T-Mobile's U.S. License Agreement with BlackBerry Ends This Month

In September 2013, T-Mobile announced that while it would continue to offer BlackBerry devices to its customers, it would no longer stock the smartphones on their shelves. The reason that was given at the time was that these devices were failing to sell in any significant quantity.

Five months later, in the middle of February, I wrote about T-Mobile’s offer to BlackBerry users. Basically the offer was described by T-Mobile as a great offer for BlackBerry customers. The deal was for BlackBerry customers to switch to an iPhone. This lit a fire under BlackBerry’s new CEO, John Chen, who responded in a blog posting.

T-Mobile’s bottom line stand was that its customers would not have to give up their BlackBerry devices. It was simply offering these customers a choice. Undeniably however, with phrases like it’s “a great offer for BlackBerry customers” and the fact that this choice was given specifically to BlackBerry users and wasn’t just a general offer says a lot.

So, as you can see, it is not far off the mark to say that the relationship between these two companies in 2014 started on shaky ground. Regardless of all this, it still comes as a bit of a surprise and somewhat unexpected. BlackBerry has announced on Monday that it that when T-Mobile’s license agreement ends on April 25, 2014, that it will not be renewed.

A statement from BlackBerry CEO, John Chen, reads as follows, "BlackBerry has had a positive relationship with T-Mobile for many years. Regretfully, at this time, our strategies are not complementary and we must act in the best interest of our BlackBerry customers. We hope to work with T-Mobile again in the future when our business strategies are aligned. We are deeply grateful to our loyal BlackBerry customers and will do everything in our power to provide continued support with your existing carrier or ensure a smooth transition to our other carrier partners.”

Toward this end, it is said that BlackBerry is working closely with all its other carrier partners in an effort to provide consumers and business users with alternatives. That is if these people should decide to transition to another carrier and still want to use their current BlackBerry devices for long-term device and service needs.

T-Mobile is also making an effort so that BlackBerry customers will not see any difference in their service or support on the T-Mobile network. BlackBerry will continue to work closely with T-Mobile to provide the best customer care that is possible while they are still on the T-Mobile network. Apparently T-Mobile still has some BlackBerry devices in its stores and they will also continue to support them if customers want to purchase one from its existing inventory.

It will be interesting to see how a couple of different factors play out. Will customers have more loyalty with BlackBerry and switch carriers? Will there be more loyalty on the T-Mobile side and its customers will switch to other devices, such as an iPhone that was being was being promoted earlier this year? Or will something completely different take place.