[garlee]

Here is a interesting article from National Post on rim
Playbook, BlackBerry security features offer RIM a fragile lifeline | FP Tech Desk | Financial Post

Regards,
Gary

Along with firearms, radio and other standard-issue gear, Constable Ken Koke’s police cruiser comes equipped with portable technology made by Research In Motion Ltd. that he says has become an important tool in policing rural Canada.

Koke, with the Chatham-Kent police force in southwestern Ontario, uses RIM’s PlayBook to run checks on vehicles and suspects. Unlike his old laptop, the tablet is portable enough to take out of the car to record evidence at crime scenes.

But for law enforcement officers like Koke, the big draw is RIM’s acclaimed network security, a feature that Apple Inc. and RIM’s other competitors can barely match, and cannot beat — at least not yet.
‘Despite the adversity and displacement RIM is experiencing … a hardcore contingent still see no solution better than BlackBerry’

Police, along with insurers, the military and thousands of government agencies, remain important customers for the struggling BlackBerry maker as a data breach could invite litigation, compromise reputations or even endanger national security.

“Despite the adversity and displacement RIM is experiencing across its enterprise customers, it’s obvious that a hardcore contingent still see no solution better than BlackBerry,” said John Jackson at CCS Insight, which advises wireless companies.

The loyalty of that core customer base is a rare bright spot for RIM as it fights a tide of defections to flashier devices.

Its still-unrivaled leadership in secure communications could also pique the interest of a potential buyer for the Canadian company, whose shares have sunk 80% since February 2011.

“When I go in the street I have my handcuffs, I have my sidearm, and I have my BlackBerry. It’s part of my gear and not something I would leave the station without,” Koke said. “The PlayBook is a natural extension of that.”

NICHE NOT SAFE

But it’s far from clear if that niche will be big enough to rescue RIM, which faces a continuing decline in sales for its once-ubiquitous BlackBerry, and whose compact PlayBook never took off with consumers.

RIM does not specify what proportion of its sales go to security focused government, legal and military customers, and analysts don’t break that market out of the broader “enterprise market,” which they believe has stagnated in recent years to make up about a quarter of RIM’s 77 million BlackBerry users.

Unlike Apple and other rivals, security-focused RIM has built direct connections between its servers and those of carriers and big customers, and its private network offers encryption that others need help to get.

But the niche is not as safe for RIM as it used to be, given the arrival of smaller providers such as Good Technology, a private outfit based in Sunnyvale, California, that help companies beef up security on their employees’ iPhones and Androids.

Such offerings may not be as convenient for a corporate IT manager as RIM’s out-of-the-box security, but they have enabled many companies to let their employees use personal devices in the workplace.

The BlackBerry’s secure approach is “becoming less of an advantage for RIM because, frankly, organizations are being forced to put solutions in place to allow secure access to documents and apps and other things on (Apple’s) iOS and Android devices,” said Tyler Lessard, who left RIM six months ago to join Fixmo, a small mobile security company.

To fight this challenge, RIM is taking an “if-you-can’t-beat-them-join-them” approach, offering to manage other devices via a service it calls Mobile Fusion. Even if it no longer sells every device, the thinking goes, RIM can still profit by keeping office communications secure.

Several analysts say RIM’s strength in security and network components could attract takeover interest from companies that deliver online content such as Akamai Technologies Inc. or Amazon.com Inc. Amazon took a look at RIM last year, but decided not to bid after RIM made it clear it wanted to fix its problems on its own.

Ken Dulaney, vice-president for mobile devices at research firm Gartner, said RIM’s connections into hundreds of carriers worldwide represent an “intriguing” asset that could hold value to Amazon or Akamai, the company that powers Apple’s iTunes store.

At a current valuation of less than US$6-billion, a fraction of its 2008 peak of US$84-billion, RIM might look cheap to a company such as International Business Machines Corp. IBM could use RIM’s assets to expand corporate services on to mobile platforms, said Northern Securities analyst Sameet Kanade.


RIM CEO Thorsten Heins is putting his hopes on a new generation of phones, due later this year, as well as possible asset sales. He has not ruled out a sale of the entire company

RIM’s customer base alone could tempt buyers such as Cisco Systems Inc., he added, but cautioned that prospective buyers could also choose to build such capabilities internally.

Security aside, the larger market for smartphones and tablets is turning away from RIM, which now has less than 7% of the global smartphone market, according to Gartner, down from 13% a year ago.

CEO Thorsten Heins is putting his hopes on a new generation of phones, due later this year, as well as possible asset sales. He has not ruled out a sale of the entire company.

“The rules have changed,” said David Krebs, vice-president for mobile and wireless practice at VDC Research. “They’re not acting from a position of strength today.”

A LOYAL CORE

But at the same time, the most security-conscious customers prefer the tried-and-true RIM approach.

Aviva Plc, one of Britain’s largest insurers, has handed out PlayBooks to scores of risk assessors, the type of traditional road warrior that first worshipped the BlackBerry.

“For any role in Aviva that’s collecting data, why would we use anything but the PlayBook,” said Paul Heybourne, who heads the company’s global technology innovation efforts.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon, RIM’s single largest customer, this month approved six recent BlackBerry models for use on its secure networks, meaning some quarter of a million military and intelligence staff can upgrade to more modern devices. Counterparts in Britain and Australia followed soon after.

David Paterson, RIM’s vice-president for government relations and public policy, said BlackBerry sales to the U.S. government are still growing.

“There is no mass exodus,” he insisted, even after Washington’s main procurement agency, the General Services Administration, loosened its BlackBerry allegiance to adopt an approach more open to RIM’s rivals.

If RIM fends off its challenges until new phones and tablets are ready — and if the market embraces the new devices — its future could brighten. If not, a takeover could loom.

