BlackBerry, the financially-challenged Canadian smartphone maker, is ending its association with American singer and songwriter, Alicia Keys.
Hired last January, in the campaign to launch the BlackBerry 10, the 14-time Grammy winner was contracted to help promote the device and develop it.
In a high-profile launch in New York City last year, Alicia Keys joined former CEO Thorsten Heins onstage describing her role as working with app designers and developers, and helping to create original content.
While the move was criticized as a corporate title for celebrity endorsement, Alicia Keys did attend several corporate events and appear in promotional material.
BlackBerry said Keys was directly involved and touted her work promoting a four-year scholarship program for young women going into certain science and technology fields.
The BlackBerry 10 was not the success the company, based in Waterloo, Ontario, was hoping for, and new CEO John Chen is concentrating now on business users and the enterprise market.
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