And Then There Was Firefox...

This is kind of a rough week for mobile hardware. Things have been all over the place! First, we find out that the Windows phone is outpacing the BlackBerry devices, then we find out that BlackBerry has formed some sort of special committee to consider what strategic alternatives it has, including a possible sale. 

On a tangent, the death of BlackBerry makes me kind of sad, only because my first smartphone that I ever owned was a BlackBerry Bold and its saddening to hear that BlackBerry is now working on it’s BlackBerry 10 operating system (BB10) and not even scraping by. I mean, a 4.4% market share is not enough market share to stay alive! I remember when everyone had BlackBerrys, and there was something awesome about it. I miss the actual keys (because I suffer from fat finger syndrome) because it allowed me to type out emails without opening my eyes from bed (yes, at one point that was my life). However, the BlackBerry situation really strikes me because it’s not really going to be the beginning of something new-- it’s not like they’re sitting in the conference room discussing what type of new product of new venture they’re going to go into to revitalize their business. Even if they were going to create something new, they would need to partner with someone or merge with someone to make that happen. No, what I imagine is happening in that conference room is a serious discussion around identifying potential buyers, defining the potential fallout if they were simply to dissolve and/or declare bankruptcy and argument over which products are salvage-able and which ones aren’t. 

When I think about BlackBerry, I think some of it’s biggest potential partners would be organizations that might not be traditional mobile guys-- which might be a good thing. Much like the MySpace rising from the ashes, the BlackBerry resurrection could be powered by going in a completely different direction. If nothing else because the brand has become a pun in itself, moving into a completely different industry would give it more of a fresh start without any of the lagging negative connotations. But I digress. Poor BlackBerry.

Firefox also released its new phone recently. In a way that really kind of blows my mind-- it will be priced cheaper than pretty much any other smartphone out there ($79.99), will be sold through eBay (no worries for Firefox on negotiating carrier contracts and no time lost to market in taking time to negotiate those contracts) in order to maximize the availability of the phone globally, will offer an open OS (those pops you hear aren’t a figment of your imagination--developers just exploded all around the world) and will be carrier agnostic. What. The. Hell.

Okay, let’s do a run-down, not only do I love their genius, no-holds barred, super aggressive entrance (style points!) but the combination of accessibility and affordability is a serious threat to the existing players out there. 

• Cheap - Affordability on this thing is out of control. $79.99?! Are you kidding?! Not only are emerging markets going to die over this, but IF Firefox can promise the same type of quality experience that other hardware can offer then this may have the opportunity to become something that says, “Hey I’m cool and I also have a smartphone. But it’s also one-of-a-kind, non-establishment and super affordable-- so tell me who’s the smart one now?” Particularly in cultures where frugality is a positive  characteristic (I can say from experience that Chinese culture this is definitely true, although this is quick-changing with the rise of the new rich)

• Sold on eBay - Pure genius. Global platform allows them to have a single channel of demand so that they can have deeper insight into the devices they need. Additionally, they also save money by being able to consolidate their warehouses and streamline their shipping process. Inventory is kept smaller than if they supplied carriers/ASPs or retail shops, so it’s a smart operational move all the way around. Particularly since Firefox has always been a more “intangible” brand-- building its name as a browser first, the need for physical stores right now is unnecessary (future stores--maybe)

• Open OS - Why not let the developers do the work for you? Particularly with the open OS that they exhibited with developers early on through the development of their browser, this makes sense

• Carrier Agnostic- The power of numbers my friends. This will place a lot of pressure on their OS to be flexible as it will need to adopt to many different carriers and their sometimes-personalized needs, but carrier agnostic? Awesome.

So I’ll have to keep an eye on Firefox... They’re doing crazy things when no one is watching.