BlackBerry ad turns Priv leak into positive publicity; no more new BB10 handsets?

While BlackBerry CEO John Chen earlier today confirmed that the Android driven BlackBerry Priv is coming, the company ran an ad in the Wall Street Journal that said that the leak of the phone’s real name was “the best demonstration as to why BlackBerry’s products, technology and brand are essential to the world.” The company said that it “found this breach of privacy extraordinary.” Wednesday evening, we told you that the Android powered slider that had been code named the BlackBerry Venice, would be called the BlackBerry Priv.

Earlier today, Chen took over CNBC‘s blog to announce that the Priv is a collaboration with Google, and includes BlackBerry security. The executive said the phone came about because consumers wanted the security of a BlackBerry handset, the ease of typing using a physical BlackBerry QWERTY, and the opportunity to download all Android apps.

While Chen didn’t specifically say that BlackBerry will stop producing BlackBerry 10 handsets, if you read between the lines, all the CEO promised was continued support for BlackBerry 10, and updates for the OS in the upcoming year. If this is the case, we wouldn’t be surprised if the rumors about an Android powered BlackBerry Passport will come true. We’ve seen images of the business centric device running on Google’s open source OS, and an earlier report said that such a device would be launched in 2016 depending on how well the BlackBerry Priv does.

We await more information about the BlackBerry Priv, including specs, pricing and availability.