back to article BlackBerry Z10 'share-price pump' lawsuit is back from the dead

A US judge has opted to resurrect a case claiming BlackBerry illegally propped up its stock amidst the calamitous Z10 handset release. Judge Colleen McMahon of the New York Southern District says the class action case against the smartphone firm can proceed thanks to evidence unearthed in a related trial, including news that …

  1. David 132 Silver badge
    Happy

    Wait, what?

    "...in several cases, returns are now exceeding sales, a phenomenon we have never seen before..."

    "Sir! We've had over 50,000 returns."

    "..So?"

    "Well, uh, we only sold 30,000 in the first place. And, um, we only made 40,000..."

    (cue Twilight Zone music)

    Yeah yeah, I know, the quote refers to rate of returns vs. sales, not cumulative quantities, but it was an amusing mental image.

    1. Milton

      Re: Wait, what?

      "Sir! We've had over 50,000 returns."

      "..So?"

      "Well, uh, we only sold 30,000 in the first place. And, um, we only made 40,000..."

      (cue Twilight Zone music)

      You may be on to something. Lawyers can get fixated on details, ignoring the big picture. Perhaps when we look beneath the "rate of return", as you mention, we will be staggered to find that more handsets were returned than had been sold to a given date.

      Why does this matter? Because although the great Stephen Hawking has passed, we had—until now—no proof that parallel universes existed ...

      ... it was a Blackberry black hole.

      (fetches coat)

    2. J. R. Hartley

      Re: Wait, what?

      Impressive.

  2. bazza Silver badge

    Z10 Became Quite Good

    I've no idea what was actually going on sales-numbers-wise in BB at the time, but one can see that the company's best interest included portraying a rosy picture of adoption.

    That whole episode was symptomatic of a company realising too late they were being left behind by upstarts Apple. It was a big pity really; after BlackBerry had ironed out all the crinkles BB10 and the Z10 were (still are, if one ignores the lack of apps) quite good. I have a Z10 that I've kept up to date firmware-wise; if BlackBerry had got the Z10 out 2 years earlier with today's firmware, they'd have cleaned up (again). Shows the dangers of resting on one's laurels...

    A great pity is that the hegemony of Apple and Android today effectively means that the entire world population has been conditioned to "know" how a mobile device should work, and there's now no room for an alternative even if it's "better" (though of course that's always a subjective thing). I've used Android, iOS and BB10 a lot, and (once you get used to it) BB10 is by far the most natural and easiest to use, especially one handed. I'm still catching myself doing BB10 swipes on both Android and iOS, which of course no longer work; one has to go hunting for some stupid home button.

    Other things that are often overlooked today include i) doing Bluetooth completely properly, ii) doing BYOD properly, iii) doing messaging properly. Apple and Android have between them convinced the world that it doesn't need these things, and now almost everything thinks they've never existed in the first place.

    Still, I can report that today's Android-based BlackBerries are pretty good.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

      1. James 51
        Gimp

        Re: Z10 Became Quite Good

        I've had a Q10 since its launch and I've never had any of those problems. Perhaps by then the bugs had been ironed out.

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

          1. StripeyMiata

            Re: Z10 Became Quite Good

            Can confirm, my wife got a Z10 about a year after launch and she used it as her only phone for 3 years, just needed a new battery after year 2. Then got a Z30 which was even better.

            But now like 1/2 the world is now using an iPhone.

        2. flokie

          Re: Z10 Became Quite Good

          My Q10 certainly didn't have the same issues as described here by Z10 owners, but BB10 was nowhere near ready at its launch either. Selecting text was near impossible to get right. This was sorted in an update, but maybe 3-6 months after I'd got my Q10. BB10 OS didn't support Android native apps then either. BB10 became very good - but only at least one year after the Z10 was launched.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Z10 Became Quite Good

        "Their promised Android compatibility was awful and just didnt work. Combined with No BB dedicated apps, well the phone was beyond useless."

        Not so fast there - I was an early adopter myself, but stuck with the phone as releases gradually fixed stupid bugs such as, say, no TLS encryption for SMTP server authentication for example.

        The Android compatibility ended up working just fine, I had numerous apps installed from the Amazon app store in addition to quite a few very well built native BB10 apps.

        Problem was, Google saw this coming and soon they utterly destroyed Blackberry by getting Android app developers to bake Google Play Services into their apps ... which Blackberry weren't allowed to emulate or install as part of their license agreement. After that, gradually the supply of Android apps which would work properly on the BB10 began to dwindle.

        Having said that, a while before I ended upgrading to a BB Android handset, a developer whose name escapes me just now did release a Google Play Services bundle which could be sideloaded onto the BB10 which worked brilliantly. Excellent job that man, I wish I could have sent you a little money as reward for your efforts.

        I totally agree with an earlier commentard that the BB10 was a great phone, and for quite a while it was a step above Android phones. Sadly as the company began to get sucked into the black hole of its own mistakes, the updates stopped coming and eventually the phone began to fade into obscurity.

        Yes I also agree with a previous commentard that the general populace has been brainwashed into thinking how a phone operating system should work by the duoploy who own the market now. BB10 came from a different angle and was in my opinion at least, very well designed(*).

        (* although I could start bitching about the decision to abandon desktop sync, which screwed over countless people who didn't have their calendar and contacts 'in the cloud'. Muppets.)

    2. Hubert Thrunge Jr.

      Re: Z10 Became Quite Good

      I had a Z10, and until my current device (OnePlus 2) it was the longest amount of time I kept a phone without killing it. In fact, I resurrected it and gave it to my phone-destroying daughter who would normally kill a phone within a month or two. If I put a battery in it, then it'll still work, albeit with a cracked screen and a poorly loudspeaker.

      I liked the OS, I loved the messaging hub. But I was sold on the Nokia N9 and meego, so preferred the tap & swipe UI.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Z10 Became Quite Good

      I would have to disagree somewhat. I have a BB Z30 which I use as my daily driver and I also have an Android (given the app support). I'm very happy with the Z30 as it has great battery life, an ok-ish camera, and is good for one handed operation. I've previously owned a Z10 and found it to be incredibly slow and lacking in battery life. Having said that the BB 10 OS is superb, mature and stable and the integration between email, txt, phone calls (yes people still make phone calls) and calendar leave Android in the gutter with it's cobbled together mess of application overrun.

      Blackberry (RIM) were far to arrogant in my opinion and should have aimed for better hardware at a much earlier stage. Chinese brands like Meizu, Xiaomi and others would have lapped up the chance to make better hardware, but Blackberry management (don't get me started on BB management as that's a separate rant) held on to long with it's own manufacturing in Mexico.

      It doesnt really matter any more as Blackberry can only really make money out of IP theft/breaches now days and can only dream of what could have been.

  3. VinceLortho
    FAIL

    Failed To Launch

    Own and use a BB Z10 daily (I don't use the social media apps unavailable or of really terrible quality for it). Many shortcomings but, the QNX based OS is IMO better than iOS and Android. The HW is superior in many ways to most phones of the time - although there were quality issues. It was the inability to fully use Android apps that killed it and the dearth of native apps and the poor quality of those apps that were available. BB OS10 did support Android apps that did not require Google services, many popular ones do, however this was not made clear to the consumer and when these apps failed the customer returned it. If BB would have fully supported Android it would have been a solid product.A recent incident confirms this. When the BB Drop Box app recently stopped working due to no updates , long time users announced that they would never purchase a BB again.

    The high returns show that when you make a smart phone that looks like an Android phone, make it work as well as one too.

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