BlackBerry, the company that once dominated mobile devices, recently announced that it will permanently suspend the services supported by your phones.
As of January 4, phones will no longer have provisioning services, meaning that they will gradually lose the ability to connect to networks, including the cellular network.
BlackBerry has already dominated the smartphone market thanks to its physical keyboard and corporate services, which used to run on BlackBerry servers, allowing for high levels of security and control.
The BlackBerry was surprised by the iPhone’s popularity but abandoned the use of on-screen keyboards and relied on corporate services to maintain its market.
It took the company over a year to launch its own touchscreen phone, and its software remained a mix of old and new. Meanwhile, business users have switched to Apple and Android.
BlackBerry eventually gave up on its own phones and started releasing versions of Android before abandoning the hardware business altogether. Now he primarily develops security services for businesses.
The latest version of the BlackBerry OS is from 2013, so the devices affected by the ad are already very old. The promised support period ended more than a year ago, so he’s already fulfilled his promise.
The end of support effect is detailed on a page of common questions. The main change is that The BlackBerry will no longer send provisioning updates to these devices. Provisioning information provides details about how devices must establish connections with different types of network equipment, including cellular and wireless networks.
As a result, at some indeterminate point in the future, BlackBerry devices will no longer be able to connect. Consequently, BlackBerry claims that its devices “They will no longer function reliably, including data, calls, SMS and emergency calling functionality.”
Some software services that relied on connections to BlackBerry servers to function will be discontinued on January 4th.
The number of people likely to be affected by this is very small. However, it is a clear indicator of the end of what was once a very important technology.
