BlackBerry CEO John Chen is giving mixed signals on the fate of his company's handset category, in one case saying he will drop the devices if they don't make money and in another interview saying he wants to simply be less dependent on phones.
Chen has been dealing with flagging phone sales and other major problems since he took over as CEO in November. Since then he has been busy trying to shore up the company's bottom line by developing device management software for corporate IT departments and he has put a spotlight on BlackBerry Messenger, which is now also available to Apple and Android users.
However, he does not appear interested in businesses that do not make any money.
"If I cannot make money on handsets, I will not be in the handset business," John Chen said, adding that the time frame for such a decision was short. He would not be more specific.
However, he backed off this message during a second interview.
"I don't have a plan to get rid of handsets, I have a plan to not be dependent on handsets," Chen said. "All I need to do is replace the handset revenue, and this company will be very different."
In this case, he said that he is giving himself two years to turn around the company and stop the bleeding from its handset business.
One of the moves to meet this goal has already been taken. The company restarted the assembly line for its old, but still popular, BlackBerry Bold phones. The reason this old technology is in demand is because BlackBerry's latest phones are incompatible with the old BlackBerry servers still used by most of its customers.
Bold sales still account for a majority of the company sales. Of the 3.4 million smartphones sold in the last quarter of 2013, 2.3 million of which were the older Bold models. For the quarter ended March 31 the numbers are even more dismal, with only 1.3 million handsets shipping, down 80 percent from the same period the previous year.
Chen added that he is not attempting to build up the company just to sell it.
"I'm running the company to generate value, to grow the business," Chen said.
