BBRY's 9720 on Old Platform
Canadian handset manufacturer, BlackBerry Limited (BBRY) launched BlackBerry 9720 smartphone on an old BB7 platfrom. The new device is expected to be available in the upcoming weeks in emerging countries of Asia, EMEA and Latin America.
The new smartphone offers both QWERTY keypad and touch screen support with a much advanced user interface. It also features a 5 MP camera coupled with 512 MB RAM support and popular social networking tools like Twitter, Facebook and BBM.
Despite so many popular features, the mobile phone lacks the popular BlackBerry Hub and video chatting facility, which are available in the new version of BlackBerry smartphones based on BB10 platform. We believe that the price of the new smartphone will be kept below the newly-launched BB10-based Q5, Q10 and Z10 devices.
BlackBerry, which once dominated the smartphone market, failed to upgrade its operating platform, losing market traction to Apple Inc.’s (AAPL) iOS and Google Inc.’s (GOOG) Android operating systems in the past few years. Even Nokia Corporation (NOK), which was once the leading manufacturer of mobile phones in the world, is facing the same challenges as BlackBerry. The Finnish handset maker has formed a partnership with Microsoft Corporation to launch Windows -based Lumia phones.
In order to revamp its smartphone business, BlackBerry also came up with a user friendly BB10 operating system. The new LTE-based mobile devices, both Z10 & Q10, support more than 70,000 apps, thereby offering strong resistance against the popular iOS and Android operating system.
However, BlackBerry’s new decision to launch BlackBerry 9720 on older OS may have stunned its fans as the company has already invested huge resources to develop a new platform.
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