[beercan640]

I was just trying to say even though Blackberry and its components were far superior, marketing swayed the masses to inferior products.

[Chuck Finley69]

So very true and I had a Sony BetaMax HiFi unit back in the day and the picture and sound quality where superior. But as with everyone else, I quickly switched to VHS format because of the lack of available movies. It’s all about marketing.

Combined with the availability of “apps” for the device..

[conite]

I was just trying to say even though Blackberry and its components were far superior, marketing swayed the masses to inferior products.

And many of us are saying that VHS was superior in terms of what people actually wanted and cared about. People got way more features and had far more hardware choices at the cost of a small (imperceptible to most) reduction in video quality.

[Troy Tiscareno]

So very true and I had a Sony BetaMax HiFi unit back in the day and the picture and sound quality where superior. But as with everyone else, I quickly switched to VHS format because of the lack of available movies. It’s all about marketing.

How is this marketing? Being based on 2-hour-long standard tapes (VHS) vs 1-hour-long tapes (Beta) was a design decision. If you're a movie studio looking to sell copies of your movies to the public, and it costs twice as much to make them on Beta (2 tapes vs 1), or you're a movie tape rental company (like what eventually became Blockbuster), and your costs to buy Beta are higher, your shelf storage space required doubles, and you have to keep track of 2 tapes per title and rewind 2 tapes per title, etc., you're going to prefer VHS. It wasn't marketing that convinced the market to support VHS, it was a straightforward business decision at virtually every level.

I'm a big fan of Sony - especially in the 80s and 90s, Sony's design and engineering were incredible and far above anyone else's, but they blew the design of Beta from the very beginning by not matching the tape size with the size of the average movie. Once the movie rental business started to take off, this was a deathblow to Beta because it was just way too inefficient to work at scale. And the additional quality that Beta offered wasn't anywhere near big enough to overcome its downsides. And this comes from someone who used Beta quite a bit in in the early 80s and had a chance to compare side by side.

[conite]

How is this marketing? Being based on 2-hour-long standard tapes (VHS) vs 1-hour-long tapes (Beta) was a design decision. If you're a movie studio looking to sell copies of your movies to the public, and it costs twice as much to make them on Beta (2 tapes vs 1), or you're a movie tape rental company (like what eventually became Blockbuster), and your costs to buy Beta are higher, your shelf storage space required doubles, and you have to keep track of 2 tapes per title and rewind 2 tapes per title, etc., you're going to prefer VHS. It wasn't marketing that convinced the market to support VHS, it was a straightforward business decision at virtually every level.

I'm a big fan of Sony - especially in the 80s and 90s, Sony's design and engineering were incredible and far above anyone else's, but they blew the design of Beta from the very beginning by not matching the tape size with the size of the average movie. Once the movie rental business started to take off, this was a deathblow to Beta because it was just way too inefficient to work at scale. And the additional quality that Beta offered wasn't anywhere near big enough to overcome its downsides. And this comes from someone who used Beta quite a bit in in the early 80s and had a chance to compare side by side.

I remember a short period of time where I was recording music on S-VHS decks with digital PCM.

[app_Developer]

I remember a short period of time where I was recording music on S-VHS decks with digital PCM.

Yeah, I remember that, too!

At first VHS had lower quality than Beta, but it nailed the killer app, which was movie rentals. I would argue that made VHS the superior product. Specs are useless if you miss the use case(s) people are paying good money for.

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

Apple didn't beat BlackBerry because of marketing.... yes marketing played a part, but in the end the product has to do what other products can do.

[Troy Tiscareno]

I remember a short period of time where I was recording music on S-VHS decks with digital PCM.

Yep. We had, I believe, a Sony PCM-100(?) hooked to a SVHS deck in my college recording studio - which I was already working in while I was in high school - and I remember multitrack recordings being mixed down to stereo onto this setup. By the next year, when I was officially enrolled in the program (as a senior in high school), the first pro Sony DAT deck (PCM-2500) had been released and immediately purchased by the college, and that almost immediately took over digital stereo master duty, as it was much easier to use and the tapes so much more manageable than the SVHS setup. It's amazing how fast tech was moving at the time, but so much was still so new.


Sony PCM-2500 DAT Recorder

[idssteve]

SOooo... are we finally detecting concurrence that screen estate priorities might be significantly motivated by "movie watching"? ?? rotf... lol

Of course, beta gave way to vhs, then to DVD then blue ray ... How many cinematic epics will a micro-sd hold? then there's cloud...

