Does BB offer anything unique anymore? They grew from gaining a great corporate email foothold. They were the best at using the smartphone as a productivity and quick messaging tool. At their peak, the iPhone was seen as an entertainment-first device by corp IT departments.
Now, since we can all get our exchange access with any smartphone....so BB is no longer 'standard' for that. Also, BB used to be the clear productivity leader in terms of who can bang out an email more easily on the go. Used to be that the advantage in quickly checking and responding to big boy communications was much greater. Now with how great type-ahead is on soft keyboards (also voice input) that advantage is gone. Sure BB may still best for that, but it's certainly debatable at this point instead of a universal nod in their favor.
So between the 4 existing ecosystems. Which one has a truly unique advantage? They are all pretty much different flavors of doing the same thing. All of them are now easy to use and move around in. All do great email, maps, apps, etc. We can debate the details but its no longer about productivity vs entertainment. They are all good at both now. But apple, MS, and google are huge ecosystems that aren't going away. BB isn't an ecosystem, its just a device that can access your Gmail, ms corp exchange, etc. That's fine, I connect to Gmail with my winphone. Last thing we want is 3 big walled gardens. But for new users, people are able to associate winphone and windows, google with android, etc.
I can see BB winning back die hards, but for a new smartphone user....what is the draw? At least MS created a unique interface, BB just made another app-grid-widget solution like android.
I hope BB succeeds as well as winphone and everyone has at least 10% of the market. But MS can absorb a lot of mobile loss for years as they push their new skydrive/win8 ecosystem. Kind of sucks that BB's very existence is riding on them carving out a niche by trying to become a 'good enough' alternative that does the same stuff as the others.