[groundfx]

After reading a comment on one of kevin's posts today:

"Kevin's and others self delusion. It was 1997. The market for MP3 players, smartphones and tablets had not begun. And Apple remained a tiny player in the tech market until they released the I-pod in 2001. Their primary business (Personal Computing) the Apple Computer remained largely unsuccessful until the release of the I-pod touch. But what made Apple was the release of the I-phone in June 2007. And again the smartphone market barely had a 3% penetration (Heck they were not even called smartphones in 2007). Imagine the possibilities. Apple became the trailblazer in bringing handheld technology to the masses by promising the internet in your hands!

By comparison, now more than 6 years later smartphone penetration is almost complete. Ecosystems are stable and consumer choice has hardened. You can not win back market share in this market, just as Apple never really won back market share in the PC market. Even with all the success of the I-phone and I-pad; Macs and Macbooks have never gained a significant market share from Windows PCs.

That is to say - if Blackberry is to walk Apple's path to success it will be with an entirely new product, or an entirely new take on a product. Under the current management which saw fit to make the former head of product development the new CEO, which brought BB such winners as the Tour, Storm, Storm2 and forwent development of a QNX handheld for 2 years to develop the Playbook, I don't see this happening.
Apple, Google and Microsoft have been pouring countless $$ into new technologies while BB's patents have become stale. Google Glass, MS's Table PC etc.. are cutting edge. BB is still figuring out how to add landscape mode to their latest generation handheld and put out ANYTHING on time.

Sorry - if you want to talk about a tech comeback talk about AMD."

I've always had it in the back of my head that Blackberrys turn around will come with BBM, My thoughts are that BBM is going cross platform so that Blackberry can roll out BBM MONEY (which I beleive is being tested in india? -dont quote me-) and from my understand BBM money will be able to transfer money like pal pal does right through BBM ? So if BBM can take pay pals market share away from google by doing "TXT/BBM" money transfers over secure servers allowing instant payments for small fees . Just curious on anyone elses thoughts ? Could that be a start to software side of a come back?

[SCrid2000]

Apple trailblazed the smartphone market?

[ubizmo]

Apple trailblazed the smartphone market?

I think the idea is that Apple led the movement from the smartphone as a niche product, as it was when BlackBerry dominated, to a broad-based multi-purpose consumer accessory, as it is now. The Danger SideKick existed for years before the iPhone was released, and it had capabilities that the iPhone and BlackBerry lacked. It had a "walled garden" app store, and it had a real-time cloud sync PIM suite before Android existed (not surprising that one of the creators of the SideKick, Andy Rubin, was also one of the developers of Android. The SideKick was ahead of its time but one thing it didn't succeed in doing was leading. Even though the SideKick was aimed directly at the consumer market, it wasn't a great success, maybe because it was a T-Mobile exclusive in the US. I think it did even worse in the UK. It's interesting that as it was failing, Microsoft bought it...

Anyway, my point is simply that leadership, or "trailblazing", means more than just being there first. The smartphone market as it exists today, was led by the iPhone, even though BlackBerry was already there. But, as has been repeated so many times here on CB, BlackBerry was blindsided, not only by the iPhone itself but by what the iPhone meant for the industry. To trailblaze, you have to keep moving, ironically enough.

[ranzabar]

Define Smartphone

Posted via my BlackBerry Z10

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

BBM is "just" a messaging app. How much money does WhatsApp or Viber make each year?
BlackBerry has had BBM for as long as I've known about BlackBerry. Did it help them keep any marketshare?
There are dozens messaging apps in the market today.BBM will need to be PERFECT, it will need to be BETTER, it will need be FULL FEATURED.... and still it will have a hard time getting more than maybe a 200M users - may of whom will never pay for premium features.

In theory BBM could be a source of revenue and BB Money sounds interesting too.

But lots of theories are interesting. But it is the ideas that can be proven that are where you make money. Thor has thrown out all kind of gobbledygook that many have tried to grasp at as being the savoir of BB. QNX, Mobile Computing, Cross Platform BBM...

Until you see a proof of concept working...

[abwan11]

@groundfx

I agree, but they need to launch the f en thing.
I am extremely interested in seeing what kind of numbers they can produce, as far as subscribers and how the market may interpret it. If they show impressive growth then it could get interesing.

Posted via CB10