Its no secret that John has been travelling around the world to promote BlackBerry. However, the pace at which he is moving is pretty much unprecedented and really, engaging. According to an article on therecord, John Chen is really working hard and this article really just underscores his efforts.
Chen is flying around the world meeting with business and government customers as he engages in what he calls “high-touch marketing.” The electrical engineer and former chief executive of Sybase Inc. is currently on a tour to meet 40 BlackBerry customers. It ends in New York City for interviews with reporters and analysts.
“The problem is, I really don’t mind travelling and meeting with people and all that, but there are physical limitations,” Chen said recently during a meeting with reporters after the release of the company’s fourth-quarter financial results.
“I am living hotel to hotel to hotel, it is like packing and unpacking, packing and unpacking,” he said. “This week I have been in so many places I don’t even remember.”
Next week, Chen flies to Indonesia for the official launch of the Jakarta Z3 — the new large touch-screen smartphone BlackBerry produced in partnership with Taiwan-based Foxconn for the Indonesian market.
Typically, Chen and his team fly into a city for breakfast briefings with chief executives, chief information officers and executive officers to talk about risk management, mobile-data security, identity management and identity security.
“We are focusing on that around the world,” he said.
When asked about the hardest part of his job?
“The reality of the mathematics when I came in, in November, only left me one choice — to let that project complete,” Chen said. “But I also realize that you can not ever cut yourself to glory.”
The layoffs are one of the most difficult parts of the turnaround plan, Chen said.
“I fully understand why employees have been very negatively affected, and the morale is obviously not as high as I would like,” he said. “I do believe people are getting back to work, which is a good thing. I think they are trying really hard to stay focused.”
The last of the layoffs are scheduled to occur by the end of May, and will leave BlackBerry with a global workforce of 7,000. Since the latest round of layoffs started last September, 1,140 BlackBerry employees have been let go in Waterloo Region.
Now, here comes the most interesting part:
The company will soon do a limited production run of the Bold smartphone, which operates on the older BlackBerry 7 operating system. With its keyboard and a “utility belt” that includes a track pad, cut-and-paste, send and refresh buttons, it was among BlackBerry’s most popular products.
The new phone, dubbed the Classic, is slated to be unveiled in November. It will be a marriage of the Bold’s hardware with the software advantages of the newer BlackBerry 10 system, which has a superior web browser and multimedia offerings.
Chen made it clear that the production run for the Bold and introduction of the Classic should not be interpreted as a wholesale return to the smartphone business. Hardware and handsets will be part of the equation for at least two years, but after that it is anyone’s guess.
Now, what about the future BlackBerry Plans?
When Chen refers to software, he is talking about QNX software. QNX, an Ottawa-based company acquired by BlackBerry in April 2010, has an operating system that is touted as being the most reliable in the world. It is used in mission-critical applications such as nuclear power plants.
The auto industry has emerged as a big and growing market for the software. It is now used in more than half of all new cars. In the emerging world of connected and smart cars, the software monitors the location of vehicles, tells owners when maintenance and repairs are needed and powers infotainment systems, among other things.
Chen wants to expand the reach of QNX software into the medical field, and any market that needs machine-to-machine interactions.
As part of cost-cutting, BlackBerry dismantled its enterprise sales teams. Chen is rebuilding the sales force, with teams set up to focus on government, financial, defence, security and corporate sectors. In the future, a sales team devoted to the medical sector will be organized.
Overall, this is a very comprehensive article and one that is worth checking out!
