John Chen has been at the helm as CEO of Blackberry for four very tumultuous months and while the smartphone maker's latest financial numbers can at best be described as terrible, Chen is swinging away in the batter's box trying to make the right moves to save the company.
The question arises as to whether his swings, which includes building more old, but popular Blackberry Bold phones, are misses or hits.
When Chen came on board, Blackberry was emerging from the debacle that was the Blackberry 10 launch. The Z10 launch was aimed at consumers, many of whom had already been lured away by Apple and Android phones and all the fun apps that are now the heart and soul of every mobile device. The end result of the Z10 was warehouses full of sleek, touchscreen phones that nobody wanted.
At the same time, the company managed to create a disgruntled mass of enterprise customers with its Q10. Enterprise sales flagged since the phone was not compatible with the installed base of servers used by most companies, so instead of buying new phones and servers most companies just stuck with what they were using.
To help fix this problem, Chen has the company working on a new software package that will make the newer phones compatible with the old servers, it could be out by November.
Perhaps the smartest, and saddest, move Chen has made is restarting the old Blackberry 7/Bold factory line. These models still comprise the majority of smartphone sales for the company. Of the 3.4 million smartphones sold in the last quarter, 2.3 million of which were the older 7 models.
Chen announced last month that the company would go back to the well and produce more phones with keyboards. At the time, he said that the phone is "designed to give you the distinct experience that every BlackBerry QWERTY loyalist and high-productivity business customer absolutely loves."
With all the trouble selling new phones has brought to the company, it is no surprise that Chen is mining other areas of potential profit. He is pushing his company's efforts at developing device management software for corporate IT departments and he is putting the spotlight on Blackberry Messenger, which is now also available to Apple and Android users.
"I see this as a good turnaround plan," Chen said on a conference call with analysts. "Knock on wood I'm hoping that it will also slow down the erosion."
Chen has also managed to get Blackberry's operating expenses under control reducing them by 51 percent compared to last year.
With all that said, it will be up to the consumers and company stockholders to see what Chen's final grade for the year will be.
