Will the BlackBerry bounce back?

Research in Motion (RIM) believes the BlackBerry smartphone can bounce back through a careful balance of enterprise and consumer markets with a growing focus on mobile security.

ANZ managing director Matthew Ball says this "new ecosystem" promised for BB10 devices will help change the company fortunes for 2013 and beyond.

Replacing Ray Gillenwater, who left the firm just four months into his own tenure, Ball is tasked with reviving the fortunes of a company with under 1% of the smartphone market Down Under.

Ball admits the pushback of BB10 devices until early next year was a “tough call” given the imminent release of the iPhone 5, but remains confident the decision was correct.

“In terms of the expectation on me and my team around where we need to be twelve months from now, it’s clear and significant," says Ball to CommsDay.

“The idea is always to grow share… we are growing, we continue to grow… from an enterprise perspective the proposition we have is appealing to various different segments.

"There are a number of key segments that are very attractive to us, and we are very attractive to them.

"From a consumer perspective, I think that with the developments that we’ve got on BB10, it doesn’t need to be a narrow focus.

"It is an ecosystem [with] some of the things that you know and love from BlackBerry… but also some things you wouldn’t expect.”

While specific details around the BB10 have yet to be revealed, RIM's decision to shift the release date until early 2013 is a gamble the company hopes will come off.

“It’s so critical for us to get BB10 absolutely flawless and right that it was a tough call, but the right call," Ball says.

"The challenging part of launching it is that it really is a new ecosystem, and the hard work is being done now; the plus side is, once it’s in-market, it’s pretty enviable to be in a position where we’re not doing evolutions of an existing platform and bolting on a new GUI.

“There’s a lot of focus for us on getting BB10 right, not just at a global level but at a local level; there’sa lot of focus on continuing to grow our customer database.

"The Australian market represents a substantial source of profitability for the APAC region, it also represents a significant amount of the region’s enterprise base.

"So there’s a lot of support for ANZ, there’s a lot of work to be done; I’m confident we’ve got the right team, the right roadmap, and the right proposition to get us there.”

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