what's going on.

[olga421]

Hey what's going on, with these US companies dropping Blackberry for the iphone?? Will they regret,doing this in the long run???

[AlienSlacker]

Companies like to do things on the cheap and they will ignore any warnings of possible consequences until something bites them in a$$.

[VanCity778]

This doesn't really shock me at all. Apple has always had "the IN" with the school system since the late 80's so it makes sense to flood another market with their over priced product.

I just hope that we have choice in the future. I don't know if i could live in a world of one type of car, one type of tablet, one brand of smartphone. Seems kind of 1984-ish to me.

I have never been an Apple fan. Steve Jobs had some extreme views on media ownership. He envisioned a world that no single person owned a song or movie. This is why you see a shift towards icloud. Steve wanted a world where you paid for a song/movie but you never really owned it. You were granted access to it but it was never yours. I can never support Apple for that main reason.

[BB9700CA]

Originally Posted by AlienSlacker

Companies like to do things on the cheap and they will ignore any warnings of possible consequences until something bites them in a$$.

There will be corporations in the United States of Amerika that get into significant legal problems due to various compliance breaches during the coming years as the move from secure BlackBerry smartphones to insecure Apple iPhones and various Android-based smartphones increases. Though with Research In Motion bending over backwards to appease governments in foreign countries, that is outside of Canada, I have recently implemented additional security measures to protect email sent and receive by my Blackberry smartphone.

Would the Central Intelligence Agency or Canadian Security and Intelligence Service really use BlackBerry smartphones if there was a possibility that a foreign government could intercept the messages? I wonder...

[alnamvet68]

Thankfully, it's only a rumor spawned while under acute mental distress.

[rmjones101]

Originally Posted by VanCity778

This doesn't really shock me at all. Apple has always had "the IN" with the school system since the late 80's so it makes sense to flood another market with their over priced product.

Based on what? As an 80's child (born in 67), and subsequently having children in school and later paying for their college, I don't recall Apple ever being predominate in the education system. From every experience I recall, as a military brat that traveled a lot, and subsequently traveled in my own military career and had children in school... Apple computers were never "the in" machines in schools.

I recall the TRS-80's at their inception. CPM (which was garbage but not many people knew any better), Microsoft, even the age old Plato system. Heck, I even remember when Atari had a huge educational program with their Atari 800's built around educational material. Apple was never more than a novelty in the educational system. At most, each school would have 1, maybe 2, Apple IIe machines just to play around with, but was never predominate in the school system.

[blue-b]

Originally Posted by rmjones101

Based on what? As an 80's child (born in 67), and subsequently having children in school and later paying for their college, I don't recall Apple ever being predominate in the education system. From every experience I recall, as a military brat that traveled a lot, and subsequently traveled in my own military career and had children in school... Apple computers were never "the in" machines in schools.

I recall the TRS-80's at their inception. CPM (which was garbage but not many people knew any better), Microsoft, even the age old Plato system. Heck, I even remember when Atari had a huge educational program with their Atari 800's built around educational material. Apple was never more than a novelty in the educational system. At most, each school would have 1, maybe 2, Apple IIe machines just to play around with, but was never predominate in the school system.

This is a Canadian thing likely, Apple were always the computers in the computer labs in Canada, atleast in western Canada until at least senior high, at that point you see/saw a lot of of windows based PCs.

[VanCity778]

Originally Posted by rmjones101

Based on what? As an 80's child (born in 67), and subsequently having children in school and later paying for their college, I don't recall Apple ever being predominate in the education system. From every experience I recall, as a military brat that traveled a lot, and subsequently traveled in my own military career and had children in school... Apple computers were never "the in" machines in schools.

I recall the TRS-80's at their inception. CPM (which was garbage but not many people knew any better), Microsoft, even the age old Plato system. Heck, I even remember when Atari had a huge educational program with their Atari 800's built around educational material. Apple was never more than a novelty in the educational system. At most, each school would have 1, maybe 2, Apple IIe machines just to play around with, but was never predominate in the school system.

Based on every school in my area of the world. The late 80's and 90's had Macs all over. Computer rooms with 30+ of those things. Even high school we had two computer classes packed full of macs. Maybe it wasn't that way in the States but up here every school was flooded with'em. Even nowadays the school system up here is buying up ipads for elementary schools.

