[nocturnal123]

I would like to preface what I'm about to say with, I'm a proud Blackberry user and wouldn't trade it for anything. Also extremely excited for the new BB 10 devices to launch so I can get one.

I just watched the Verge live cast and read the gizmodo blog also the experiment the guy did on these forums and just have to say RIM has a very steep hill to climb to win back the average consumer in the US if that is even at all possible at this point. I find their overall perception of Blackberry is extremely low and would even go as far to say that most hate Blackberry. I believe the co idiots took the brand and really did far more damage to it then anyone may have thought. As long as there are idiots at so called tech blogs like the guy at gizmodo and the people at the verge bashing Blackberry, RIM may never regain any ground in the US.

It truly pains me to say this because I want nothing more then for RIM to succeed and prosper with BB 10.

[Bla1ze]

Yes but have you seen the recent back-tracking on comments happening lately? People who were hard in doubt, have more recently stepped off their RIM hate because they know there is something happening and they're not so sure of RIM's 'doomed' fate that they once were.

[SparkyBC]

Gizmodo has been kissing apples arse since they bashed the iphone5. Personally gizmodo is as biased as cnet when it comes to rim. There are many idiots that write articles, just to please rotting apples. I hate my iphone5 and can't wait to be back to my new blackberry soon. The platform will have no problems selling like hotcakes.

Even some isheep are starting to realize the iphone has been mediocre since the 4s.

[Denise in Los Angeles]

Most people don't know anything about the previous CEOs at RIM, or the negative bloggers. People don't care to read all that stuff.

They will hear about BB10 when it is released.

[neteng1000]

Anyone have any idea on what strategy RIM is going to use to ensure that the frontline sales reps at the stores are educated and aren't going to sabotage any sales?

[adamschuetze]

There will always be the BGR and gizmodo bloggers who appear to have a pathological hate on for RIM. Even the Engadget Mobile editor myriam joire makes no secret of her dislike for RIM. But there are more measured responses out there, but you do have to look for them. Once you get past the haters you'll find the tech bloggers who think RIM is in trouble are starting to not exactly come around but to recognize that RIM has a viable product in BB10. Their doubts on if BB10 will gain traction are not unfounded, but they are starting to open up to the possibility that BB10 will be good.

[bER1Nry]

To be honest , people have only been hating on BB because it was frozen in time.
Not growing or updating.

But I must say. Not all Android and Apple users hate Blackberry.
I currently own a Galaxy S3, and am in the process of selling it to make way for BB10 qwerty.

[calicocat2010]

Anyone have any idea on what strategy RIM is going to use to ensure that the frontline sales reps at the stores are educated and aren't going to sabotage any sales?

Well since Carrier Testing is already going on, Cell Phone Companies are already training staff on the BB10 devices that they have seen.

[pkcable]

RIM has a lot to prove, and I think most are taking a wait and see attitude, BUT what we have seen so far looks pretty good AND there is a bit of a buzz going. Right now I would say if anything things are starting to look up!

[Roo Zilla]

I don't understand all this hate for Basille and Lazaridis. While it's true they didn't react fast enough to the iPhone and Android, and perhaps held on to their platform too long instead of biting the bullet and building a truly scalable OS, these were the guys who built RIM. There wouldn't be any resurrection of RIM and BB10 without B&L because RIM would never have existed. Sure it's easy to blame them for some recent missteps, perhaps fatal ones, but over a little more than a decade, they turned RIM from a small niche device maker with a single booth at CES to an internationally known brand. That's an incredible accomplishment. I have a lot more respect for B&L than Heins. Those guys were the real innovators, Heins is a glorified CTO. In the same way, I have a lot more respect for Jobs than Cook, Cook is a supply chain guy. Gates and Allen created MS, Ballmer's the sales guy.

