BlackBerry used to be the most popular smartphone on the market at one point in time, and now it seems the death of the company’s smartphones is not very far off. One more piece of evidence supporting this came up when one of the biggest telecommunications companies in Australia, Optus, stopped selling them on plans, says a report from The Sydney Morning Herald.
Only one major carrier partner in Australia
Optus made the announcement regarding the drop of BlackBerry to existing customers just before Christmas, and this means that now there is just one mainstream telecommunications company that still offers the struggling company’s phones. Telstra is still offering the Classic on a plan, but Vodafone and Virgin Mobile have stopped selling BlackBerry phones altogether.
Telstra confirmed to The Sydney Morning Herald that it is selling the BlackBerry devices to business and government buyers. An Optus spokesman said the company does not sell BlackBerry smartphones anymore but did not cite the reason.
“We have not ruled out offering any future handsets on postpaid plans,” the executive said.
BlackBerry customers left midway through
At least one customer has been left in the dark because of this decision. Her plan with Optus got canceled, after which she agreed to a new plan, but later her access to BlackBerry Enterprise Server was canceled, the report said.
The customer, Jo Bramble, said, “You have to assume that the sun is setting on BlackBerry. But I also assumed Optus would have to give me notice they were discontinuing access to the BlackBerry server.”
Bramble, who did not receive any information from the company, said one day she realized that she was unable to send or receive data any more. She said she uses a BlackBerry smartphone because it comes with a keyboard and has an easy-to-use interface but is not able to use it currently.
BlackBerry was once the most popular smartphone on the market but has been losing traction for several years now. The Canadian firm once held several advantages over competitors such as built-in email encryption and seamless integration between calendars, email and messaging, but now these features are now commonly found in almost all devices. Corporations and governments were the last part of the market in which the Canadian firm remained a leader, but it too has been lost to Apple and Android.
