15 August 2013

Quality when you need(ed) it

Today there were news about the inevitable sale of Blackberry...

Another giant has to bow to its rivals.  Or maybe its golden days are past.

Talking to a student about this, we realised that many companies might have their own idea about quality of their products.  And then this idea might not be the same that customers have.

It seems that we are changing our idea of quality.  Or we are fed different ideas as if we could choose. As if choice was ours to make.  Remember: you can choose any colour of your car as long as it is black.

Quality for me is still an elusive term.  As a man I associate it with reliability, specially when it comes to technology.

In the case of mobile technology it seems that appearance has taken the upper hand.  I do not know about Blackberry's competitors idea of quality, but it seems they have been able to convince the customer that they are the ones having the upper hand in terms of quality.  As if quality had to do with fast innovation and development of products at our fingertips.

Another take on quality which could help us here is that of quality of relationships.  Blackberry still strikes me as a stand alone company.  Very good, reliable, but with no allies with common goals.  Specially mobile operators and software companies.

What could the future hold for Blackberry?

Maybe a very specific customer niche well exploited, maybe going back to basics (I always like this). Maybe innovation at a different and meaningful pace. Maybe a soul search...Maybe making things simpler, for illiterates like me.




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