By Shona Ghosh
Posted on 13 Jan 2014 at 11:24
BlackBerry plans to make smartphones that 'predominantly' feature Qwerty keyboards, despite the prevalence of touchscreen devices, according to CEO John Chen.
Chen suggested the company will turn to tried-and-tested methods to win back mobile market share, particularly in enterprise.
'You are going to see us centre more and more on the Qwerty keyboard,' Chen said, speaking to Recode.
Chen wouldn't rule out touchscreens altogether, but told Bloomberg that future devices would mostly feature physical keyboards.
'I personally love keyboards,' he said, adding that future BlackBerry hardware would 'predominately' feature physical keyboards, but stressed a touchscreen-only handset remains a possibility.
Keyboard lawsuit
BlackBerry earlier this month filed a lawsuit against Typo, a keyboard that slides onto various iPhone models.
The company described the keyboard as 'blatant infringement' against its own keyboard design.
Chen told Bloomberg that BlackBerry deserved some benefit from its many patents. 'BlackBerry has 44,000 patents - I think it's important that we gain some business benefit through our ownership of those patents and our ownership of IP,' he said. 'The Qwerty keyboard is extremely important to BlackBerry.'
Chen also confirmed that he had been upgraded from interm to full-time CEO, as BlackBerry puts its search for a new chief on the 'back burner'. Chen said he planned to oversee BlackBerry's turnaround and to stay put for the next year.
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