BlackBerry - considered by many to be on its last legs - has scooped another award, for its flagship five-inch Z30 smartphone.
The second BlackBerry 10 device to be unveiled - in September last year - the Z30 this week became a gold winner in the consumer product of the year category in Best in Biz Awards 2014 International. The independent business awards programme is judged by members of the press and industry analysts.
This comes about a month after the company won Red Dot awards for the design of three of its since-launched devices - the "phablet-like" Z30, high-end hybrid Q10 and the mid-level hybrid Q5.
At launch, the touch-screen Z30 device, which features a 1.7GHz processor, was intended to compete against the likes of Apple's iPhone 5S and Samsung's Galaxy S4 - along with a slew of other devices powered by Google's Android platform.
Over 200 public and private companies representing all sectors of the economy from more than 30 countries competed in Best in Biz Awards' second annual international programme. The initiative featured categories like fastest-growing company of the year, most innovative company of the year, enterprise product of the year, best new version of the year, and most innovative product of the year.
Winners of Best in Biz Awards 2014 International were determined based on scoring from a panel of 27 judges drawn from news, business, finance and technology publications, and media outlets from 17 countries, with all continents represented. Nigeria's Ventures Africa represented Africa this year.
High hopes
In June, BlackBerry posted a narrower-than-expected quarterly loss in the wake of the smartphone maker's turnaround efforts, fuelling hopes that John Chen - who became CEO in November - would deliver on his vow to return the company to steady profit.
Industry observers, however, say the Canadian company is still a far cry from being the BlackBerry the world once knew.
World Wide Worx MD Arthur Goldstuck points out that the company is largely being kept afloat by software. "[BlackBerry's] software proposition keeps improving from an offering point of view. In fact, the company has been on an upward trajectory since Thorsten Heinz took the reins. What we are seeing now is his legacy and strategic approach in the software area, with BBM, security and its software platform QNX."
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