科技前沿:黑莓背水一战,放弃最后的优势

Blackberrys decision to make its free messaging service, BBM, available on other mobile phone platforms is a Hail Mary play for a damaged company that pretty much has nothing to lose at this point. By giving away the stickiest feature available to Blackberrys dwindling consumer base to Android and iOS users for free, the company is hoping that it will be able to expand, or at the very least maintain, its once lucrative ecosystem.黑莓（Blackberry）要求在其他手机平台上获取其免费短信服务BBM，对于一家早已没什么可以丧失的公司来说，此举是其背水一战的“恐惧之荐”。BBM是在黑莓日益减少的用户群体中用户粘性最低的功能。公司期望通过将该功能免费获取给安卓（Android）和iOS用户，不断扩大或最少保持一度利润可观的生态系统。

It is extremely easy to bash on Blackberry (BBRY) these days. The bunglings of its former management team over the last five years will probably be studied in business schools for generations as how not to do just about everything. But Blackberry is on an upswing of sorts at the moment. Its stock has more than doubled from its lows hit last year, and after two years of development (light years in the tech world) the company is back in the game with the launch of its new operating system, Blackberry 10, and a few new handsets, the Z10, Q10, and the recently announced Q5.如今，辩称黑莓非常容易。过去五年，公司前一个管理团队的糟糕展现出，也许将沦为商学院课堂上的经典负面教材，被一届又一届的学生们用来研究一家公司在面对竞争时是如何坐以待毙的。但无论如何，现在的黑莓正处于上升期。公司股票比去年的最低点下跌了多达一倍，而且，经过两年的发展（在科技界早已是很长时间）后，公司凭借近期发售的操作系统 Blackberry 10以及Z10、Q10和最近公布的Q5等几款新手机，再一重返正轨。

Yet despite the recent optimism over the launch of the Blackberry 10 series, the company will almost certainly continue to lose market share in the crowded consumer hardware space to rivals that use Googles (GOOG) Android platform. Phones shipped with the Blackberry operating system made up just 2.9% of mobile phones sold in the first quarter of this year, down 35% from last year, according to new sale numbers released by IDC on Thursday. Phones running Microsofts (MSFT) Windows operating system outsold Blackberry for what appears to be the first time, capturing 3.2% of the market. But phones running either Android or Apples (AAPL) iOS, captured 92% of all mobile sales -- with Android garnering 59% of the total market, an 80% increase from the same time last year. With that, Android now runs on 75% of the worlds smartphones.然而，尽管Blackberry 10系列的公布在近期引起了一些悲观情绪，但在竞争白热化的消费类硬件领域，公司的市场份额仍在被用于谷歌（Google）安卓平台的竞争对手大大蚕食。据IDC周四发布的近期销售数据表明，今年第一季度，配备黑莓操作系统的手机出货量仅有占到市场份额的2.9%，比去年增加了35%。运营微软公司Windows操作系统的手机首次打破黑莓，市场份额超过3.2%。

而安卓与苹果（Apple）iOS则合力夺下了92%的市场份额，其中安卓的市场份额超过59%，比去年同期快速增长了80%。全球智能手机中，运营安卓系统的比例占到75%。To be fair, those first-quarter sales numbers just reflect eight days of sales for the new Blackberry phones in the U.S. and just a couple of months of sales in Canada. Nevertheless, the publics lukewarm reception to the product -- no one was camping out for the new Z10 -- isnt encouraging. The phone has reportedly passed the 1 million shipped mark in its first quarter of launch, which isnt bad, but isnt great for a company with such huge brand recognition. By contrast, nearly 5 million iPhones were sold in the first week of its launch back in September.公平地说道，第一季度的销售数据仅有体现了新的黑莓手机在美国八天的销量和在加拿大两个月的销量。

