[_StephenBB81]

and when do you expect them to have something comprable to IOS 300k apps and android's 200k? once you fall behind in a tech business you can't catch up. One company in waterloo has no chance of out innovating and executing two massive ecosystems with 3 year head starts, not to mention microsoft which is now finally serious about wireless.

2012 I suspect RIM to be on a level playing field in therms of features and support at the Android/iPhones,

that gives RIM 2011 to have a quality App Store, it doesn't need to be 300k Apps, but it does need to be 100k apps, to have something worth Advertising about

[Daniel Ratcliffe]

that gives RIM 2011 to have a quality App Store, it doesn't need to be 300k Apps, but it does need to be 100k apps, to have something worth Advertising about

I must disagree with you there. In order to be able to top the competition, it needs to have something in the range of 4-5 MILLION apps by 2012. Now if it can pull that off, then we'll be talking, then use 2012 to innovate, and prove that RIM really is "Research In Motion".

[BBThemes]

I must disagree with you there. In order to be able to top the competition, it needs to have something in the range of 4-5 MILLION apps by 2012. Now if it can pull that off, then we'll be talking, then use 2012 to innovate, and prove that RIM really is "Research In Motion".

with over 3million adobe based flash/air developers out there thats `technically` possible, but really? ya wanna sift thru that ammount of apps to find summat ya like?

[thunder33cat]

A few thoughts...

As for apps, my understanding is that app growth is plateauing generally. 100-300k apps might really define the plateau of meaningful apps. A lot of what are being called apps in the current markets are ebooks, themes, single team sport apps, etc. Millions of apps? I'm curious what the developers think regarding that.

In my limited experience, deRusett's suggestion may already be coming to bear regarding use of smartphones among teens. They are gravitating toward messaging phones, not touchscreen smartphones. The Curve fits that niche remarkably well. I'm not sure how this plays out, but it certainly seems to be an area for RIM to target.

From a corporate perspective, the market is still RIM's game to lose, and the only viable near-term competitor is Apple. Android is not currently a viable option for broad corporate deployment (sure one off Exchange use on an idividual basis is viable) and will have a difficult time changing the perception.

[BBMINI]

I do not think the Iphone is a bad phone, I kinda just do not agree with Apple's marketing, "Our way or no way". I would like to see them offer some alternative set ups to their model. Maybe a hard key board, maybe some thing to make it diff besides the fact that it is another year and another Iphone model, just like the cookie cutter model of last year. Offer a few models with some difference to the public (besides color), otherwise it looks like they are saying "it can only be done this one way."

That's a bit like blaming any other well established, recognizable brand name for NOT doing stuff YOU wish they would do but which are things that were never in their brand plans and never contributed to the growth and success of their brand.

Maybe people wish Disney made p0rn, but Disney became "Disney" without it and probably won't ever see a need to venture into that realm because they've had tremendous success with their brand plan as-is and people have still flocked to their offerings and made Disney's shareholders very happy.

Maybe people wish Porsche made an entry-level, electric, economical minivan with great mpg, cloth seats, an am/fm radio and hooks for dry cleaning inside the rear sliding door, but they're simply not going to because that's not what their brand offers and they realize plenty other car companies offer that. Still, Porsche has had success with their product offerings because they realize that any luxury brand (and I consider Apple to also be a luxury brand) is never going to be all things to all people and, in fact, shouldn't even try to or it would water down the brand and they'd gradually become another GM with endless sub-brands to try to reach every possible type of customer (which ultimately didn't turn out so well for GM).

So even though I'm not an Apple fan personally, I certainly don't blame them for being incredibly creative and putting products out "their way" and understanding that if customers want something different then they can buy from another brand. Maybe Apple's system seems arrogant, and maybe it actually IS a bit arrogant, but there's no denying that they're sticking to their brand marketing strategy and that it's been successful, so I respect that and don't feel any need to post more of the "Apple Hate" that's already all over on these boards.

Any time a company has figured out how to successfully market and provide their products/services to a free-will public customer base, I respect that even if I don't use their products or like the company because I realize and admit that they must be doing something right or their millions of customers never would have bought from them in the first place. Just because I'm not one of their customers doesn't necessarily mean their products are bad or that the company is doing anything wrong or deserves blame for knowing who they are, making a plan and being successful in working the plan.

Arguably, and to bring this long post back closer to the OP's question, RIM might have lost a bit of focus about what their brand is, what they do well, where they want to fit in the market, and how they should work their plan. They don't necessarily need to be another Apple, Android OS, etc, but they surely need to reconnect with who their customer base is/should be and how to pursue those folks successfully while continuing to build the BlackBerry brand.

