Investors and enthusiasts looking at BlackBerry to turn around their fortunes in the smartphone industry found some dire news today. The company’s fiscal first-quarter results produced a quarterly operating loss and expectations of zero profits for the current quarter. Stock in the company had previously gained over 20 percent in value but dropped around 28 percent early today. There have been concerns about its BlackBerry 10 line of devices and their penetration into corporate and consumer markets. Despite some signs and good reviews of the products, this news has surprised few as they are taking on giants in an Android and iPhone dominated smartphone landscape. The report did state that sales had risen 13 percent from the previous quarter, but overall deliveries were down from one year ago.

BlackBerry changed their name from RIMM and brought two much anticipated and long-delayed smartphones to the market this year with the BlackBerry Z10, a marquee touch screen smartphone device and the Q10, which featured a keyboard. The company had struggled to get its next-generation BlackBerry 10 operating system out the door and ready for the market. They did introduce a number of enterprise mobility and security features in the new release, including a scrapping of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server in exchange for a range of mobile services that could manage other devices in addition to their own phones, and that had the ability to have two modes of business or personal application access on the same phone. BlackBerry also introduced the Q5, a low-cost play for the entry-level end of the phone market.

BlackBerry has been gunning for a turnaround for some time, but the signs of that happening at this point are not good. One big problem is that the smartphone market as contentious and cut-throat as it is appears to be showing signs of slowing down across the board – at the high-end, at the low-end and everything in between. BlackBerry has finally arrived to the party, but it looks like the punch is gone and the band is packing up their gear already. It’s a stunning reversal of fortune for a company that basically introduced mobilized email to corporations and consumers alike. To illustrate the disconnect, analysts had been expected a profit of 6 cents per share on $3.36 billion in revenue, but they actually reported an adjusted loss of 13 cents per share on $3.1 billion. There were hopes that reports of better than expected sales numbers would produce the foundation for a steady turnaround.

BlackBerry is not giving up however and is focused on investment-heavy development of devices. The current quarter is projected to carry an operating loss. BlackBerry also reported 2.72 million devices that were shipped were BlackBerry 10 devices, but would not provide any subscriber numbers because the revenue model had changed. They also had no details to share about the outlook for the remainder of the year, citing competition and estimating challenges. Murky answers to legitimate shareholder questions don’t go very far, and the market is responding accordingly. It appears that BlackBerry is on total life support now, with no projections for the future and limited success with what was their Hail Mary swack at becoming a player in the smartphone game.