I guess if i could possibly find two hours in as many months to enjoy cinema, i STILL wouldn't find ANY interest in insulting the creative genius of the movie makers by viewing on a 5" or 6 or 7 or 10 or even 20" display when 40-100" displays are SO ubiquitous... ?? Color me strange, i guess. lol One coworker is still fond of declaring that "...if you ever start understanding insanity... worry! ..." lol.. Of course another coworker is equally fond of responding that "... when you start thinking EVERYone else is insane... worry! ..." hehe...

Guess I'm still stuck in that ancient pursuit of communicating at distance. Let's see, there's yelling loudly, hand signals, semaphore, courier carried written, homing pigeons, smoke signals, "pillars of fire", drums, hollow logs, trumpets, firearm report, rockets, flares, Morse over signal lamp, Morse over wire, Morse over wireLESS, and finally back to voice... voice over pipe, voice over wire, voice over wireLESS... lol..

I've also seen and personally used ticker tape, teletype, CTSS, ARPANET, Compuserve, CIS, Prodigy, Quantum/AOL, etc, etc,... ultimately CCMAIL, pop, sms, mms, BBM, etc... and then came "social media".... lol.

Still, the desire to simply communicate a precise & timely concept, as the concept is conceived in real time, to a person on the other side of the planet, remains a "thang". THAT use case need persists. Despite near absence of optimal hardware support, imo... BUT, movies can certainly communicate concepts... if two hours can be considered "real time"... lol...

[app_Developer]

Still, the desire to simply communicate a precise & timely concept, as the concept is conceived in real time, to a person on the other side of the planet, remains a "thang". THAT use case need persists. Despite near absence of optimal hardware support, imo... BUT, movies can certainly communicate concepts... if two hours can be considered "real time"... lol...

I FaceTime with my family all the time. What hardware would you consider optimal for that? My phone has hardware support for a very nice and efficient codec. It has 5G for low latency. It has a decent FF camera and good speakers. And a lovely screen to see my nephews.

What else would you add?

[idssteve]

I FaceTime with my family all the time. What hardware would you consider optimal for that? My phone has hardware support for a very nice and efficient codec. It has 5G for low latency. It has a decent FF camera and good speakers. And a lovely screen to see my nephews.

What else would you add?

And your use case is precisely what your chosen hardware is optimized for. Enjoy.

FaceTime has proven utterly useless for communicating from or to a noisy production plant floor, as one example.

What I would "add" (or most precisely subtract lol) would be a device that can unobtrusively maintain a textual exchange from anywhere, to anywhere, anytime under any conditions... WithOUT forcing to place life on pause while jumping thru hoops of distraction... Lol. Imo. Fwiw.

[Troy Tiscareno]

I guess if i could possibly find two hours in as many months to enjoy cinema, i STILL wouldn't find ANY interest in insulting the creative genius of the movie makers by viewing on a 5" or 6 or 7 or 10 or even 20" display when 40-100" displays are SO ubiquitous... ?? Color me strange, i guess.

You aren't just limited to Hollywood movies, though. I will sync some TV episodes to my phone to watch when I'm not driving, and I watch plenty of YouTube videos with news and interviews and such where cinematic quality isn't the primary consideration. I also watch plenty of "how-to" technical videos when dealing with new products or items that a customer bought that I have to work on.

I think we all understand that you have a very unique set of use cases that aren't as ideally served by a good-sized all-touch phone, but most of us live and work and play in a very different world. I certainly couldn't get my job done with a tiny, low-resolution Bold screen.

[idssteve]

You aren't just limited to Hollywood movies, though. I will sync some TV episodes to my phone to watch when I'm not driving, and I watch plenty of YouTube videos with news and interviews and such where cinematic quality isn't the primary consideration. I also watch plenty of "how-to" technical videos when dealing with new products or items that a customer bought that I have to work on.

I think we all understand that you have a very unique set of use cases that aren't as ideally served by a good-sized all-touch phone, but most of us live and work and play in a very different world. I certainly couldn't get my job done with a tiny, low-resolution Bold screen.

Yep, color me strange. Lol. I DO avail myself of "lower quality" image youtube... On this "tiny, low resolution Bold screen". Mostly for listening. Bigger screens rarely add enough to the "lower quality" image experience, often enough, to justify suffering a 24/7 wpm handicap of 50% or more. For me.


My "eye time" is too precious for other, more profitable, activities, I guess. I rarely don't have TuneIn radio playing over Bold while driving. BUT, I'm a FAST reader. I READ news, interviews, etc MUCH faster than patience permits me to suffer thru someone talking about it. Color me impatient, also. Lol.