[RollingRock1988]

Yeah- USA here and throughout my elementary school years all we had were macs.

[sosumi11]

Originally Posted by VanCity778

I just hope that we have choice in the future. I don't know if i could live in a world of one type of car, one type of tablet, one brand of smartphone. Seems kind of 1984-ish to me.

RIM, Apple, Samsung, Nokia, etc all make smartphones. No one is forced to buy any specific brand. However, the platform with the biggest support, wins. Consumers simply do not want to deal with multiple platforms. This is why VHS won over Beta, why Blu-Ray won over HD, why PC won over Mac.

Windows won because of the commoditization of the hardware which caused developers to write software for the platform. It was the cheap hardware that saturated the market and developer support followed. Plus MS Office was essential.

iOS/Android is winning because of the innovations that they introduced which meant huge sales and caused developers to write software for the platforms. This resulted in a huge CHOICE of apps available. Plus pricing was close enough.

No one really cares about the hardware as long as they can get the software for it.

[JD914]

Originally Posted by olga421

Hey what's going on, with these US companies dropping Blackberry for the iphone?? Will they regret,doing this in the long run???

It's called progress. No reason for regrets.

[FranzJoseph]

Originally Posted by blue-b

This is a Canadian thing likely, Apple were always the computers in the computer labs in Canada, atleast in western Canada until at least senior high, at that point you see/saw a lot of of windows based PCs.

I totally remember this now! Back in the latee 90's my school had only macs and this was in northern BC, cant remember when they started to switch over to windows again...

[dandbj13]

Originally Posted by VanCity778

I just hope that we have choice in the future. I don't know if i could live in a world of one type of car, one type of tablet, one brand of smartphone. Seems kind of 1984-ish to me.

I have never understood this outcry for choice when it comes to something other than Apple. By my recollection, Apple did not rule the PC industry, the MP3 player industry, the smartphone industry, or the tablet industry. Others were there first, and were very well established. When it came to enterprise users, they didn't have a choice. It was BB or nothing.

My point is that we do not need an alternative to Apple. Apple is the alternative to everything else. Choice is alive and well. People are choosing Apple. It just seems some do not like the choice the masses are making. Are you saying we need a choice people like less than Apple, but are forced to choose? That seems like the new definition of choice.

[Economist101]

Originally Posted by AlienSlacker

Companies like to do things on the cheap and they will ignore any warnings of possible consequences until something bites them in a$$.

Ah. So Apple products are cheap.

Originally Posted by VanCity778

This doesn't really shock me at all. Apple has always had "the IN" with the school system since the late 80's so it makes sense to flood another market with their over priced product.

Wait. . .so corporations will pay MORE for the iPhone? The other guy just said the companies were being cheap. Which is it?

Originally Posted by VanCity778

I just hope that we have choice in the future. I don't know if i could live in a world of one type of car, one type of tablet, one brand of smartphone. Seems kind of 1984-ish to me.

Is that "one type of car" iOS or Android? I mean, they both hold huge portions of the market, so I'm not clear. You really could do a better job of explaining your paranoia.

Originally Posted by VanCity778

I have never been an Apple fan. Steve Jobs had some extreme views on media ownership. He envisioned a world that no single person owned a song or movie. This is why you see a shift towards icloud. Steve wanted a world where you paid for a song/movie but you never really owned it. You were granted access to it but it was never yours. I can never support Apple for that main reason.

I'm sure that's why Steve Jobs was so quick to embrace music subscription services, because he never thought anyone should own music or movies. Right.

FYI, buying a movie at a video store doesn't really give you "ownership" in that you can't exhibit the movie at your home and charge people to enter. Ditto for music. At last check, buying a song or movie on iTunes gives you exactly the same rights you get buying it at a store. Therefore, since the facts actually run exactly opposite to your claims, I have to conclude that your fears are completely unfounded. I hope this helps you feel better.

[Economist101]

Originally Posted by dandbj13

Are you saying we need a choice people like less than Apple, but are forced to choose? That seems like the new definition of choice.

Actually the definition of "choice" here means the continued ability to choose RIM products, and really has nothing to do with the number of market options.