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I definitely see the analogy but I always felt that the Storm was way, way worse. I know lots of people who love their PlayBooks. I know almost none of 'love their Storm'. In fact, anyone I know with a storm remembers it as a pile of garbage that they were stuck with for a contract, whereas many I know remember the PlayBook as "a bargain at $100".
I think blackberry had the chance to win with the playbook if they would have accepted the first tablet as a lost and came back with their second tablet with BB10 and better specs. At this point there is no money in it for them except for the apps. Now if they don't stand on their word and release BB10 for the current playbook they stand to lose a lot of die hard blackberry supporters.
i liked the storm, click screen was awesome and loved the suretype keyboard. I agree PB is much better than the storm but the storm came at a time when competition wasnt so harsh. The PB was born in a different time and had more challenges to face.
BlackBerry's marketing sucked when it came to the PlayBook. Self inflicted challenges.
I may be in my cynical period but I'm beginning to doubt that. I think converting users of other devices is going to be quite hard. They have investments in apps, some folks just like their comfortable ruts and it take real effort to effect change in those types of people. It was easier to "drag" BB users away because rim basically stopped offering anything for more than a year. Rim also shot itself in the foot or cellphone - it announced a new OS and phone that would not run on current (9900 series) phones pretty much stiffling sales of the devices to a large extent.
Recovery to an equal player is going to be very tough. Now that does not mean they cannot be a large niche player but I think it will take some real effort to move beyond that. They are opening bbm to other platforms losing that exclusivity. Android has dozens of models and well, Apple may be stale but they have a very dedicated following.
Again, this might be a cynical mood surplanted by a nice sunny Saturday....
I think that its to late for BlackBerry to come back as a major player even in the niche market. Its like they don't care about the products and people that stand up for the BlackBerry products. Users have been screaming for hardware and software on the BlackBerry devices and it seems to fall on deaf ears. I personally hope the best for BlackBerry but we all know that if a company doesn't listen to there customers they will not survive. Its like BlackBerry's thinking is we will make a new customer base and probably won't listen to them.
WinPhone 8 will survive either as a growing player or in a niche (like WinCE) because Microsoft will support it. The availability of cross-platform development tools for a variety of Windows platforms makes life easier for developers, especially with the Metro/Modern UI being the UI of choice. It also helps that MS holds a monopoly for PCs :)
What does BBRY have? No cross-platform tools, no cross-platform services like iTunes or Office365, just a jaded userbase fed up with broken promises.
I liked this commercial, but it came out long after BlackBerry was really willing to spend money on placement for PlayBook ads
Smartphone and Tablet Work Better Together on the BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 - YouTube
Never, ever saw that one. Ah, what could have been will never be!
This is commonly misconstrued. Windows Phone was shipped on more devices this past quarter. This is not the same as saying more devices in the world in use are running Windows Phone than BlackBerry OS.
(and I challenge any Windows Phone fan to prove there are more than 70 million Windows Phones in use in the world right now)
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Ah, and how many of those 70 million BlackBerry users right now are running on ancient devices with no money to spend on premium phones like the Z10 and Q10?
Don't forget that BBRY has a lot of users in India, Africa and Indonesia precisely because BBM is cheaper than SMS. BB phones there are also bought off-contract so the cheapest models are popular. This isn't the same market as the business professional in the developed world who can fork out 700 USD for a new Q10 and use a multi-gigabyte data plan.
ack, network problems, repost of above...
NSA got your tongue?
Agree... Just get bugged by the "Windows Phone is now the third largest platform " thinking caused by misunderstanding what Microsoft's success is and isn't...
It's a victory for Microsoft in terms of a trend but there is now way there are more windows phone users than BlackBerry users in the world
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Def not a WP fanboy but current trends are important, especially when BBRY just introduced BB10 as their saving grace and uptake is not as expected. It can't afford to lose any more market share. And yes, if you want to go by user base, Windows Mobile users I believe still outnumber Windows Phone users. Just like more XP users than Vista. LOL. I was, and currently am, a Windows Mobile fanboy...just in terms of OS design, not support, LOL. I hate locked down OSs.
