BlackBerry Z30 Will Hit Verizon Stores in November

Towards the end of September we heard the Q2 2014 earnings report from BlackBerry, which was anything but positive. One of the items that helped to reduce the overall generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) loss down to $965 was the fact that the company had a substantial write down which was mostly due to the many unsold Z10s still on hand.

At that time I mentioned that the Z10 which had been the flagship smartphone for BlackBerry was being reduced to an entry level device. There would be a new flagship device for the company. BlackBerry introduced the Z30. The image below compares the Z10 on the left with the Z30.

The new Z30 will be larger than the now old Z10. Since the new screen size is five inches, it sort of falls under the category of a phablet. Overall the device is 5.53 x 2.83 x 0.37 inches. Why all this talk about the Z30? Because sometime in November you will be able see it at Verizon.

While there are still some questions as to the future of BlackBerry, it is pushing ahead with the release of the Z30 in the U.S. In a briefing on Monday, Vivek Bhardwaj, BlackBerry's head of software portfolio, confirmed to reporters that Verizon would be the exclusive launch partner for the Z30.

We know that Fairfax Financial has given BlackBerry a letter of intent and we know that other names have been popping up with the mention of a possible buyout. This is somewhat the burden that the Z30 is carrying on its shoulders.

CNET reports that this “exclusive” with Verizon appears to be less about having locked up a deal with BlackBerry and more about the lack of interest from rival carriers. One such example is that Sprint has stopped maintaining BlackBerry devices.

Bhardwaj said, "We're not solely tied to Verizon." However, he declined to comment about getting the Z30 on other carriers. He did note that BlackBerry was ready to ship phones to other carriers if they requested it. It does not look like Verizon will be providing any special promotional or marketing support for the Z30.

Bhardwaj declined to comment, referring the question back to the carrier. He also declined to talk too much about BlackBerry's own promotional effort, but seemed to hint the campaign would focus more on the new BlackBerry 10.2 platform than on an individual device.

This re-enforces by belief that BlackBerry is trying to promote its BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) 10 and BBM 10 as it develops these apps to be cross-platform. It seems that BlackBerry attempting to distance itself from handsets and focus its attention on the software side as opposed to hardware.

Something that I find interesting is that according to CNET, Bhardwaj dismissed the financial concerns surrounding BlackBerry, insisting that most consumers don't worry about the business prospects or potential of a company when buying their products.

The only thing that we can say for sure about the Z30 is that it will be sold exclusively at Verizon, for now. That’s pretty much it. It will be available sometime in November, but no exact date has been given. It will most likely go on sale for $200, but that too has not been completely verified.