但消费者对于黑莓产品的热烈反应令人失望。比如没任何人半夜排队出售新的Z1O。

据报导，Z10手机在公布一个季度后，出货量再一突破了100万台，这算数不俗的展现出，但对于一家享有如此极大的品牌认知度的公司而言，这并不有一点祝贺。忽略，去年九月，iPhone手机在公布后意味着一周时间内的销量之后相似500万台。There really isnt much you can do on a Blackberry that you cant do on an Android phone these days. There arent a bunch of must-have apps that run exclusively on Blackberry, for example. Indeed, Blackberry seems to have surrendered the app development space to Google as it considers the new Blackberry 10s ability to run Android app clones as a major selling point.如今，黑莓手机能做到的，在安卓手机上都能构建。没多少不可或缺应用于是仅有在黑莓手机上运营的。

实质上，黑莓或许把应用于研发空间让给赠送给了谷歌，甚至它把Blackberry 10需要运营安卓应用于作为一个根本性的卖点。But there is one consumer-focused feature that Blackberry offers that no other handset maker or mobile platform has -- its Blackberry Messaging Service (BBM). The service allows Blackberry users to send and receive messages, share files, and even exchange music with other Blackberry users without incurring special messaging charges from their wireless carrier. It has proven to be very sticky in places like Indonesia, Haiti, and Nigeria where wireless service is unreliable.不过，黑莓有一个消费者导向的功能，是其他设备制造商或移动平台无法获取的——黑莓信息服务（BBM）。

该服务容许黑莓用户之间发送到和接管信息，共享软件，甚至互相交换音乐，而无线运营商会回应收费。事实证明，在印尼、海地和尼日利亚等无线服务不过于可信的地区，该功能具备很高的用户粘度。

So imagine the confusion when Blackberry announced this week it was opening up BBM to both iOS and Android users through a free app that will be made available this summer. It seems odd that Blackberry would give up its only truly sticky consumer-focused feature. Some in the geek media called it surrender, while others saw it as a great move by the company to open itself up to the rest of the mobile community.然而，本周黑莓却宣告，公司将在今年夏天邮购应用于形式，将BBM向iOS和安卓用户对外开放，此举引起的恐慌可想而知。黑莓居然退出其唯一一个确实有粘性的消费者导向功能，这或许是十分怪异的一个行径。在极客媒体中，有人称之为此举相等“战败”，而也有人指出，公司向其他移动社区对外开放，是十分有力的措施。

The move seems more akin to a company spinning off one of its divisions than anything else. BBM, with its 60 million users, is arguably the most buoyant thing in Blackberrys sinking consumer mobile division. If it remained attached to the ship it would surely drown. But allowed to roam free, BBM could possibly survive as a separate entity -- a slim chance, but a chance nonetheless. Survive as what? If BBM attracts enough iOS and Android users it could eventually become a sweet advertising portal for the company -- launching Blackberry as a player in the mobile advertising market. It could also possibly morph into a premier messaging app for companies who want to monitor employee communications.此举更加看起来公司挤压了一个部门。BBM大约有6,000万用户，在黑莓日益衰落的消费者移动部门，BBM毫无疑问最有前途。如果之后与整个部门绑在一起，最后也逃不过一起击沉的命运。但如果让其权利发展，BBM也许需要以一个独立国家实体的形式存活下来——虽然机会较小，但总算还有期望。

以什么样的形式存活下来呢？如果BBM能更有充足多的iOS和安卓用户，其将沦为公司十分可信的广告平台——协助黑莓进占移动广告市场。此外，其也有可能沦为期望监督员工通信的公司选用的消息应用于。But in order for that to happen, Blackberry will need to overcome an already saturated messenger app market. Here, scale and location matter. Texting and data plan prices in the U.S. have dropped so low you will be hard pressed to find anyone using a messaging app just to save on domestic text messaging fees. That may not be the case in other countries, but there, people are already using messaging apps like WhatsApp, Viber, and Skype. BBM touts its ability to set up Group chats of up to 30 people, but WhatsApp can do that and so can GroupMe, which is all the rage on college campuses these days. Most of these third-party messaging apps on all mobile platforms so they are ahead of the game with hundreds of millions of users. Unlike BBM, these apps dont require clumsy pin numbers to talk with other people; rather they just sync up easily to your phones contacts and seek out those who have already downloaded the app. Unless Blackberry introduces some amazing new features, it will be tough, if not impossible, to get people to switch to BBM.要将这些希望变为现实，黑莓必需吞并早已饱和状态的短信应用于市场。

