BlackBerry, the Canadian company once known as RIM (Research In Motion) and for its enterprise-oriented phones, has announced that it will stop developing smartphones in-house. While the company will not be spending any more money on internally developing a smartphone, it will continue to sell phones under its brand with the help of third-party partners.

BlackBerry recently took this route with its recently unveiled DTEK 50, which was actually a rebranded and slightly modified version of Alcatel OneTouch. Last year, BlackBerry had released its first Android device, the BlackBerry Priv. While the handset was unique thanks to its curved AMOLED display and slide-out portrait keyboard, it did not work likely due to its high price and limited availability.

BlackBerry’s CEO John Chen had always stated that the company would stop devoting resources to phones if they failed to generate enough profits. The smartphone division inside BlackBerry had until September this year to turn into a profitable business. They could not. And thus, BlackBerry will now stop making smartphones to reduce its capital investment. The company has already partnered with the likes of Foxconn, Alcatel, and other third-party ODMs to outsource smartphone development to them. In all probability, we will see these companies release phones under the BlackBerry branding in the near future. BlackBerry will continue to focus on software, which has helped in keeping the company alive after its bet on the Z10 failed miserably.

BlackBerry will continue to focus on software, which has helped in keeping the company alive after its bet on the Z10 failed miserably. BlackBerry will now also focus on developing an extra secure version of Android that it can license to other companies.