Security company OnwardMobility will not release a smartphone under the BlackBerry name, according to Android Police and CrackBerry. The agreement that allowed OnwardMobility to use the BlackBerry name is said to have been cancelled.
CrackBerry founder Kevin Michaluk says he has heard from multiple sources that OnwardMobility will not release a BlackBerry 5G phone after all. Last week, the company allegedly told Michaluk that it was no longer allowed to use the BlackBerry name, but that it would still continue making the device. The company offered Michaluk images and more details, provided he signed an nda. Michaluk, however, declined this offer.
The founder of the BlackBerry fan site says he heard from multiple sources on Wednesday that the project is now definitively not going ahead. It is not clear what has changed in that week. Michaluk suspects that something has changed within BlackBerry, as a result of which it no longer wishes to cooperate in the project, even if the BlackBerry name does not appear on the device. This may have something to do with BlackBerry’s plan to sell its smartphone patents.
Android Police says it has heard from its own sources that the OnwardMobility smartphone will indeed no longer appear. These sources also say that BlackBerry wants to distance itself from the smartphone market.
At the beginning of January, OnwardMobility said that the smartphone was still to be released, although the word BlackBerry was not used in the message. The company mentioned “several delays”, suspected chip shortages, and promised to provide more frequent updates on the new smartphone. It is not clear what OnwardMobility will do next.
OnwardMobility announced in August 2020 that it was working on the new smartphone. The smartphone would have a physical keyboard and the focus would be on security, especially within the business world. Images of the device have never been shown, although the design is said to resemble the Priv. For the phone, OnwardMobility teamed up with BlackBerry and FIH Mobile. The latter is a subsidiary of Foxconn.
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