[axeman1000]

Love how crapple users have to use third party companies to trust their data in networks while RIM, a multi billion dollar company does this best. As a company, I would have to be stupid to look to joes security to protect my companies files just because my user wants to use his UNSECURE crapple phone. I think I will go the safe way of having a company with enough money to handle a lawsuit if anything was to happen!

The world is slowly becoming a naive place! What ever happened to rational thinking!

[bitek]

unless rim will goes bust nothing will make me switch brands.
I am not worried about rim feature despite bad press. rim has done marvels with os7. archaic platform and yet os7 update is comparable to newer ios snd android. rim is making bigger steps than apple and googlem personally I think os10 will blow ios out of the water and it will be simple for competition just match rim. I am not afraid for future of playbook. rim has learnt from the competiton and as long as the phone and playbook will be essentially the same with different screen sizes it will be easy for developers to port phone apps to playbook

Sent from Tapatalk for Playbook

[PaulVO1]

A much more positive spin on the RIM situation. At least the hype over fickle consumer purchasing is getting some balance. Here in Newfoundland, I still see many more BB's than other devices (in business circles, and even in public places.). Let's see how BB10 rolls out. (Having said that, I'm using Torch 9800 with 6.0, saving my contract upgrade for the '10's)
-proudly typed on my PB16

[joe_bags]

I am sooooooooooooo in love with my PlayBook. And I'm looking forward to getting my BlackBerry Bold 9900 in august. I'm doing my part to help them out. From what I see they have so amazing things coming out that will make apple and android crap themselves hahahahah

[madman0141]

Wow even more RIM bashing from the 1 millionth editorial with this much bashing you would have thought they were responsible for 9-11 and not a phone company.

[kill_9]

I am sooooooooooooo in love with my PlayBook. And I'm looking forward to getting my BlackBerry Bold 9900 in august.

You would be well-advised to wait until the BlackBerry 10 smartphones with physical keyboard are available than move to the BlackBerry Bold 9900 despite of it being a good device with an excellent keyboard. A slider-style BlackBerry Blade might merge the needs and expectations of slider-type keyboard and traditional front-facing keyboard BlackBerry users without being a compromise. A boring slab form-factor smartphone is not a road that BlackBerry needs to travel as it struggles to catch fire with users' imaginations. Step it up. innovate. Pioneer. In other words, "Be Bold."

If I hear anyone use the words "impossible" or "too difficult" may some deity have mercy upon their soul. In technology there is no room for such negative minded persons.

[phoanyone]

Wake up from your dreams fellas, BB10 will not rescue RIM. The iPhone 5 and possibly the iPad mini will come out at the same time. BB10's coming out party will be buried by Apple hype and record sales. Most people don't care about security, gestures, or bridging. If this is the best RIM can offer, then they deserve to join HP on the has been list. Enthusiasm is one thing, but when you say things like "never leave RIM" and "sooo in love", it makes me wonder if you are using a device or married to it. Save those words for your significant other.

[homer1475]

And what will IOS5 or the ipad mini offer that the current lineup does not? Absolutely nothing we haven't already seen. I can buy an ipod and have the exact same thing I would get in an ipad or iphone, but in a smaller form factor(some people like this, from what I've seen most don't, but just buy the device because so and so suggested it to them).

You already are seeing people posting how IOS is getting stale and they need to innovate. Yes they will sell millions, apple marketing has brainwashed people into thinking they make the greatest products in the world and people are dumb enough to buy into it(marketing hype drives sales, no denying that).

Every IOS user I have shown my PB to is intrigued by the device and always comment on how fluid and simple the gestures are to use and learn. RIM is once again innovating(yes they still have a long way to go, but at least they are innovating again), apple is not and will be in the position RIM is in now in the very near future if they keep failing to innovate.

All the apps in the world will not help any company if everything they offer is just a refresh of previous devices, and fail to bring new and innovative technology to the tech driven world.

[Yemson]

Wake up from your dreams fellas, BB10 will not rescue RIM. The iPhone 5 and possibly the iPad mini will come out at the same time. BB10's coming out party will be buried by Apple hype and record sales. Most people don't care about security, gestures, or bridging. If this is the best RIM can offer, then they deserve to join HP on the has been list. Enthusiasm is one thing, but when you say things like "never leave RIM" and "sooo in love", it makes me wonder if you are using a device or married to it. Save those words for your significant other.

Or you can save your words, for an apple fan site.

[kbz1960]

Wake up from your dreams fellas, BB10 will not rescue RIM. The iPhone 5 and possibly the iPad mini will come out at the same time. BB10's coming out party will be buried by Apple hype and record sales. Most people don't care about security, gestures, or bridging. If this is the best RIM can offer, then they deserve to join HP on the has been list. Enthusiasm is one thing, but when you say things like "never leave RIM" and "sooo in love", it makes me wonder if you are using a device or married to it. Save those words for your significant other.

Save it for those who want apple products. Seems there are many here who don't no matter how superior they may be. I didn't buy one and don't plan on it either.

[BBplaybookJS]

Wake up from your dreams fellas, BB10 will not rescue RIM. The iPhone 5 and possibly the iPad mini will come out at the same time. BB10's coming out party will be buried by Apple hype and record sales. Most people don't care about security, gestures, or bridging. If this is the best RIM can offer, then they deserve to join HP on the has been list. Enthusiasm is one thing, but when you say things like "never leave RIM" and "sooo in love", it makes me wonder if you are using a device or married to it. Save those words for your significant other.

Perhaps unlike the average ipad owner who only purchased it because they were impelled to do so (apple enthusiasts often remind me of lemmings) PlayBook owners are simply impressed with the quality of their devices.