Photographer: Dimas Ardian/Bloomberg via Getty Images
By Jon Swartz, USA TODAY
SAN FRANCISCO - BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins is unapologetic - OK, feisty - on the eve of the BlackBerry Z10 launch.
He
calls the iPhone "passe." Apple, he contends, has lost its innovative
edge. Android? "It is part of a fiercely competitive market," he says.
And,
yet, he is remarkably candid about BlackBerry's perceived second-class
status in the pecking order of smartphones. "We have the same issue as
Apple," he says. "We need to earn our laurels back. We have a long way
to go."
In a phone interview with USA TODAY on the eve of the Z10
launch in New York on Friday, Heins deemed the roll-out a "major
milestone" for the company. "We did not build a new product; we built a
new platform," he says.
To be sure, BlackBerry has its work cut
out. The Canadian company faces the onerous task of reversing its
flagging fortunes in an overcrowded smartphone market. It is pinning its
hopes on its next-generation BlackBerry 10 operating system, which has
garnered generally positive reviews and helped bump up its stock.
At
the same time, BlackBerry 10 has about 100,000 apps, compared with
about 700,000 each for Android and iOS. "They are clearly living in an
echo chamber," says Larry Levy, CEO of Appinions, which analyzes
marketing data for Fortune 500 companies. "They are out of the influence circle, behind Apple, Google and Microsoft."
Still, shares of BlackBerry (BBRY) were up 1%, to $16.18, Thursday
and surged 6% Wednesday following an upgrade from Morgan Stanley
analyst Ehud Gelblum. He says the company's new mobile device could
emerge as a "niche midrange player" in the smartphone market.
BlackBerry
plans to make available its new Z10 touch-screen phone in the U.S. on
Friday. The new product line, announced in January, carries a margin of
about 20%, and Gelblum estimates margins for the Q10 model could hit an
Apple-like 30%.
Heins contends several features - the ability to
run multiple apps at the same time and a predictive tool that chooses
words as you type - will win over consumers unfamiliar with the handheld
device, as well as sway users in the government and enterprise. "We are
in the market to win every consumer back," he says.
The same
hyperspeed innovation cycle that he says makes it harder for iOS to
compete may benefit BlackBerry. "This industry moves so fast, that if
you forget to be on your tippy toes every minute, you are at risk," says
Heins, who says he can't wait to launch Z10 and "fight" for customers.
Heins
hastens that Apple "did a fantastic job with the user interface, they
are a design icon," he says. "There is a reason why they were so
successful, and we actually have to admit this and respect that."