Struggling Blackberry has gained the backing of Verizon Wireless, and will reportedly debut its z30 model next month for $200 and a two-year contract CNET reported Monday.
"We're not solely tied to Verizon," Vivek Bhardwaj, head of software portfolio at Blackberry told CNET. "The best thing we can do is focus on bringing out new products."
The news is the latest development in Blackberry's efforts to re-establish itself in the mobile phone market, and an item that has raised questions about whether Verizon's deal is about the company's ability to agree on terms with Blackberry or because no other phone companies want the company. The company has bounced around trying to interest phone companies to pick them up. Blackberry was recently on track to get with Sprint who wanted to make a touchscreen blackberry; however plans have since been dropped.
The new product has a 5-inch touch screen and is based on a newer version of the Blackberry 10 operating system Bloomberg reported. It also has a 1.7 gigahertz processor, stereo speakers that improve the quality of conversations and the largest battery ever built into a BlackBerry. Carriers of the phone will unveil prices. The z30's counterpart, the Blackberry z10 has a 4.2- inch touch screen which is similar to handsets on the iPhone.
"BlackBerry OS share will decline markedly over the forecast due to tepid BlackBerry 10 reception and emboldened competition that are expected to whittle away share in its remaining regional bastions of strength, such as Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East," the International Data Corporation said in a statement last month Bloomberg reported.
Two fiscal quarters ago, sales did not meet estimates made by analysts by roughly one million units. This resulted in the company announcing it would be willing to be sold or create new business partnerships.
The company is headquartered in Waterloo, Ontario.
