Blackberries cheapest 'made in China' on the road

But dealing with Foxconn could be bad news for Canadian workers

Chinese will be responsible for making the BlackBerry smartphones in the future, it was revealed, as the struggles of the troubled Canadian manufacturer himself turn. Foxconn of Taiwan, whose manufacturing sites are largely based in the people's Republic, also will cover the hardware design of new devices, leaving BlackBerry to provide software technology. First joint products are due to be released in the spring of 2014, codenamed Jakarta and directed initially to the Indonesian markets. But the Alliance, while generally well received by investors, it could cause problems for BlackBerry at home, placing as does it a question mark over the future of its manufacturing facilities in the vicinity of Toronto.

Also raises issues about the strategic direction of Foxconn, as Hon Hai Precision Industry and employing about 300,000 workers in the region of Zhengzhou China and that, until now, have been busy making iPhones from Apple - BlackBerry nemesis.

BlackBerry CEO John Chen revealed the shock yesterday [20 December 2013] at a conference call of third quarter where the company also revealed a loss of $4.4 billion, adding to the huge losses already it has reaped in recent years as a result of competition from the likes of Apple and Samsung.

Despite this, said Chen, of the balance of BlackBerry "remains very strong" with an increase of $3.2 billion during the quarter, up $2.6 billion last quarter and reflecting a convertible obligation of $1 trillion, which was completed last month.

Chen described the new connection with Foxconn helping to reduce purchase obligations and compensation of the cost of inventory.

He revealed that BlackBerry still has 80 million users of its instant messaging platform, its number by the launch of the BBM application for Android and iOS devices and is used daily by about two-thirds of users who downloaded it.

Dave Evans is a commentator established long in both the IT and mobile industries. His current focus is in part trends of prices within the sector. You can send an email here