I DO agree that instruction videos can be valuable! Especially when so many "modern" instruction manuals are so poorly written. (On iPhones? Lol) I have grabbed my D60 in attempt to see details better than on this tiny bold. At least 6 or 7 times this year, so far. Ultimately, each of those times, I found MUCH better detail Cast on 65" screen... Making the intermediate d60 redundant. For impatient me. Lol.

Still... If instruction manuals were better written, instruction videos might not prove quite so essential. Assembling operation and maintenance instructions has been part of my job description for many decades. Much of my "retirement" has devoted to "design instructions"... Explaining details, measurements, calculations, strategies, etc, etc of some designs I've participated in. Even some designs I assisted to reverse engineer. So that others might better build on existing design rather than re-invent the wheel just to comprehensively understand the big picture.

How many times have you encountered a complete redesign of a favorite product just to wonder WHY "they" changed it? Frequently such complete redesigns derive from an engineer feeling most comfortable building from scratch simply because the previous designer failed to adequately document the original design process. Documentation that MIGHT have proven better accomplished on hardware better suited to typing? Lol.

[Troy Tiscareno]

How many times have you encountered a complete redesign of a favorite product just to wonder WHY "they" changed it? Frequently such complete redesigns derive from an engineer feeling most comfortable building from scratch simply because the previous designer failed to adequately document the original design process. Documentation that MIGHT have proven better accomplished on hardware better suited to typing? Lol.

Yet, we all know the "why" in this case: every major phone company (except BB, and then BB licensees) ditched the PKB because surveys of their customers found that they were fine with VKBs and were much more concerned about screen size (and camera quality). And, given that they are companies with fiduciary duties to their shareholders to make a profit, they cut the products that were plummeting in sales and losing money in favor of those rising in sales and generating gross profits.

Of COURSE that screws you and the relatively few people like you whose use case prioritizes high-volume of one-handed typing, but they simply can't make money from you and the few people remaining who share your priorities, so they moved on. At least BB and its follow-ons are still making PKBs at all - they might not be Bolds, but at least they aren't all slabs, so they've done their best at catering to you while still getting board approval for their plans; though they've still not found a way to be profitable doing so.

[the_boon]

Yet, we all know the "why" in this case: every major phone company (except BB, and then BB licensees) ditched the PKB because surveys of their customers found that they were fine with VKBs and were much more concerned about screen size (and camera quality). And, given that they are companies with fiduciary duties to their shareholders to make a profit, they cut the products that were plummeting in sales and losing money in favor of those rising in sales and generating gross profits.

Of COURSE that screws you and the relatively few people like you whose use case prioritizes high-volume of one-handed typing, but they simply can't make money from you and the few people remaining who share your priorities, so they moved on. At least BB and its follow-ons are still making PKBs at all - they might not be Bolds, but at least they aren't all slabs, so they've done their best at catering to you while still getting board approval for their plans; though they've still not found a way to be profitable doing so.

You do realize that, just like this the vast majority of smartphone users left their PKB devices for a slab, they can just as easily go back to one if the overall product appealed to them.

It's not like a PKB is some archaic form of input that can only make people run away from it and never towards it.

[EdMinghuang]

it's still a gamble to go back.
Blackberry Hub software gamble ( on hold)
quality gamble
update gamble

[Chuck Finley69]

You do realize that, just like this the vast majority of smartphone users left their PKB devices for a slab, they can just as easily go back to one if the overall product appealed to them.

It's not like a PKB is some archaic form of input that can only make people run away from it and never towards it.

But yet most choose to voluntarily run away from it due to it’s declining value prioritization with other necessary features.

[idssteve]

Yet, we all know the "why" in this case: every major phone company (except BB, and then BB licensees) ditched the PKB because surveys of their customers found that they were fine with VKBs and were much more concerned about screen size (and camera quality). And, given that they are companies with fiduciary duties to their shareholders to make a profit, they cut the products that were plummeting in sales and losing money in favor of those rising in sales and generating gross profits.

Of COURSE that screws you and the relatively few people like you whose use case prioritizes high-volume of one-handed typing, but they simply can't make money from you and the few people remaining who share your priorities, so they moved on. At least BB and its follow-ons are still making PKBs at all - they might not be Bolds, but at least they aren't all slabs, so they've done their best at catering to you while still getting board approval for their plans; though they've still not found a way to be profitable doing so.

