IS Blackberry turning into the Razr?

[scorpiodsu]

Originally Posted by zzycatch

The thing is, RIM is innovative, just not in the whiz-bang-flash, more is more kinda way that its competition is.

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to make something that just works, always? It is easy and cheap to slap on lots of flash and I for one have no time for that.

Business and personal devices are merging because... most people don't really need business devices, they are just keeping up with the Jonses. So they get something that can do a few tasks, play a lot of complex games and looks cool with a touch screen ("ooooh") or parts that flip and twist to reveal other parts ("aaaah") or some even have both. Nevermind that typing on a touchscreen is worthless or that moving parts increase your probability of failure dramatically.

I know, that most companies would rather not have to support various games that might crash or otherwise cause problems to the phone. As an IT director, I would never sign off on an iphone... "get your ego needs met elsewhere, we're here to work." is an apropos response.

Unless the iPhone ditches the touchscreen, it will never be a consideration for any serious business.

RIM hasn't been innovative in years. Their BIS and BES has been out for a while. Beside that, nothing else is really innovative.

[avt123]

Originally Posted by zzycatch

Unless the iPhone ditches the touchscreen, it will never be a consideration for any serious business.

So even with the BlackBerry name, the Storm shouldn't be considered a business device too then, correct?

And touch screen typing isn't worthless. I type faster on my iPhone than I do on my Bold. Not all can do this but many can.

[conker]

Originally Posted by zzycatch

The thing is, RIM is innovative, just not in the whiz-bang-flash, more is more kinda way that its competition is.

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to make something that just works, always? It is easy and cheap to slap on lots of flash and I for one have no time for that.

Business and personal devices are merging because... most people don't really need business devices, they are just keeping up with the Jonses. So they get something that can do a few tasks, play a lot of complex games and looks cool with a touch screen ("ooooh") or parts that flip and twist to reveal other parts ("aaaah") or some even have both. Nevermind that typing on a touchscreen is worthless or that moving parts increase your probability of failure dramatically.

I know, that most companies would rather not have to support various games that might crash or otherwise cause problems to the phone. As an IT director, I would never sign off on an iphone... "get your ego needs met elsewhere, we're here to work." is an apropos response.

Unless the iPhone ditches the touchscreen, it will never be a consideration for any serious business.

Right, but I guess you bring up a point I was trying to get across, I just wasn't able to do so. If all it takes is for Apple to come up with a keyboard enabled version of the iPhone to grab even more consumer and business market share, then they really don't have much to overcome. And they are still only on AT&T!

Make no mistake, Apple is fanatical about security, privacy and secrecy. Every OS revision has made incremental steps towards addressing the needs of the business user. You don't think their own people and IT department are driving the OS team to build towards a platform that they can sign-off on? What an incredible corporate environment to test such features and policies. Remember, Apple gave away an iPhone to every employee. Again, what an incredible testing ground to test corporate usage and policies.

The fact that the browser on the BB is still embarrassingly slow and incapable in comparison to the competition is a reflection of the corporate environment, and to a larger extent the software engineering teams capabilities. Really, who would take the RIM engineering team over the Google or Apple engineering team? It's a platform that is driven by software. There must be a solid and extensible software foundation to build upon. I don't have confidence in RIM's platform having the ability to evolve with the competition.

Did anyone see the new version of Facebook on the iPhone that just got released? There is no way a similar BB version will be produced. This is yet another example of the limitations to evolve and stay with the competition. And before anyone says Facebook is for tweens, do a search on these forums, there are thousands of BB users who care and use Facebook every single day, and no, I am not one of them. I am sure the same people who scoff at Facebook are the same people who were against AIM, ICQ, YIM, etc. because they thought email was enough.

If RIM only cared about what the "hardcore" on these forums care about, then there would be no Storm, no Pearl, no Camera, no YouTube support, no browser, no media player, etc. I will be the first to admit I didn't think I'd give a **** about a camera, but now my only real complaint on my Bold is the crappy camera and crappy browser. This is a good sign, though, it means I am satisfied with everything else. It is a far superior communication device, and that is what I prioritize over any other feature. They've nailed that aspect, I want them to improbe upon the "consumer" features. What's wrong with that?

[avt123]

Originally Posted by conker

They've nailed that aspect, I want them to improbe upon the "consumer" features. What's wrong with that?

Absolutely nothing. Good post!

[zzycatch]

So even with the BlackBerry name, the Storm shouldn't be considered a business device too then, correct?

Correct, the Storm is crap... I had one, briefly. Most people I know that had one with a actually need for a business phone, sent 'em back.

We serious user types can get swept up sometimes too.

RIM hasn't been innovative in years.

Just because their innovations have largely been in involved with the inner workings of the devices and not in the UI doesn't mean they don't innovate. Look at all their recent patents, almost exclusively about network durability, authentication, peer to peer mobile communications, antenna improvements, etc.

Anyone who think that RIM has no improvements to make are kidding themselves.

Of course RIM has improvements to make, there are many changes I'd like to see. None of them involve touch screens, games, or the UI however. As an off the top of my head, I'd love to see the ability to brick the device on x password failures, rather than just wiping the device, and requiring a hardware cryptographic key to recover (data or not, a device costing hundreds of dollars is still a target, this would mitigate that). Support for DRM'ed documents or some other mandatory labeling system would be great.... but I digress.

What innovations have Apple, HTC, or Palm come up with in the last year or two? Changes in the UI? Different, bad keyboards? New touch gestures? From what I can tell, WebOS doesn't even have a rudimentary security policy, but those cards sure are pretty!

Make no mistake, Apple is fanatical about security, privacy and secrecy.

Hahaha... yeah. They've relied on security by obscurity since the start. OS X was the first OS in their corporate history to have any semblance of security whatsoever, and it is pretty anemic. ****, it's already been discovered that an attacker can run arbitrary code on a remote 3.0 iphone via SMS.

They've nailed that aspect, I want them to improbe upon the "consumer" features. What's wrong with that?

Add consumer features, by definition harms the primary business feature, which is assurance. Whenever a system gets more complex, assurance goes down (without biblical increases in validation & verification efforts).

[avt123]

Originally Posted by zzycatch

Correct, the Storm is crap... I had one, briefly. Most people I know that had one with a actually need for a business phone, sent 'em back.

We serious user types can get swept up sometimes too.

Lol. I agree with you on the crap part. But now it's time to hide from all the Storm users.

[zzycatch]

The thing is, the storm could have been a great device, but it just smacked of RIM losing their way and allowing the competition to lead them around instead of just continuing incremental improvements to their core market.

I really feel badly for Storm owners, their faith was taken advantage of and now they've been left high and dry.

That is something RIM should be ashamed over.

[tenorsaw]

What a sight it will be if / when the iPhone goes to the other carriers. It's going to eat into RIM's consumer market share big time. There's big market (CDMA) that's untapped right now. Remember, it can't be the other way around.

Right now, one of RIM's biggest advantage (in the consumer world at least) is that the iPhone is only on at&t.