[roderickwill]

Just today I was at work talking to ppl about cellphone tech and I asked why do you just want one mobile OS Apple and good well Apple and Samsung since HTC has fallen off so much? They didnt have a reply that are just brainwashed with what they are told. On a side not a client I saw was more open minded and we talk about the different mobile OS and she said she dislike the iphone because it was boring and didnt like the samsung because the screens are to big so I showed her the first introduction video of bb10 on my blackberry of course. She fell in love with hit and said her brother whom is a phone person to mention she should watch out for the new BB and after the video she said she will indeed get a BB. BB is slowly reaching people ears without the product being out so I can only imagine what will happen when it's out. Granted majority of the U.S. are brainwashed by what they should buy instead of doing research prior and there's nothing wrong with that some ppl just want to be told what they should buy. But if word of mouth takes off for RIM that will do more for them than any tv spot.

[adamschuetze]

I don't understand all this hate for Basille and Lazaridis. While it's true they didn't react fast enough to the iPhone and Android, and perhaps held on to their platform too long instead of biting the bullet and building a truly scalable OS, these were the guys who built RIM. There wouldn't be any resurrection of RIM and BB10 without B&L because RIM would never have existed. Sure it's easy to blame them for some recent missteps, perhaps fatal ones, but over a little more than a decade, they turned RIM from a small niche device maker with a single booth at CES to an internationally known brand. That's an incredible accomplishment. I have a lot more respect for B&L than Heins. Those guys were the real innovators, Heins is a glorified CTO. In the same way, I have a lot more respect for Jobs than Cook, Cook is a supply chain guy. Gates and Allen created MS, Ballmer's the sales guy.

B&L did a bang-up job until the iPhone came out. Their failure to react in a speedy manner is just flat out astonishing. All of RIM's problems stem from their failure to react to the iPhone launch. They managed to build RIM into a huge company mostly because they didn't have any real competition. There was HTC and others building Windows Mobile devices, Palm had the Treo, and that was it. As soon as they had any real competition, it was downhill from there. Heins has done a great job of pulling up from the nosedive.

[adamschuetze]

Just today I was at work talking to ppl about cellphone tech and I asked why do you just want one mobile OS Apple and good well Apple and Samsung since HTC has fallen off so much? They didnt have a reply that are just brainwashed with what they are told. On a side not a client I saw was more open minded and we talk about the different mobile OS and she said she dislike the iphone because it was boring and didnt like the samsung because the screens are to big so I showed her the first introduction video of bb10 on my blackberry of course. She fell in love with hit and said her brother whom is a phone person to mention she should watch out for the new BB and after the video she said she will indeed get a BB. BB is slowly reaching people ears without the product being out so I can only imagine what will happen when it's out. Granted majority of the U.S. are brainwashed by what they should buy instead of doing research prior and there's nothing wrong with that some ppl just want to be told what they should buy. But if word of mouth takes off for RIM that will do more for them than any tv spot.

Why do people keep saying that HTC has 'fallen off'? Have you seen the 1X+? The Droid DNA? The 8X? These things are fantastic! They aren't making the money like Samsung, but they continue making great devices. Better ones even, than Samsung, I think.

[cbvinh]

I wouldn't necessarily give a blanket statement that people are brainwashed. Marketing definitely influences people to look at a product and perhaps, get some to buy it. For phones, if it doesn't work, people will get angry. If it meets some basic requirements, they'll tolerate some shortcomings to have something the "in" crowd has. What iOS and Android has right now is a lot of people that can vouch for the system and perhaps even provide help. At present, since none of us have actually used the new BB10 system, most of us can't vouch for it. BB has had missteps in the past where the branding isn't strong enough for people to assume it will be good. That's one thing that Apple branding currently has and people will buy iOS wares, sight unseen. Hopefully BB10 will be great and reinvigorate the brand so that the next BB10 phones will be thought of as something great, sight unseen.

[texazzpete]

Even some isheep are starting to realize the iphone has been mediocre since the 4s.

I think anyone who thinks the iPhone 5 is 'mediocre' is actually the sheep.

I don't have one, don't plan to get one, moved to Android as a companion to my BB when I realized i needed more 'openness' and 'flexibility' and a bigger screen, but by golly anyone who makes this kind of statement doesn't know anything about tech.

