He noted that BlackBerry Messenger, BlackBerry's popular messaging application, has been downloaded by more 20 million users since it became available on Google's Android and Apple's iOS platforms last month. BlackBerry Messenger, or BBM, works like text messaging but doesn't incur extra fees.
"I'd like to find somebody to help me monetize that," Chen said.
Colin Gillis, an industry analyst at BGC Financial, questioned whether that's possible.
"It's like Apple saying we're going to stop making phones and we're going to become an iMessage company," Gillis said.
Gillis said BlackBerry might indeed stop selling phones but noted BlackBerry is already obsolete. He doesn't think current BlackBerry users have to worry though.
"They are not just going to shut the lights off," Gillis said.
The decline of the BlackBerry has come shockingly fast. In 1999, BlackBerry became a game-changing breakthrough in personal connectedness. It changed the culture by allowing on-the-go business people to access wireless email. President Barack Obama couldn't bear to part with his BlackBerry. Oprah Winfrey declared it one of her "favorite things."
Then came a new generation of competing smartphones, and suddenly the BlackBerry looked ancient. Apple debuted the iPhone in 2007 and showed that phones can handle much more than email and phone calls. In the years since, BlackBerry Ltd. been hammered by competition from the iPhone as well as Android-based rivals.
This year's much-delayed launch of the BlackBerry 10 system and the fancier devices that use it was supposed to rejuvenate the brand and lure customers. It did not work. Waterloo, Ontario-based BlackBerry recently announced 4,500 layoffs, or 40 percent of its global workforce, and reported a quarterly loss of nearly $1 billion.
"Sadly I think they are already out of the business after the BlackBerry 10 flop," said Mike Walkley, an analyst with Canaccord Genuity.
Walkley said he believes BlackBerry will focus on its mobile device management business, which allows IT departments to manage different devices connected to their corporate networks.