BlackBerry CEO says Android and Windows Phone are not mobile computing platforms

BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins has been a busy man with the launch of the BlackBerry 10 OS and the Z10 smartphone. But Heins hasn’t shied away from taking shots at rival platforms, whenever the opportunity arises.

Computer World reports that in his keynote at the Australia launch of the BlackBerry Z10, Heins told the audience that the company considered but rejected the idea of building BlackBerry services for Android or Microsoft’s Windows Phone. “We really thought hard about it,” Heins said, but the company decided that Android or WP8 didn’t share his vision of a “mobile computing” future. Android and Windows Phone “are not mobile computing platforms,” he said, pointing out that users cannot do the same work on an Android or Windows Phone device that they do on any other computer.

BB10 is a true mobile computing platform, says Heins

While there’s no doubt that BlackBerry 10 OS is a step up for the company, there’s a lot of room for improvement. However, even during the launch, the company has emphasised that BB10 is the best option for multi-tasking. Since the Z10 has no physical or capacitive navigation buttons, all interactions are based on touch gestures. The presentation during the launch made it a point to say that in the BB10 OS, users don’t need to jump in and out of apps to do multiple things. In BB10, the homescreen of the OS doubles up as the multi-tasking screen as well with all the open apps displayed in stacks.

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According to BlackBerry, this setup is ideal for multi-tasking. However, there is a general feeling that BlackBerry is a bit late on the scene. For one, the company’s primary market of business or corporate smartphone users has moved on to other platforms thanks to the increasing popularity of the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) practice in the work place. Heins said in response to BYOD, “It’s not on us whether we can influence this or not."

As BlackBerry seeks to win back business from rivals after a late realisation that it must adapt to the fast-changing smartphone environment, the company is resorting to all manner of publicity. Earlier, the BlackBerry CEO had called out the Apple iPhone for being outdated. Heins made the comment on the eve of the launch of the new BlackBerry Z10 in the US. “It’s still the same,” Heins said of the iPhone. “It is a sequential way to work and that’s not what people want today anymore. They want multitasking.”