Naturally i do get that. No stranger to business decisions myself. Routinely mention how "strange" i am at every opportunity. lol.. Still didn't (doesn't) help MY "fiduciary duty" to my company's clients' performance.

All us "strange" folks can do is make enough noise so that we're not completely forgotten. And hope, beyond hope, that industriously creative innovators somewhere, someplace, sometime, take note and innovate some pathway to serve our tiny niche. Entry barriers to small niche producers seem to be relaxing. They frequently do relax at about this period of market development. I've started and nurtured businesses before... "retirement" has proven anything but boring but... lol... Never bet on tomorrow looking just like yesterday...

[idssteve]

But yet most choose to voluntarily run away from it due to it’s declining value prioritization with other necessary features.

SOME of us never voluntarily ran away. BBOS was prematurely eol'd and euthanized with useful life remaining. imo. 2012 still outsold 2010... not exactly a precipitous nose dive. 2013's BB10 precipitous nose dive truly proved that a product CAN be crippled enough to FORCE an involuntary run away.

[Troy Tiscareno]

SOME of us never voluntarily ran away. BBOS was prematurely eol'd and euthanized with useful life remaining. imo. 2012 still outsold 2010... not exactly a precipitous nose dive. 2013's BB10 precipitous nose dive truly proved that a product CAN be crippled enough to FORCE an involuntary run away.

As we've discussed many times, the only reason why 2012 outsold 2010 is because BB expanded into emerging markets during that period, using entry-level phones and prior-year models (and even refurbs) to gain marketshare in those countries - particularly Indonesia, Nigeria, and South Africa. If you take those out of the picture, and just look at the markets BB was in in 2010, then you'd see that sales in developed markets had fallen off by over 30%.

Obviously it was smart of BB to do that expansion, but it really just delayed the inevitable. Emerging markets were about 5 years behind developed markets in carrier networks, but when 3G and 4G came into those markets, along with affordable Android phones, BB was dropped from those markets as well.

BBOS as a mainstream product was doomed by 2010 in developed markets and by 2015 in emerging markets, and BB definitely had the numbers to prove it, which is why they had to do SOMETHING to stay in the game. IMO, they should have adopted Android even if that meant that security was going to be compromised for a couple of years (companies concerned about that could have continued on BBOS until around 2014 when Android had matured) - but obviously they went a different direction with BB10.

Either way, if we're talking specifically about PKBs, that form factor has been almost completely abandoned by the market. With 2 billion+ phones sold per year worldwide, the market for PKBs was falling about 50% a year. Every other major manufacturer got rid of PKBs in 2013 when PKB sales had fallen to unsustainable levels - only Mike's insistence on the PKB kept BB in that game, but it clearly didn't help them gain any marketshare. Here in 2021, it would seem that PKB phone demand can be served via Kickstarter projects - and we're still talking 20,000 devices or less a year from all manufacturers.

[idssteve]

As we've discussed many times, the only reason why 2012 outsold 2010 is because BB expanded into emerging markets during that period, using entry-level phones and prior-year models (and even refurbs) to gain marketshare in those countries - particularly Indonesia, Nigeria, and South Africa. If you take those out of the picture, and just look at the markets BB was in in 2010, then you'd see that sales in developed markets had fallen off by over 30%.

Obviously it was smart of BB to do that expansion, but it really just delayed the inevitable. Emerging markets were about 5 years behind developed markets in carrier networks, but when 3G and 4G came into those markets, along with affordable Android phones, BB was dropped from those markets as well.

BBOS as a mainstream product was doomed by 2010 in developed markets and by 2015 in emerging markets, and BB definitely had the numbers to prove it, which is why they had to do SOMETHING to stay in the game. IMO, they should have adopted Android even if that meant that security was going to be compromised for a couple of years (companies concerned about that could have continued on BBOS until around 2014 when Android had matured) - but obviously they went a different direction with BB10.

Either way, if we're talking specifically about PKBs, that form factor has been almost completely abandoned by the market. With 2 billion+ phones sold per year worldwide, the market for PKBs was falling about 50% a year. Every other major manufacturer got rid of PKBs in 2013 when PKB sales had fallen to unsustainable levels - only Mike's insistence on the PKB kept BB in that game, but it clearly didn't help them gain any marketshare. Here in 2021, it would seem that PKB phone demand can be served via Kickstarter projects - and we're still talking 20,000 devices or less a year from all manufacturers.