@Topic
Stay away from Gizmodo for your own sanity! Awful reviewers, trollish writers...just all round craziness.

[itr themes]

One thing that really bugs me about when I hear people bad mouthing BlackBerry, is that most of the time they can't name specific reasons to why they don't like them. I've ended many smartphone conversations by simply saying "give me 3 valid reasons why BlackBerry's suck".... and "they just do" is NOT a valid reason. So no, maybe not everyone is brainwashed by media etc., but there are plenty people that just go with the masses, even though they don't know why.

On the same page, I've asked people to sell me on the iPhone5... the first thing they say, "it's an iPhone." Sorry, but that doesn't sell me on it.

[hurds]

RIMs been a in a tough spot. One others will likely find themselves in soon if they havent already.

They've done a lot of unique and remarkable things that they get zero credit for and get bashed for the most insignificant things.

They are uniquely differentiated from all their competitors have continued to grow their user base with a platform many deem 'unworthy'.

They know what they are doing and BB10 at the least will help them to grow. People tire of their devices, they arent tied to a single phone like some people tend to believe (or have been bowled over into thinking). This duoply is unsustainable in NA and even more so globally. The two on top are showing a lot of signs of faultering. Android could be wiped out significantly in little time. All it takes is for OEMs to adopt another platform, or carriers to push another platform. Apple could easily become a niche device since there is so little choice with their devices (unless we are talking solitare apps, cause apparently 1500 is a good thing). We've seen many companies rise and fall very quickly and there are still a lot of players who are going to fight, and would be stupid not to because personal mobile devices is what everything is converging to. Many market have been disrupted by them and its not going to stop.

RIM has been and still is better positioned and has more options then the competition. They do need BB10 personal devices to be a success so they can start turning a profit again and over time I see no reason this won't happen and their profits could explode with all the markets they can open up and enter in addition to personal handsets.

Looking back a few years from now people will realise the true genius of Mike and Jim although negative sentiment was created around them. They truely are geniuses and saw the market change better than anyone else did or any other company did after they not only help create but still have truely unique and differentiated product without BB10. Their biggest fault is PR. But they had even more genius foresight in stepping aside and pleasing the masses and then appointed an extremely qualified leader in ThorsTEN. Mike seems like too soft spoken and polite of a guy while Basillie didn't seem to like to pander to the media and at times was over excited with where his company was going, and we all know you can't say anything positive about RIM or at least over the past year to two years you haven't been able to or else people would think you were crazy or 'in-denial' with how their perception has been molded. Heins is definitely the man for the job. Intelligent, focused, direct message, charismatic, efficient and typical no-nonsense German.

[Toodeurep]

^^^ "ThorsTEN" I like what you did there!

[texazzpete]

One thing that really bugs me about when I hear people bad mouthing BlackBerry, is that most of the time they can't name specific reasons to why they don't like them. I've ended many smartphone conversations by simply saying "give me 3 valid reasons why BlackBerry's suck".... and "they just do" is NOT a valid reason. So no, maybe not everyone is brainwashed by media etc., but there are plenty people that just go with the masses, even though they don't know why.

On the same page, I've asked people to sell me on the iPhone5... the first thing they say, "it's an iPhone." Sorry, but that doesn't sell me on it.

Seriously? They couldn't tell you why they hated BBs?
Were it not for BBM, these are the reasons why I would not be using a Blackberry phone.

1. Laggy performance, unforgivable spinning clocks and OS freezes
2. General lack of loads of popular, killer apps. Most of the multiplatform apps on Blackberry phones are of worse quality and look measurably UGLIER than their counterparts on iOS, Android and WP. Gaming on Blackberry phones is vastly inferior to all the other platforms. Comes from a combination of small screens and the former CEOs unbelievable STUPIDITY in failing to put a GPU in the OS5 and 6 phones...ensuring that game devs stayed far away from the platform.

3. Unbelievably poor battery life on the flagship 99xx series phones. People try to spin this as a reception issue etc etc, but many people in my country struggle to get their phones to last half the day. Sales of external battery cases have skyrocketed these days.