[tmelon]

Well there it is. iPhone for Verizon is announced with the added bonus of tethering. I say that this is more of a punch in the face to AT&T and Android than it is to RIM. Verizon is clearly not a priority to RIM by any means looking at the lineup of phones available. But Verizon is important to Android and the iPhone is basically the only smartphone that AT&T is making steady sales with. They also mentioned that the CDMA iPhone will not be exclusive to Verizon. Sprint anyone?

[Xopher]

I agree with deRusett's advertising strategy. There is some solid planning involved in that. Get the teens hooked, then resell to them when the next round of devices are finally ready for release. With what RIM has ready to go to market today, there really isn't anything new to try to push as competition to the Vzw iPhone announcement.

The bigger part of the problem is going to be the stores. Quite often, the BlackBerry section is small, in some corner, away from the bigger sellers, with Android advertising all around. There is another thread already talking about how much the sales people are pushing Android. Once the iPhone is actually available in Vzw stores, which phone do you think the sales people are going to push? The iPhone will have font-and-center store space, ads in the windows, and sales people directing them towards the newest hype. If you are walking into the store without knowing what you want ahead of time, the sales people will probably direct you towards the iPhone first, Android second. BlackBerry is not in the forefront of the sales person's mind.

The smart thing is to market outside of the store. Like deRusett said, market the teens. Curves sell for practically nothing, the data plan will be there no matter what they get (BB, iPhone, Android), and hyping BBM can feed off of the teen texting craze already in place.

RIM should really want people going to the store with BlackBerry in mind. Once they open the door to the store, they are going to be bombarded with iPhone this and Android that. It'll almost be a requirement to wear an army helmet and flack jacket just to ask a salesperson where the BlackBerry section is.

[_StephenBB81]

I must disagree with you there. In order to be able to top the competition, it needs to have something in the range of 4-5 MILLION apps by 2012. Now if it can pull that off, then we'll be talking, then use 2012 to innovate, and prove that RIM really is "Research In Motion".

you've GOT to be kidding!

after 100K apps all you are getting is duplication, the iPhone and Android app stores really have nothing different to offer from eachother, any app worth having both have, yet they differ by more than 100k apps.

RIM just needs to address that top 30% of Apps, they need to be covered, AND then they need to make development easy enough so that every app released and is popular for iOS, and Android gets Ported to QNX

[hootyhoo]

Well there it is. iPhone for Verizon is announced with the added bonus of tethering. I say that this is more of a punch in the face to AT&T and Android than it is to RIM. Verizon is clearly not a priority to RIM by any means looking at the lineup of phones available. But Verizon is important to Android and the iPhone is basically the only smartphone that AT&T is making steady sales with. They also mentioned that the CDMA iPhone will not be exclusive to Verizon. Sprint anyone?

RIM is making a mistake if VZ is not important to them. They are the largest carrier in the us. Just because RIM cannot produce a device that can go head to head with android or apple does not mean that the carrier with the largest number of potential customers is not important.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[xcrunner529]

For one thing... the IPhone 4 will not be released for $200.00

LOL.

tooshort.

[howarmat]

im shocked its only 200 really but i wont be getting one so it makes no difference

[CASH]

with over 3million adobe based flash/air developers out there thats `technically` possible, but really? ya wanna sift thru that ammount of apps to find summat ya like?

+1

you've GOT to be kidding!

after 100K apps all you are getting is duplication, the iPhone and Android app stores really have nothing different to offer from eachother, any app worth having both have, yet they differ by more than 100k apps.

RIM just needs to address that top 30% of Apps, they need to be covered, AND then they need to make development easy enough so that every app released and is popular for iOS, and Android gets Ported to QNX

+1. Android apps will easily be ported for QNX/Adobe AIR.

[Daniel Ratcliffe]

you've GOT to be kidding!

after 100K apps all you are getting is duplication, the iPhone and Android app stores really have nothing different to offer from eachother, any app worth having both have, yet they differ by more than 100k apps.

RIM just needs to address that top 30% of Apps, they need to be covered, AND then they need to make development easy enough so that every app released and is popular for iOS, and Android gets Ported to QNX

Yeah, the iOS/Android porting to QNX will work, but I wasn't kidding when I said 4-5 million. There's an increasing number of app whores these days, and if RIM says we have for example 20 million apps to offer, the app ***** is going to jizz so hard he faints.

[_StephenBB81]

Yeah, the iOS/Android porting to QNX will work, but I wasn't kidding when I said 4-5 million. There's an increasing number of app whores these days, and if RIM says we have for example 20 million apps to offer, the app ***** is going to jizz so hard he faints.

