BlackBerry has been very publically struggling this year, after trying to push the reset button in January, so it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that it posted a huge loss and other dreadful numbers for its third quarter. Now the question is, "Whither BlackBerry?"

How bad were the numbers? BlackBerry, according to The New York Times, reported a $4.4 billion loss for its fiscal Q3 on Friday. Also reported on Friday - BlackBerry experienced an incredible 56 percent drop in revenue for its dismal third quarter compared to last year.

The drop in revenue and intense third quarter losses appears to be due to a couple of factors. First, BlackBerry said that that some of the larger-than-expected loss was due to restructuring costs, inventory commitments, and taxes, which totaled $2.7 billion.

But the second reason, especially concerning the steep drop in quarterly revenue, appears to be the failure of the company's 2013 reboot. For example, a large majority of BlackBerry devices purchased during the third quarter were not the company's latest, more expensive, BlackBerry 10 offerings like the Z30 - BlackBerry's last attempt at stirring up consumer demand with a high-end smartphone - but rather older smartphones running BlackBerry 7. BlackBerry's total revenue dropped by $380 million, or 24 percent, from the previous quarter.

Now What?

BlackBerry's woes have been a slow-motion train wreck for tech watchers this year, with the struggling company most recently trying to find someone (or a collection of people and organizations) to buy the company and take it off the public market. Perhaps the company wanted to avoid having to publically post the most recent figures. Regardless, that initiative failed in early November, and resulted in erstwhile CEO Thorsten Heins being replaced by cleanup man John Chen.

Chen has since fired several BlackBerry executives and just announced a new direction for the company: an intensified relationship with its long-time Chinese manufacturer, Foxconn. BlackBerry announced that it would jointly develop and manufacture some of its handsets with Foxconn, aimed at less saturated smartphone markets like Indonesia. Foxconn will have a much more active role in the process from concept to delivery, though BlackBerry will control the intellectual property and won't sell any significant part of the Canadian firm to Foxconn, due to Canada's investment laws.

"With the operational and organizational changes we have announced, BlackBerry has established a clear road map that will allow it to target a return to improved financial performance in the coming year," said Mr. Chen in a statement, according to the New York Times.

This will be the second major shift in the company's direction in as many years, and represents a 180-degree turn away from an intensive focus on its devices and software ecosystem, which Heins hoped (along with a change in name from Research in Motion to BlackBerry) would turn BlackBerry's fortunes in the beginning of 2013.