BlackBerry CEO promises legal action against product leakers
Leaks are par for the course when you're a huge company working on a new product, but one BlackBerry leaker seems to have gone too far. At least, CEO John Chen thinks so: today he penned a post on the official Inside BlackBerry blog promising legal action against a leaker who "falsely posed as an employee of one of [BlackBerry's] carrier partners to obtain access to secured networks."
Ouch.
Chen didn't say exactly what has the organization so hot and bothered, but the timing of a recently leaked BlackBerry 10.3 build makes it a likely suspect. Among other things, that early version of Waterloo's new OS revealed codenames for future devices and the existence of an Intelligent Assistant app that may be meant to rival Siri, Google Now and Microsoft's Cortana. (Naturally, BlackBerry declined to comment on the matter.) Chen concedes at least some leaks are driven by fan curiosity, but for now he intends to take "strong action" against those whose zeal for the company ultimately winds up hurting it. BlackBerry is far from the only device maker that's been burned by leaks lately -- HTC's shiny new One popped up in loads of photos and starred in two in-depth video leaks ahead of its launch yesterday. Surprise, surprise: HTC was not at all pleased with that pre-launch leakfest, but will it have a deleterious effect on sales? That's the question these companies really need to mull.