And as a bonus

4. Tech specs. Current BBs are way behind the competition in tech specs....including screen resolution, camera quality, CPU and GPU prowess, LTE...


The Blackberry brand has been mismanaged badly. I'm looking forward to BB10 when my BB will not just be an OK device with excellent communication features (like BBM) but an awesome phone with awesome apps and awesome first party RIM services.

[texazzpete]

RIMs been a in a tough spot. One others will likely find themselves in soon if they havent already.

They've done a lot of unique and remarkable things that they get zero credit for and get bashed for the most insignificant things.

They are uniquely differentiated from all their competitors have continued to grow their user base with a platform many deem 'unworthy'.

They know what they are doing and BB10 at the least will help them to grow. People tire of their devices, they arent tied to a single phone like some people tend to believe (or have been bowled over into thinking). This duoply is unsustainable in NA and even more so globally. The two on top are showing a lot of signs of faultering. Android could be wiped out significantly in little time. All it takes is for OEMs to adopt another platform, or carriers to push another platform. Apple could easily become a niche device since there is so little choice with their devices (unless we are talking solitare apps, cause apparently 1500 is a good thing). We've seen many companies rise and fall very quickly and there are still a lot of players who are going to fight, and would be stupid not to because personal mobile devices is what everything is converging to. Many market have been disrupted by them and its not going to stop.

RIM has been and still is better positioned and has more options then the competition. They do need BB10 personal devices to be a success so they can start turning a profit again and over time I see no reason this won't happen and their profits could explode with all the markets they can open up and enter in addition to personal handsets.

Looking back a few years from now people will realise the true genius of Mike and Jim although negative sentiment was created around them. They truely are geniuses and saw the market change better than anyone else did or any other company did after they not only help create but still have truely unique and differentiated product without BB10. Their biggest fault is PR. But they had even more genius foresight in stepping aside and pleasing the masses and then appointed an extremely qualified leader in ThorsTEN. Mike seems like too soft spoken and polite of a guy while Basillie didn't seem to like to pander to the media and at times was over excited with where his company was going, and we all know you can't say anything positive about RIM or at least over the past year to two years you haven't been able to or else people would think you were crazy or 'in-denial' with how their perception has been molded. Heins is definitely the man for the job. Intelligent, focused, direct message, charismatic, efficient and typical no-nonsense German.

Lazaridis and Balsillie did wonders with making RIM a powerhouse. But they nearly ran the company into the ground with rather idiotic decisions. Nice attempt to paint them as misunderstood folks, but the fact remains that after the iPhone came out, they were as inept and incompetent at coming up with a suitable response as the former Nokia CEO and Steve Ballmer.

They started sticking the knife into RIM with the Torch 9800.

The only bright thing they did in the past few years was to acquire QNX.

[sleepngbear]

I don't understand all this hate for Basille and Lazaridis. While it's true they didn't react fast enough to the iPhone and Android, and perhaps held on to their platform too long instead of biting the bullet and building a truly scalable OS, these were the guys who built RIM. There wouldn't be any resurrection of RIM and BB10 without B&L because RIM would never have existed. Sure it's easy to blame them for some recent missteps, perhaps fatal ones, but over a little more than a decade, they turned RIM from a small niche device maker with a single booth at CES to an internationally known brand. That's an incredible accomplishment. I have a lot more respect for B&L than Heins. Those guys were the real innovators, Heins is a glorified CTO. In the same way, I have a lot more respect for Jobs than Cook, Cook is a supply chain guy. Gates and Allen created MS, Ballmer's the sales guy.

They're also the ones who set RIM down the QNX road. That will get overlooked because they are no longer in the picture now that BB10 is finally coming to fruition. Just how much of this current direction is their vision I do not know; and their ability to lead the execution of the vision was certainly in question. But when they did finally realize that they had to do something different, they did it in a big way. BB/QNX started on their watch.

[BBMINI]

They managed to build RIM into a huge company mostly because they didn't have any real competition.

