Following massive loss, BlackBerry announces the end of its hardware business

BlackBerry Ltd posted a 31.8 percent fall in second-quarter revenue and it said it would end all internal hardware development, including its well known smartphones. The Waterloo, Ontario-based company reported a net loss of $372 million, or 71 cents a share, on revenue of $334 million. A year ago, it reported a profit of $51 million, or 24 cents a share, on revenue of $490 million. Excluding one-time items, the company said it broke even. BlackBerry has been struggling to reestablish itself in the market since the fall from grace of its BB7-based flagship devices of yore. Their push for a brand new OS, BB10, failed, as did the hardware that they’ve built since. While few can deny the quality of the OS, it was too little too late. The company has since made one abortive attempt at Android hardware in the form of the overpriced, underpowered and prone-to-overheating BlackBerry Priv . It has also tried to establish itself as a software services provider with a BlackBerry Hub and Messenger for Android, but those services are yet to catch on or even prove competitive in the congested app space. Their latest attempt at a phone was in the form of a budget handset, the DTEK50 , which is probably a rebranded Alcatel phone. For a company that’s been struggling so hard to regain footing, the news of their departure from hardware development comes as no surprise. Some would say that it was long overdue. With inputs from Reuters