This was not an April Fool’s day prank.
BlackBerry, in its continued effort to shed its hardware history, has shut down its customer support forums.
Supportforums.BlackBerry.com was once the destination for millions of BlackBerry owners and developers to troubleshoot their devices and also voice ideas and concerns regarding the company. However, now all forums and threads will redirect to popular BlackBerry-focused website CrackBerry.
BlackBerry notes on its site that both the BlackBerry Support Community Device Forums and the BlackBerry Developer Support Forums have moved. “BlackBerry remains committed to providing excellent customer support to our customers. We are delighted to direct you to the CrackBerry Forums, a well-established and thorough support channel, for continued BlackBerry device support,” says BlackBerry on its site.
Since BlackBerry is now a software company, this move seems like a natural shift.
Kevin Michaluk, founder of CrackBerry, stated, “When we launched CrackBerry.com 10 years ago, we set out to make it a fun and useful destination where BlackBerry Smartphone owners could share their excitement and learn to unleash the full potential of their BlackBerry. A decade later, the CrackBerry community is as active and passionate as ever and I know our knowledgeable members and volunteers will be excited to welcome and assist more BlackBerry owners with their questions.”
“For the record, no money went from BlackBerry to CrackBerry for this. They had decided to close their support forums and I was more than happy to have them redirected to CrackBerry. It’ll make for an even BIGGER and BETTER CrackBerry community,” said Michaluk in a comment on the site.
While BlackBerry’s market share has dropped in recent years — its BlackBerry 10 OS now holds less than one percent of the worldwide smartphone marketshare — the company’s shift to outsource production and sign a licensing agreement with TCL Communication, PT BB Merah Putih and Optiemus Infracom, seems to be working. The next flagship BlackBerry is set to be the BlackBerry KEYone, which will launch in Canada in May.
Source: BlackBerry
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