在这一市场，规模与方位至关重要。美国短信与数据方案的价格大幅度上升，现在早已很难寻找有人不会全然为了节省国内短信酬劳而去用于短信应用于。

虽然其他国家的情况有可能与美国有所不同，但目前市场上早已有WhatsApp、Viber和Skyper等短信应用于。BBM的卖点之一是需要反对最少30人的群组聊天，WhatsApp和GroupMe某种程度需要做。GroupMe目前在大学校园十分风行。目前大多数第三方短信应用于皆反对所有手机平台，因此它们早已累积了数以百万计的用户基础，遥遥领先BBM。

而且，这些应用于并不需要像BBM一样，必需有僵硬的识别码才能聊天；用户只必须将应用于与手机联系人实时，找到早已iTunes应用于的联系人之后可以开始聊天。除非黑莓能发售其他更加神秘的新功能，否则，其很难说服消费者转而用于BBM。Nevertheless, BBM does have a couple things going for it that other messaging apps dont. First it has scale in the third world, which is the fastest growing market for smartphones. Blackberry could leverage its scale to totally dominate the messaging space in certain key markets, such as in West Africa and Indonesia. Secondly, BBMs are sent through Blackberrys own proprietary global data network, which encrypts incoming and outgoing messages and is thus considered safer than messages sent through other data networks. Blackberry has confirmed to Fortunethat BBMs sent through the iOS and Android apps will travel through its servers and thus will have the same security perks as BBM messages sent between Blackberry users.不过，BBM显然有几项其他短信应用于无法相媲美的优势。首先，BBM在第三世界有可观的用户基础，而第三世界是智能手机快速增长最慢的市场。

黑莓可以利用其规模来攻占某个关键市场的短信应用领域，例如西非和印尼等。其次，BBM通过黑莓自有的专用全球数据网络发送信息，该网络对接管和发送到的信息展开加密，因此被指出比通过其他数据网络发送到的信息“更加安全性”。黑莓已向《财富》杂志（Fortune）证实，通过iOS与安卓版BBM应用于发送到的信息也将经由其服务器发送，因此与黑莓用户发送到的BBM信息某种程度安全性。

It is unclear what the future holds for Blackberry, but the company clearly feels that the potential benefits gained from allowing BBM to grow outside its own platform make up for any potential loss in handset sales. Thats a good bet because while Blackberrys flagship phone, the Z10, has received praise from some tech geeks, it is hardly the game-changing product the company needed if it wanted to become a major player in the consumer handset market again. But even if Blackberry folds up its front-facing consumer division, it will remain a player behind the scenes as companies and governments remain dependent on Blackberry servers to keep their data safe. So by letting BBM go, Blackberrys new management may be saving it from a sad and quiet death.黑莓的未来并不明朗，但很显著，公司指出，容许BBM在其自有平台之外发展有可能带给的益处，不足以填补硬件设备销售的增加。这是一个很好的自由选择，因为虽然黑莓的旗舰手机Z10取得了科技发烧友的赞誉，但对于期望新的沦为消费者手机市场主要力量之一的黑莓公司而言，Z10并足以转变市场格局。但如果黑莓退出竞争白热化的消费部门，仍然可以归隐幕后，因为公司和政府仍倚赖黑莓服务器来确保数据安全。

因此，黑莓新的管理团队对外开放BBM的目的，也许是为了协助它挣脱安静病死的凄惨命运。

本文来源：千亿体育官网登录入口-www.hammerheadiiibooks.com