Yes, you are correct, imo. "BBOS as a mainstream product was doomed by 2010...". RIM's soured relationship with their biggest customer (VZW), over the Storm fiasco, has been under appreciated for its impact in "developed" markets. Imo. But, yes, the trends would've horrified BOD had "developing market" expansion not masked the bigger picture.

Yet, trends are not absolutes. BBOS was still commanding 10's of millions of relatively content userbase when coCEO announced eol within months of 9900 intro. AND even when ultimately killed off in 2013-14. Mostly sacrificed in effort to coerce migration into doomed BB10, imo. A double doomed strategy. Imo. BB10 ultimately died a "natural death". BBOS was never afforded dignity of dying a natural death. Imo.

After all of these years, I remain convinced that a survivable niche might've, possibly, enjoyed low volume profitability for many years. Not Apple or Samsung numbers but possibly better than BB10 or TCL... Had that niche of contented userbase enjoyed just minimal attention. Imo. But, we'll never know atp.

Blaming BB's demise on keyboard style must ignore Storm, Z10, Z30 & Motion... Clearly not so simple.

I've long contended that RIM needed an Android "BlueBerry" consumer division. Especially after the Storm fiasco. But... Here we are. Like jumping from a plane and THEN remembering the chute... Lol. Not much to do but keep checking if that "Time Travel" button in Calendar app has been added in recent seconds... Lol.


.

[bakron1]

Apple didn't beat BlackBerry because of marketing.... yes marketing played a part, but in the end the product has to do what other products can do.

The bottom line is Apple built what the consumer was asking for, basic business concepts 101, the rest is history.

[idssteve]

The bottom line is Apple built what the consumer was asking for, basic business concepts 101, the rest is history.

Did "consumers" even know what to ask for before Apple delivered it? Steve Jobs' insight into what consumers would ask for if they knew to ask for it proved critical to that success story, imo.

Apple's historic consumer experience ultimately proved ideally suited to the consumer market they targeted. RIM's pager roots prepared its experience with enterprise/professional/business markets. Vastly different markets. Vastly different relationships.

RIM briefly benefited from consumers buying and using its enterprise focused products... Until Apple delivered a consumer focused product. RIM panicked at the subsequent migration of a consumer market they never really had a clue about targeting. And then stumbled all over themselves attempting to keep those consumers. Even at the expense of their own loyal legacy roots. Understanding the target market is also Basic Business 101...

Alas tiny RIM never enjoyed a fraction of the resources mighty Apple & Google could throw at consumers... RIM's pathetic attempts failed face down. Abandoning their roots in effort to pursue Apple's market proved comic to observe. Painful to experience. The rest is history...

[conite]

Did "consumers" even know what to ask for before Apple delivered it? Steve Jobs' insight into what consumers would ask for if they knew to ask for it proved critical to that success story, imo.

Apple's historic consumer experience ultimately proved ideally suited to the consumer market they targeted. RIM's pager roots prepared its experience with enterprise/professional/business markets. Vastly different markets. Vastly different relationships.

RIM briefly benefited from consumers buying and using its enterprise focused products... Until Apple delivered a consumer focused product. RIM panicked at the subsequent migration of a consumer market they never really had a clue about targeting. And then stumbled all over themselves attempting to keep those consumers. Even at the expense of their own loyal legacy roots. Understanding the target market is also Basic Business 101...

Alas tiny RIM never enjoyed a fraction of the resources mighty Apple & Google could throw at consumers... RIM's pathetic attempts failed face down. Abandoning their roots in effort to pursue Apple's market proved comic to observe. Painful to experience. The rest is history...

The iPod Touch was basically a dry run for the iPhone. That gave them some very keen insight, and was able to transition their entire iPod customer base to a smartphone.

[idssteve]

The iPod Touch was basically a dry run for the iPhone. That gave them some very keen insight, and was able to transition their entire iPod customer base to a smartphone.

Yep. Media players and pagers target some pretty different userbase markets. VAST difference in "consumer" experience. VAST difference in communications prioritizations.

Apple's reputation in graphic media dates decades back with Mac. Their "enterprise et al" portfolio was never dominant, afaik. My youngest daughter was "indoctrinated" to Apple in kindergarten, tho. Late 80s. Good long term "marketing", imo. Lol.

I do recall cries of pain when NASA transitioned from Apple to PC, during my days there, late 90's. I found it mostly amusing then but... The indoctrination ran deep. With some good cause, I might add...

NO way tiny RIM's few years of "consumer" experience ever stood a chance against Apple's decades of deeper consumer experience... In consumer space, that is. Imo. Fwiw.