BlackBerry Classic's death blow; can Android save the company?

Shocking, I tell you, it's shocking. After only 18 months, BlackBerry is stopping production of its BlackBerry Classic smartphone -- you know, the one that still has a physical keyboard. Who would have guessed there wasn't a market for that?

In IT Blogwatch, we sound the death knell.

Want the background? We read the obit in RIP: BlackBerry kills its Classic phone:

Handheld phone, loved for its...keyboard and hated for its terrible web browser, dies at age 20. Was once the go-to device of millions...It was a good run. But the BlackBerry that you...knew and loved has passed away.
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BlackBerry announced on Tuesday...it would no longer make the BlackBerry Classic -- a model that used the old QWERTY keys and was popular before the age of touchscreen smartphones.
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The Canadian tech company formerly known as Research in Motion has been struggling for years due to increased competition from Apple...Samsung and other companies.

Wait, smartphones with actual keyboards are still around? Don't feel bad if you didn't know -- few people did. Catherine Piner explains Blackberry's reasoning for having a phone with a QWERTY keyboard this day and age:

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