Originally Posted by
Jerry A You're working on a false equivalency. It doesn't matter how many apps Apple or Android had in 2007 or 2008 (or even 2009 - 2012). What matters to most rational consumers is what's available when they go to spend their hard-earned money. In 2013 (not 2012), BlackBerry tried asking top-dollar ($600 or $200 + 2-yr contract) for the Z10 at launch. Yet, there's wasn't a compelling reason for users to pick up the device at that price. Users could get more bang for their buck by looking at the competition. There was little incentive for anyone to switch away from Apple or Android - they'd sink $600 to give up a whole bunch of functionality.
Tell me your marketing plan to convince folks to jump on-board the platform under those circumstances.
4 months after launch it was obvious to some of us that BB10 was DOA. Microsoft had big-name apps on stage (Flipboard, Hipstamatic, etc) at their developer conference that year. What did Thor show off at BlackBerry World that year? Peek & Flow. Again. The big names didn't even bother to show (including the ones that made commitments at the Z10 launch). To add insult to injury, the CTO for Shazam was being interviewed on some news outlet and (rightfully) saying it made no business sense for them to support the BB10 platform.
How would you market around that?
And that's just the device side of the house. BES wasn't doing too much better at the time. BES10 was unable to support legacy devices. They lost their first-mover advantage by being late to market with a BES version that could support all platforms.
How would you market around that?
Marketing can only do so much - but it doesn't make the majority of rational consumers braindead.