Good news for BlackBerry: the German government ordered 5,000 shiny, new Z10 smartphones to deploy to members of its staff. And now for the bad news. The other half of that 10,000 unit order went to Samsung — and they weren’t all even hot, new phones.
While the Ministry of the Interior and the Federal Office for Information Security did purchase a number of Samsung Galaxy S3 handsets, the ageing Galaxy SII rounded out the order. Not everyone who’s getting a new handset needs a powerhouse like the S3, of course, but it’s a shame that BlackBerry only has one current device it can offer up to corporate and government customers right now. If they had a mid-range device that ran an OS that actually has a future, who knows? Maybe they could have bagged the entire deal.
5,000 Z10s sold is obviously much better than none at all, and BlackBerry will take anything that even closely resembles a win at this point. That’s particularly true in the enterprise segment, where the company once dominated and competitors like Samsung didn’t stand a snowball’s chance of winning a bid. With a sleek new flagship device on offer and the smartly-built BlackBerry Balance feature keeping work and personal data isolated, maybe the German deal is a sign that BlackBerry is on the rebound.
At the end of the day, however, it’s Samsung that should really be bouyed by this news. It’s proof positive that the Galaxy brand is gaining corporate cred too, and that its devices are being thought of as secure, capable workplace tools and not just lustworthy personal smartphones.
This could very well be the first of many BlackBerry business lunches being eaten by Samsung.
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