Take the Headline Quiz. Mid-Nineties Apple or Present-Day RIM?

Five of these headlines are about Apple in the mid-nineties, five are about RIM today. Can you tell which is which?

Headline Quiz: Mid-Nineties Apple or Present-Day RIM?

In a lot of ways, they are quite similar. In a few ways, they are quite different.
Apple had it easy when they were competing with the likes of Palm and RIMM.
Too bad, RIMM today is not competing with the RIMM of old. I bet RIMM under Thorsten would definitely out-compete the RIMM of old and gain back all the market share lost under the famous Co-CEOs. Problem though is that they are not competing with the RIMM of old.
It is now a very fiercely competitive market where the best and strongest bring their full strength and leverage to play. Google with their huge ad market presence and web dominance is going to continue to drive the hardware cost down to commodity level. They can leverage their web services to form a platform of connected world. From map to email to search to online doc to social media, one just cannot totally do away with google services, whether one likes it or not. Leveraging their huge market share in mobile smart phone they are going to invest heavily to win in the tablet market.
Microsoft is on full assault now. They have their Win 8 PC, Phone, tablet + Xbox 360 TV strategy mapped out. It is going to leverage the dominance of PC platform and Xbox360 living room entertainment to bring forth their tablet and phone experience. It is a real end to end full ecosystem. It is a multi billion investment and Microsoft is going whatever it takes to be a part of this post-pc market. It is not about market extension, but it is to survive and thrive as a company. They are going to go all in.
Apple is Apple. They are stronger than ever and will have ability to move the market in the direction they desired. The integrated ecosystem is their strength and they will play it to the fullest. All the future innovations are going to be leveraged around the iCloud.
Amazon has a key strength in its CEO Jeff Bezos. Amazon's strength on web sale channel, media distribution and cloud computing are enough for them to go low margin on tablet and maybe phone hardware in order to win market.
RIMM ,sadly, doesn't have the luxury to compete with the RIMM under the Co-CEOs. And as a result, the ending will be vastly different from the Apple from the mid-nineties.

Could you entertain me by explaining the bezos & jobs comment even tho its off topic. Not trolling just want to know where that came from...

9/10 I missed on the Morgan Stanley one.

I think RIM needs to diversify their product offerings if they are to have the same outcome. For instance, one phone, one kick- QNX car offering, and two other market leading niche products. Apple didn't get out of trouble wit just the iMac, and the phone space is getting crowded...

9 out of 10 is pretty good. Some are tough...

Originally Posted by ccbs

In a lot of ways, they are quite similar. In a few ways, they are quite different.
Apple had it easy when they were competing with the likes of Palm and RIMM.
Too bad, RIMM today is not competing with the RIMM of old. I bet RIMM under Thorsten would definitely out-compete the RIMM of old and gain back all the market share lost under the famous Co-CEOs. Problem though is that they are not competing with the RIMM of old.
It is now a very fiercely competitive market where the best and strongest bring their full strength and leverage to play. Google with their huge ad market presence and web dominance is going to continue to drive the hardware cost down to commodity level. They can leverage their web services to form a platform of connected world. From map to email to search to online doc to social media, one just cannot totally do away with google services, whether one likes it or not. Leveraging their huge market share in mobile smart phone they are going to invest heavily to win in the tablet market.
Microsoft is on full assault now. They have their Win 8 PC, Phone, tablet + Xbox 360 TV strategy mapped out. It is going to leverage the dominance of PC platform and Xbox360 living room entertainment to bring forth their tablet and phone experience. It is a real end to end full ecosystem. It is a multi billion investment and Microsoft is going whatever it
takes to be a part of this post-pc market. It is not about market extension, but it is to survive and thrive as a company. They are going to go all in.
Apple is Apple. They are stronger than ever and will have ability to move the market in the direction they desired. The integrated ecosystem is their strength and they will play it to the fullest. All the future innovations are going to be leveraged around the iCloud.
Amazon has a key strength in its CEO Jeff Bezos. Amazon's strength on web sale channel, media distribution and cloud computing are enough for them to go low margin on tablet and maybe phone hardware in order to win market.

RIMM ,sadly, doesn't have the luxury to compete with the RIMM under the Co-CEOs. And as a result, the ending will be vastly different from the Apple from the mid-nineties.

So true, exactly what I think. The future is all about having an integrated ecosystem, which all of one's company'4 products & services share; a kind of "one-stop shop." This creates future stickiness, which discourages consumers to change platforms. Where does that leave RIM?

I'm not good with quizzes...

But as each platform develops their own ecosystem, it'll be a fierse competition. RIM has their own, as does the other platforms. It just takes time to grow with the top dogs running around, being an underdog isn't easy. Back on topic, I'll probably have a bit of trouble telling each apart from the other.