It's not all dire news. BlackBerry is promising "at least" two years of BB10 support, and vintage BBOS devices will have a minimum two years of access to the company's network. If you need to hang on to a phone for work or just want to reminisce about old times, you have time to transition to newer hardware.

The timeline isn't exactly a shock when it's patently clear that BlackBerry sees TCL-made Android phones like the KEYone and Motion as its future. It doesn't want to keep running services that support a rapidly shrinking portion of its user base. Nonetheless, it's a sad moment for longstanding BlackBerry fans. The crew in Waterloo has basically given a death date for its legacy technology: no matter how attached you might be, you'll have to let go within a couple of years.