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On Tuesday, BlackBerry made another move to return to its past strengths when it unveiled a new flagship smartphone that resurrects the company’s legacy physical trackpad and menu buttons, which had been eliminated from its most recent high end QWERTY smartphone, the Q10.

The new device, dubbed the Q20, is due to be released later this year.

Combined with BlackBerry’s renewed focus on its corporate and government clients and a heightened emphasis on its most popular piece of software, BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), it’s clear Mr. Chen believes the path to finding a sustainable future for BlackBerry lies in focusing and improving on those elements which led to its profitable past.

“In my first 90 days on the job, I consistently heard from our ardent BlackBerry customers that the hard buttons and trackpad are an essential part of the BlackBerry QWERTY experience, that made their BlackBerry smartphone their go-to productivity tool,” Mr. Chen said in a statement.

“I want these customers to know that we heard them, and this new smartphone will be for them.”

Investors, it seems, are on board with Mr. Chen’s back to the future approach. Shares of BlackBerry rose 7.8% to close at US$10.60 on the Nasdaq Stock Market in New York. BlackBerry shares are up roughly 60% since Mr. Chen took the helm of the company in November.

The launch of the Q20 was one of a series of announcements BlackBerry made on Tuesday the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona.