Get it together with software, or get out, Gartner tells smartphone manufacturers

Smartphone manufacturers are facing an increasingly stark choice: Build an ecosystem of services around their devices, or get out of the game altogether.

Only those able to deliver value beyond the hardware, like Apple, or to manufacture at scale, such as Samsung Electronics, are likely to survive, according to Gartner analyst Roberta Cozza.

As for manufacturers that achieve neither, well, "some of those players might just leave the market," she said.

So who might the quitters be?

Against the odds, BlackBerry CEO John Chen has recently doubled down on his hardware plans, promising in recent interviews two new smartphones before the end of the year.

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