BlackBerry US managing director loses job amid lackluster carrier support

BlackBerry held their annual general meeting yesterday, and then last night I read the news that BlackBerry fired Richard Piasentin, BlackBerry's US Managing Director. Heins stated that US carriers didn't help with the US launch of BB10, but BlackBerry 10's model more closely matched that of iOS, Android and Windows Phone, so there wasn't a huge differentiator like there was in the past with BIS and special BlackBerry data plans.

I am still enjoying testing out the BlackBerry Q10 and I do like the modern UI elements of the platform. It is great to see removable batteries and microSD cards on BB10 devices and the Q10 is easily the best hardware QWERTY smartphone available today. Apparently, these design elements and BB10 still aren't enough at this time.

It also doesn't help that BlackBerry reneged on its PlayBook BB10 promise and is still selling more older devices than BB10 devices.

As James and I pointed out, the US Q10 sales figures are not yet showing up since the device just started hitting US wireless carrier stores. The next quarter's financials will tell a lot about whether or not BlackBerry can succeed with BB10 and as Kevin and I recently stated on the MoTR podcast we may see BlackBerry end up being more of a small services company rather than a smartphone maker.

With a major announcement from Nokia this week it looks like it is prime time for Microsoft to move into that third spot with Windows Phone.