BlackBerry (NASDAQ:BBRY) is still trading above my usual $10.50 profit-taking level. I speculate that this excitement is due to the coming commercial launch of the QWERTY-style BlackBerry Classic. BBRY was also trending higher last year when the BlackBerry Z3 and the Passport was about to launch.

BlackBerry missed revenue estimates last quarter (partly due to weak smartphone sales), which indicates that the expensive weird-looking Passport did not find enough commercial success. The hybrid keyboard of the Passport may also have been strange to people accustomed to the classic QWERTY keyboard of older BlackBerry phones.

The BlackBerry Classic is therefore a return-to-the-roots strategy. John Chen's experimental foray with the unique-but-weird looks of the Passport is proving to be a hard sell. Corporate users, who remain loyal to their BlackBerry Bold/Q10 handsets because they disliked the Passport, may now consider upgrading to the Classic.

Looking at the picture above, corporate slaves will likely prefer the smaller, more traditional physical design of the Classic. The ergonomics are also in favor of the Classic when it comes to doing daily tasks on the phone. The optical track pad and the four dedicated function buttons are more familiar to long-time BlackBerry phone users.

BlackBerry's previous attempts to modernize its phone by creating iphone-like (touchscreen handsets like the Z30 and Z10) were also unsuccessful. BlackBerry phones' global market share is still less than 2%. John Chen's objective of selling at least 10 million handsets per year will be difficult to achieve if people continues to have little interest in the Z3 and the Passport.

The release of the Classic is therefore another gambit by Chen to entice current BlackBerry Bold/Q10 (and owner of older models) to switch to a new smartphone. The Classic has the looks and the old feel of a BlackBerry. It was available for pre-order last December 17 and the price tag was only $449 – a lot cheaper than the Passport's $599 u.s. pricing.