攜手三星能否助黑莓復蘇?
????程守宗入主深陷困境的黑莓(BlackBerry)已經一年了。自從執(zhí)掌CEO大權以來,他努力試圖讓黑莓重新回歸“根基”,并且開展了一些他覺得必要的創(chuàng)新與合作——總之,他要讓企業(yè)用戶重新正視黑莓的存在。 ????本著這一目的,程守宗上周末在舊金山登臺宣布了幾項重大事務,包括與三星電子集團(Samsung Electronics)剛剛簽署的一項合作。根據這項協(xié)議,三星和黑莓均將開售對方的移動安全產品。(一個可信的跡象是,程守宗還當眾開起玩笑稱,他妻子現(xiàn)在仍然在用一款三星Galaxy手機。)另外黑莓還推出了升級版黑莓企業(yè)服務器(BlackBerry Enterprise),從而使用戶可以更加便捷地管理黑莓產品以及其他廠家的設備。 ????在程守宗的領導下,黑莓的虧損有所改善,但并沒有徹底止血,而且仍然有不少隱憂籠罩著公司的長期前景。在他去舊金山之前,《財富》(Fortune)對程守宗進行了專訪,聽他暢談自己的商業(yè)戰(zhàn)略——以及名媛金?卡戴珊。 ????《財富》:“回到黑莓的根基”在今天對你來說意味著什么? ????程守宗:從總體上說,“回到黑莓的根基”指的遠遠不只是硬件設備。Classic手機是一個重要的部分,但并不是唯一的部分。(這部即將推出的設備將重新搭載黑莓經典的觸控板。)我在剛來黑莓的時候就談過重返企業(yè)市場,它指的不僅是設備,還包括那些將我們的軟件和服務器作為運營中樞的企業(yè)。當黑莓業(yè)績良好的時候,幾乎大家都在用黑莓企業(yè)服務器。后來我們失去了發(fā)展重心,隨之也失去了很多吸引力和用戶。但我重新推出Classic手機的原因在于,大量用戶想要它。 ????從“回到根基”的角度,你怎樣看待黑莓的創(chuàng)新?目前它扮演了怎樣的角色? ????我們研發(fā)團隊的指導方針是,大家都要專注以下四大支柱:安全性、隱私性、效率和協(xié)作。我們同時關注這幾點。比如我們剛剛在BBM【即黑莓通訊(BlackBerry Messenger)】上推出了定時消息功能,也有人叫它“閱后即焚”功能。我們允許人們收回發(fā)出的信息,而不是簡單地撤銷。整個設計中心非常關注安全性、隱私性、效率和協(xié)作。我們并不打算在所有層面都要競爭一下。 ????重新贏得開發(fā)者的信賴是“回到黑莓根基”的另一個方面,你怎樣看黑莓開發(fā)者生態(tài)系統(tǒng)的現(xiàn)狀? ????目前黑莓平臺只有Facebook等少數應用是我們構建的原生應用。我們正在依靠與亞馬遜(Amazon)的關系獲得其它應用。亞馬遜應用商店里的所有應用都可以在BB10(黑莓最新操作系統(tǒng))上直接運行。這樣我們就解放了企業(yè)開發(fā)者社區(qū),讓他們專注于開發(fā)者平臺。自從我來黑莓后,我們的“尋根”路只走了6到9個月。我們有一些很吸引人的東西,但還有很多工作要做。 |
????It’s been about one year since John Chen, CEO of BlackBerry, took the top job at the struggling phonemaker. Since then, he has embarked on a campaign to bring the company back to its roots and spark new innovations and partnerships where he feels necessary—in short, to make BlackBerry relevant to business users again. ????To that end, this week in San Francisco Chen took the stage to make a number of announcements, including a recently-inked agreement with smartphone maker Samsung Electronics. According to the deal, both companies will sell each other’s mobile security products. (A true sign of the times: Chen joked with the audience about the fact his wife still uses a Samsung Galaxy phone.) The company also announced an updated BlackBerry Enterprise server, which will allow customers to more easily manage BlackBerries and devices made by other manufacturers. ????Under Chen’s direction, BlackBerry’s losses are improving, but the company is still bleeding money and there is still plenty of cause for concern about its long-term prospects. Ahead of his announcements in San Francisco, Fortune caught up with Chen to hear more about his strategy—and Kim Kardashian. ????Fortune: What does returning to BlackBerry’s roots mean to you today? ????Chen: The overall returning to the roots is much beyond the device. The Classic [an upcoming BlackBerry device that will bring back its traditional trackpad] is an important part but it’s not the only part. Very early in my career here I talked about re-pivoting back to the enterprise. It implies not only the devices but also the enterprise using our software and server as the backbone. When BlackBerry was doing well almost everyone was running on BlackBerry enterprise server. When we lost our focus we lost quite a bit of traction and accounts. But the reason I went back to the Classic is that a tremendous number of customers want it. ????In light of that “return to roots,” how do you view innovation at BlackBerry? What role does it play today? ????The guiding principle of our development teams is that everybody is focused on the following pillars: security, privacy, productivity, and collaboration. We focus on all of those. For example, on BBM [BlackBerry Messenger] we just released the timed message feature—people call it the “Snapchat feature.” We allow people to retract messages, not just to recall them. The whole design center is really focused on security, privacy, productivity and collaboration. We’re not trying to compete on everything. ????Winning back developers is another aspect of returning to BlackBerry’s roots. How are you feeling about status with developer ecosystem? ????There are only a handful of apps, like Facebook, that we build native. We are relying on our relationship with Amazon for the others. Everything that appears on Amazon’s app store you can run on BB10 [the latest version of BlackBerry’s operating system]. In doing so we free up our enterprise developer community to focus on developer platforms. On that front the re-pivoting is only six to nine months old since I came in. We have some good traction but still a lot of work to be done. |