Exactly. B & L were undeniably smart, creative people who invented an entire industry category and they had that category to themselves for years. This seemingly lulled them into thinking BlackBerry would always own the smartphone category AND that smartphones would always be business-only devices with no real interest in them ever coming from everyday consumers. But when the competitive shizzit hit the fan and when consumers realized smartphones were awesome (primarily because Apple told them so via the iPhone), B &L were obviously caught by surprise with no real plan or way to maintain market share in North America.

[BBMINI]

Anyone have any idea on what strategy RIM is going to use to ensure that the frontline sales reps at the stores are educated and aren't going to sabotage any sales?

If various web reports are correct (because the interwebz is always right), the carriers are actually sincerely interested in establishing a strong third OS in the platform world so they're not as beholden to just two huge players (iOS and Android, obviously). Whether they embrace and help promote WindowsPhone8 or BB10, or possibly both platforms, remains to be seen. I will say, however, that Microsoft has certainly put some serious marketing $ behind their WP8 launch which has made it nearly unavoidable on TV, online, at shopping malls, and in carrier stores (I was in an AT&T store on WP8 launch day and every employee was wearing a blue T-shirt with the WindowsPhone logo on the front). As Apple has long known, and which MS is now emulating, and hopefully RIM will realize is worthwhile, a tsunami of effective marketing is essentially a requirement these days if you're going to build brand momentum in the consumer electronics market. Otherwise, your products (even if revamped an awesome like BB10 should be) will get swept aside to also-ran status because consumer mindshare has all been shifted to the players with the most ads and market presence. And it's especially true if you're trying to make a huge comeback like RIM is. Without a total flood of great marketing to change the current perception of BlackBerry, I'm afraid the BB brand will only remain a niche player among BB loyalists, some government agencies, and consumers outside of North America.

As a related note, you might like to look over this thread from a year ago which asked the same kinds of questions about RIM's marketing plans: http://forums.crackberry.com/news-ru...6/#post6715366

[kraski]

Why do people keep saying that HTC has 'fallen off'? Have you seen the 1X+? The Droid DNA? The 8X? These things are fantastic! They aren't making the money like Samsung, but they continue making great devices. Better ones even, than Samsung, I think.

I had great experience with HTC with WinMo. And that's where they gained a following and reputation. When MS kiiled off WinMo, HTC jumped into the Android parade. With low margins and lots of competition, they had some quality issues and started leaking money. Thanks to the 1X series, HTC has finally seen some profit. But they still need to prove that the quality is a consistent thing and not a fluke.

Similar issues have dogged RIM with some of the OS6 and OS7 production runs. That needs to be fixed for Blackberry with the BB10 phones, otherwise the OS will get great reviews till they get to the paragraph with the huge BUT about quality. If it's not fixed, all the bells and whistles will mean nothing to a buying public that wants phones that don't screw up in less than a year.

[Thunderbuck]

I would like to preface what I'm about to say with, I'm a proud Blackberry user and wouldn't trade it for anything. Also extremely excited for the new BB 10 devices to launch so I can get one.

I just watched the Verge live cast and read the gizmodo blog also the experiment the guy did on these forums and just have to say RIM has a very steep hill to climb to win back the average consumer in the US if that is even at all possible at this point. I find their overall perception of Blackberry is extremely low and would even go as far to say that most hate Blackberry. I believe the co idiots took the brand and really did far more damage to it then anyone may have thought. As long as there are idiots at so called tech blogs like the guy at gizmodo and the people at the verge bashing Blackberry, RIM may never regain any ground in the US.

It truly pains me to say this because I want nothing more then for RIM to succeed and prosper with BB 10.

Opinion =/= Fact

Note that I express the same sentiment when faced with "RIM is bound to succeed!" threads, too. The simple response is that we don't know a lot of details regarding the launch, including the full feature set of the BB10 phones, any newly available apps, carrier support, and what the marketing plan is.

I'm more confident, because I see evidence that RIM is doing smart stuff to turn the situation around. I don't KNOW that they will succeed, just like you don't KNOW that they won't.