apple.
"Looking at how BlackBerry sales have fallen off a cliff, it seems to me difficult to see how it will come back from that, particularly when you're at an event like Mobile World Congress and seeing so many other midrange, middle-of-the-road handsets," said analyst Bill Fisher from eMarketer.
If BlackBerry is indeed struggling to find its target market, as Fisher said, creating a midrange smartphone doesn't seem to be the best way to do it. There is a multitude of midrange smartphones available on the market, many of them boasting far better specs than the Blackberry Leap. Not only that, but Blackberry's operating system is not one that lends itself to the consumer market in the way that Android and iOS do.
BlackBerry OS is not at all enough to differentiate the company from other smartphone makers. Because of that, releasing a midrange smartphone, a market that is already very saturated, is not the best move for BlackBerry, an already failing company, at least when it comes to the smartphone business.
Is the new BlackBerry Leap enough to bring back the BlackBerry smartphone business? Absolutely not. It does, however, signal a change in thinking at BlackBerry that perhaps could lead to such as device.