I agree that people with heavy app investments will be hard to convert. However, I think that there are plenty of people who don't pay for apps. In my non-techie segment of friends, this seems to be the norm rather than they exception. Some use apps, but only if they are free.
Always thought it would be nice if someone did a study on this. The analysts often fall into the trap of thinking that everyone is heavily invested in an ecosystem and will therefore never switch. Yet every day, I look at my Facebook and someone is ditching an iPhone for a Galaxy, a BlackBerry for an iPhone, a Windows Phone for something else. Combo of not heavily invested, bored and wanting to try something new
Would also love to know how many "switchers" are actually "returners" vs. "never used a BlackBerry device ever" customers?
Agree.
What was it expected to be and how close or far is it from that? :-), especially when BBRY just introduced BB10 as their saving grace and uptake is not as expected.
The only data we have officially from BlackBerry is Q1 data, when the Z10 was not on sale for 2/3rds of the quarter, and only sporatically released in the final third.
Q2 data with the Z10 being more available and the Q10 launching will be out this week. We're already in their Q3, which will have Q5 numbers not reported on in this quarter.
How can Blackberry make money on tablets? Is that the right question? Better is the question: How can Blackberry improve the bottom line and increase enterprise value. Then how much does offering a Blackberry branded tablet using a proprietary Blackberry operating system contribute to that bottom line. Blackberry has decide that it is absolutely necessary to get a reasonable part of the phone business. The question then is how much would having our own tablet help the phone business both in the relatively near term and the longer term. That analysis may not be as simple as some might think considering their own wants. Then comes analyzing the possible profitability of marketng one or more tablets and running the profit/ loss calculations.
After all this pontification my personal feeling is that it will be desirable to have a tablet line and while not too profitable in the near term can be accomplished and maybe make a meager profit in tablets with the right fabrication partner. Apparently Thorsten et al have decided that it will not be enough to justify allocation of needed resources at the present time. Wouldn't you like to know what went on behind closed doors? We don't know if Thorsten's statement about tablets becoming obsolete in the long term was sort of a placeholder.
Another question: Can BB10 or other qnx programs be run on Intel chips which would also support regular Windows progams?
I think the key thing here is that those people are (IMO) ditching their current phone/tablet, but not necessarily their App ecosystem. As you've said, many of the big-name Apps are free, and there aren't many Apps (paid or free) that aren't cross-platform between at least between iPhone/Android, and increasingly to WinPhone as well.
Yes, there is inertia. People generally don't like change, but once they see that their favourite Apps are available on another platform... it eases the pain of changing devices.
And that brings us back to BB's continual problem. The App gap.
Those folks who are willing to consider change, very likely cross BB off their list once they discover BB doesn't have the InstaFaceFlix App that everyone else in their social group is using.
So, back on topic, I don't see any way BB could make another tablet and be profitable. The App gap will kill it (again) and (I realise I'll get flamed for this, but whatever) BB10 isn't yet finished (as is obvious from even a casual reading of the BB10 forums).
Releasing one tablet with an incomplete OS, not good.
Releasing a second tablet with an incomplete OS,priceless. stupid.
Very well said.
I think another current issue with bb10 is that they've now given those in "bb comfort zone" a reason to look at other phones. While it probably was necessary to upgrade/update the bbos, the significant change might be uncomfortable enough for some bb users to think that they can now entertain looking at android, iphone, wphone? The loss of the trackpad row has led some keyboard types to also consider other options.
What I find interesting is some supporters of the non-trackpad approach is their reasoning. Text selection and/or cursor placement is no worse than on other touchscreen devices - great, so they are all awful, almost awful or a pain-in-the-toches! Whatever, change is something some shun but giving them no choice means more will do it.
They say insanity is the act of doing the same thing twice, hoping for different results. By releasing two OSes (PB OS and BB10) incomplete and hoping the market would go crazy over them, BlackBerry is probably insane :)