Forbes: Blackberry Uses Bad Attention to Steal Spotlight From iphone 4s

Blackberry Uses Bad Attention to Steal Spotlight From iPhone 4S

The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.

Some kids don�t care if they get good attention or bad attention - they just want attention.

Well, while the strategy is not necessarily sound, it does truly play out in life. Sometimes it pays to be a squeaky wheel, and Research in Motion proved that this week.

It was one of my senior penny stock analysts that brought it to my attention. I mentioned the data �glitch� that Blackberry was facing worldwide, and she said, �Interesting timing.�

Now sure what she meant, I gave her my best puzzled look.

�It�s just that Apple�s iPhone 4S was just launched,� she indulged. �Have you heard much about it? A little, but the media is only talking about Blackberry.�

That�s when I realized it was true. Worldwide, the Blackberry outage suffocated ever media channel, leaving little room for news about APPL, the new iPhone, or even follow-on stories about the passing of Steve Jobs.

The timing was absolutely auspicious. Conspiracy theorists would suggest that RIM couldn�t have played it better. Others who believe it was a real accidental outage would at least admit that Research in Motion got millions (and millions) in free advertising� even if it was just to make it stunningly clear how many millions of people love and rely on their Blackberry.

Brittany Spears crashes her car, she sells more CDs � fact. Purolator Courier spends $10 million on ads, Fedex sales go up � fact. Blackberry has a major outage right as their competitor launches their newest product, and coverage of the issue chokes out the airwaves� well, there is the possibility that RIM�s problems may pay off handsomely.

Blackberry Uses Bad Attention to Steal Spotlight From iPhone 4S - Forbes

Originally Posted by KodyShadow

Brittany Spears crashes her car, she sells more CDs � fact. Purolator Courier spends $10 million on ads, Fedex sales go up � fact. Blackberry has a major outage right as their competitor launches their newest product, and coverage of the issue chokes out the airwaves� well, there is the possibility that RIM�s problems may pay off handsomely.

Blackberry Uses Bad Attention to Steal Spotlight From iPhone 4S - Forbes

Did he just seriously imply that RIM is the Britney Spears of the mobile industry? That they did this on purpose to help sales?

haha that's hilarious they think that RIM planned to **** off millions of people just to direct attention from apple.

That is some plain ****.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

To add on to previous points you are trying to suicide and then you get the attention but where does it go? Your dead already......

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

If its true ...which I doubt, that could be a brilliant marketing distraction. Putting a globe or universe (:)) on hold to grab attention away from the competition.....has it really gotten that serious??

thats sad RIM could have lost some customers over all of that so i doubt that was on purpose... but comparing it too Britney Spears haha

It's true, at first people hear "blackberry 3 day outage" but give them a week or two and they'll only remember "blackberry" and how people were paralised without it working peoperly, even if it still worked for calls, sms,mms, browsing and some apps still worked, like dropbox.

It was the push email and BBM they missed the most.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

Very interesting; I am not dismissing this as true for it could be, and I honestly think if they impress at DevCon next week, this publicity that they managed to get will pay off. Very interesting... let's see what happens

The idea that RIM somehow shot themselves in the foot, reloaded, and then took aim at the other foot in an deliberate attempt to deflect publicity from Apple represents spinning that is beyond genius.

Seriously... Mr Forbes needs to cut back on whatever it is he's taking!

This may be lost on non-UK BB'ers, but the phrase "I have a cunning plan, my Lord" springs to mind.