Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer Does Not Consider BlackBerrys to be Smartphones

Back in September, Yahoo’s chief executive officer, Marissa Mayer, decided to switch employees’ devices from BlackBerrys to iPhones and Androids.

At the time, a leak was worded like this: “Yahoo is moving off of blackberries [sic] as our corporate phones and on to smartphones in 22 countries.” We questioned whether that meant Marissa did not consider BlackBerrys to be smartphones, but assumed it was just poor wording. After all, RIM practically invented the smartphone.

However, we now have pretty solid confirmation that the CEO indeed does not consider Research In Motion’s mobile devices to be smartphones. During an interview with Fortune last night, Marissa clearly stated, “we are literally moving the company from BlackBerrys to smartphones.”

Apparently Marissa did not get the memo that RIM was a leading pioneer in the smartphone space for nearly a decade, and that current-generation BlackBerrys can do everything an iPhone or Android device can: access the internet, use apps, offer touchscreen experiences, and so on.

Interestingly, she suggests that Windows Phone 8 qualifies as a smartphone platform, despite it having less apps and marketshare than RIM’s operating system. So we’re not really sure how Marissa can possibly not define BlackBerry devices as smartphones, or what exactly her criteria are, but she seems adamant about her position.

Check out the video below for a snippet of the Fortune interview that includes her denouncement of BlackBerry.