BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) CEO John Chen is happy about the launch of the BlackBerry Z3 as he discussed his company’s turnaround plan with CNBC.
John Fortt asked the BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) boss whether a recent New York Times report saying that reception to the Z3 was not strong after its launch in Indonesia and the CEO said contrary to what was told, reception of the new device “was actually quite good”. He added that he has looked into feedback from local stores, distributors and carriers and found that the reaction to the Z3 was “pretty good.”
Fortt then went on to ask about how BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) has hedged its relationship with Foxconn and whether Chen will be further shrinking the organization if their plan with the Z3 does not materialize. Chen told the CNBC contributor that the Z3 is just one small part of the company’s overall product turnaround plan and that the plan should not be judged just by how successful this device is. He reiterated that the Z3 is doing well and that the company has a plan to release it in a lot of different countries in a very short time. Furthermore, he added that even if this device was not successful, it will not change their turnaround plan too much.
As for software and services, Chen expressed confidence that their plan is working. He noted that according to metrics BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) has looked at, their strategy is operating smoothly. He added:
“By and large it’s working. The product is coming out in November.We have a BlackBerry 10 server today. We promise whoever adopted BlackBerry 10 will have a free license to upgrade to the 12. Everything is going pretty smoothly, we’re building up the cell storage and pushing all over the world in the enterprise space. I’m encouraged by everything.”
He did point out, however, that the success of all of these rely in the details and the execution and said that there’s still a lot to do. Nonetheless, he said that the team is doing it.
Watch the CEO in the video below where he also confirms that he does not plan any large job cuts in the near future and that he intends to make BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) a truly strong and independent company.
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