BlackBerry to release new keyboard smartphone within six months, executive says
One of BlackBerry's top sales executives says the company will release a new smartphone with its distinctive physical keyboard within six months. The comment was made in a BBC video interview published Wednesday, a week after the Canadian smartphone pioneer announced it would stop doing hardware development in-house. Instead, it said it would rely on partners to produce BlackBerry devices. It's been an open secret that BlackBerry has at least one more smartphone with a keyboard that hasn't been released. But chairman and CEO John Chen said last week that he hadn't decided whether it would be brought to market. The company's senior vice-president for global device sales, Alex Thurber, was less vague in his interview with BBC. "There will still be a keyboard-based BlackBerry device, designed and distributed within the next six months," he said. Thurber said that the keyboards set BlackBerrys apart from market-leading Apple and Samsung smar...