It's been a rough couple of years at BlackBerry. The rebranding—which included a name change from Research in Motion to BlackBerry—did not yield desired results. Apple and Google became increasingly key players in the mobile device market, which meant the one-time smartphone leader fell further behind the competition. There were even questions two years ago as to whether or not the company would go out of business. Yet, after a few encouraging words from the organization's new CEO, there's something stirring in the BlackBerry office walls that hasn't been there for quite some time—optimism.
Last week, the company posted worse-than-expected quarterly numbers, yet its stock increased significantly. The reason? New CEO John Chen described a detailed plan to get the company back on track, which was apparently delivered in such a manner it gave investors confidence they haven't felt in years.
Earlier this month, this blog detailed Chen's proclamation that the company was not dead yet. Now, it appears that not only is BlackBerry still alive, it plans to dig itself out of its current hole and challenge the likes of Apple and Google in the mobile market. Chen's words impressed many in the media, including the online publication BGR, which suggested he may be the type of person BlackBerry needed all along.
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