There is a point when app volume starts to cost more than it can generate, or cause "diminishing returns".
RIM's push for app developers should stop or slow down once there are enough quality apps that people can no longer say " man I wish bb had app xyz like phone abc has"
After that the focus needs to be on app management and indexing, instead of just app volume,

Ideally RIM could find a revenue stream in app world for app promotion,

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[Nikeem24]

There is a point when app volume starts to cost more than it can generate, or cause "diminishing returns".
RIM's push for app developers should stop or slow down once there are enough quality apps that people can no longer say " man I wish bb had app xyz like phone abc has"
After that the focus needs to be on app management and indexing, instead of just app volume,

Ideally RIM could find a revenue stream in app world for app promotion,

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

+1

And also +1 to your "Clever" Marketing idea.

[Nikeem24]

For one thing... the IPhone 4 will not be released for $200.00 Two, comparing a BB with a full qwerty board and a touch screen is not fair even either. I would take the Bold over the Apple toy of the month without blinking twice. Then again I am also the person who gave away 2 Ipods that were given to me because I would not be dragged into the Apple way of thinking. By the way I also returned 2 Android phones recently because they did not do the simple things correctly... like make a call.

I think you should rethink your say on the price of the Verizon iPhone 4 not being $200......Check the Hyperlink.

[CASH]

Its funny reading hypothesis in this thread of RIM doing things like even leaving the US market. So, by this logic, any company that makes a dump phone or feature phone would leave the market too. Its share is going down, but people are still buying them. heck, they are on all the large prepaid carriers presently. They aren't impressing the gadget freaks, but they are gaining interest of the cost conscious. Well, there are a lot of those cost conscious folks out there.

What's a dump phone? Eww... Sounds gross.

[_StephenBB81]

What's a dump phone? Eww... Sounds gross.

don't you watch those crime shows?

people buy those phones call once with them and dump them,
like super secret spys!

[CASH]

don't you watch those crime shows?

people buy those phones call once with them and dump them,
like super secret spys!

Like a burnout phone.

[Daniel Ratcliffe]

So, which type of people is each of these phones aimed at. I'll try and grab a consencus of how to tackle the UK market with them from that. Here are the phones I'm asking about:
Bold
Storm
Style
Torch

[BlackStormRising]

So, which type of people is each of these phones aimed at. I'll try and grab a consencus of how to tackle the UK market with them from that. Here are the phones I'm asking about:
Bold (me)
Storm (the dump phone guy )
Style (the 50 odd million flip phone addicts, trekkers, D!ck Tracy types, and c'mon, this phone is sharp)
Torch (guys my age who think they look hotter with this than a Bold, but turns out they don't

See inserts....and don't ask my age

[iamajim]

Short answer-you can't!! RIM phones don't have the horse power anymore, don't appeal to anyone but business types, no matter that they're the best messaging machines on the planet-people don't care about that anymore. We lost the advertising battle. QNX can't get here fast enough to suit me. It's going to be a long cold winter in Waterloo.

[phonejunky]

I don't think there is anything RIM can do to combat Apple. Android has already put a huge dent in their profits. Bringing Apple in is like kicking an already dying horse while it's down.

[iN8ter]

IF I was at the Helm of RIM, my strategy for combating the iPhone 4 announcement with Verizon would be:

Joint marketing effort with Verizon and target the 16-18 year old demographic,
and Family Plans, Pushing 9330's like crazy into the teenage group, so that in 18 months time when they are off to University and buying their own phones and I have a competitive media phone I will have faithful BB users.


I would Also do a Marketing push with Sprint and the Style, and AT&T with the Torch,

My business sales group would be addressing Verizon corporate customers talking to them about BES features, I would have a presentation to re-educate the management about features, and also try and slide in MVS solutions to Multi national company's

That woulnd't work well. They should save that money and build a decent phone.

[iN8ter]

Half the Android devices shown at CES probably won't make it to market and the ones that do will have a newer better version out in 3-6 months. At that rate, they'll be on their 4th version of a phone before the 4G is even useful...

Bold 1: You're clueless. Most of those devices have already passed FCC validation and we know what carriers they will be on. Please, just stop... embarassing... yourself...

Italics: That is the reason why RIM cannot keep up with Android. Because those manufacturers actually release better phones often - not just refreshes and rehashes of the same formfactor with little if any measurable changes.

Bold 2: WiMax and HSPA+ are more than useful on the 4G phones that have been released so far (Epic/Evo 4G, G2/MyTouch 4G). What are you talking about? That the later once will have faster radios? So?