Don�t write off Research in Motion
- Don�t write off Research in Motion
All RIM needs to do is take a leaf from the book of Jobs and deliver a device that is close to perfect
There has been a lot of talk about the imminent demise of BlackBerry.
With BlackBerry maker Research in Motion�s declining share price, plummeting market share in its core North American market, and recent service interruptions, a casual observer might think that RIM is not long for this world.
In fact, if you go back through the history of Ben Kelly MyBroadband columns, you will find me arguing that BlackBerry is doomed. However, recent events have brought me round to the point of view that Blackberry is more likely to thrive in the long run than perish.
Much of this comes from the lesson that we have learned from Nokia over the past year or so.
The first strength that BlackBerry has is its growth in the developing world, buoyed by its �everything in� internet connectivity and the strength of Blackberry Messenger.
The lesson from Nokia is that the Finnish company has remained the number one mobile phone company even while grip on the high-end market was being destroyed by Blackberry, Android and Apple.
While margins in the developing world aren�t the same as in the developed world, the revenues from the developing world keep the cash-flow ticking over while you make difficult changes to the internal structure of the company.
The second thing that we have learned from Nokia is that you only need to make a big bang when you come back to get the geeks back on board.
Just a few months ago you would have been hard pressed to find someone that was willing to buy a Nokia smartphone over a BlackBerry, iPhone or Android phone.
Then Nokia released the N9 and geeks fell in love with Nokia all over again. Part of this infatuation might have been an emotional reaction to what MeeGo could have been, but it showed that the warm feelings that people had for Nokia have not dimmed.
The launch of the Lumia and the Asha phones at NokiaWorld recently just reinforced that view.
If you think about the last time that Nokia released a smartphone without someone complaining about the aging Symbian operating system, you can see how long the company has been a funk for.
Blackberry, on the other hand, has been pushing out competent offerings in the midst of trying to migrate from one operating system to another.
I may not be rushing off to get a Blackberry myself, but I have no problem recommending them to friends and family and the feedback has been nothing but positive. With the full QNX/Blackberry OS, dubbed BBX, due early next year RIM has certainly not been resting on its laurels.
Yes, the first QNX device, the tablet PC PlayBook, was a disappointment; and yes, BB OS6 and BB OS7 have been more like putting a band-aid on a bullet wound, but I am pretty sure that RIM has the ammo to deliver a killer offering to the market within the year.
RIM is also playing into a market that is still using BlackBerry�s heavily. Even though its marketshare in North America may be in the toilet, the two-year lifespan of the normal phone means that there are still a ton of users out there who would rather stay with what they know than move to another platform.
All RIM needs to do is take a leaf from the book of Jobs and deliver a device that is close to perfect.
My view is that the biggest risk to RIM is not its product pipeline, but its declining shareprice. At some point the company will be at risk of a hostile takeover and that could change the game completely.
For better or for worse.
11-11-11 08:05 AMLike 0 - "Yes, the first QNX device, the tablet PC PlayBook, was a disappointment; and yes, BB OS6 and BB OS7 have been more like putting a band-aid on a bullet wound, but I am pretty sure that RIM has the ammo to deliver a killer offering to the market within the year.
RIM is also playing into a market that is still using BlackBerry’s heavily. Even though its marketshare in North America may be in the toilet, the two-year lifespan of the normal phone means that there are still a ton of users out there who would rather stay with what they know than move to another platform.
All RIM needs to do is take a leaf from the book of Jobs and deliver a device that is close to perfect."
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While I admire his optimism..from a company that has done nothing but trip and fall over it's own shoe laces ever since the first Storm was released..it's the "deliver a device that is close to perfect" that makes me skeptical.11-11-11 08:14 AMLike 0 - I love BBerries. I prefer BBerries over anything else. But this article's premise is flawed from the title - or first line. We see no evidence at RIM of anyone with the ability to put his/her finger on the pulse of Mr. Consumer like Steve Jobs did.
I was not a Jobs fan; far from it. But the man was a marketing genius.
I hate to say this....as a user of a 9810 that came up with a JVM 545 error and a 9930 who has already experienced three random reboots, I don't know that RIM can come up with a device that is "close to perfect."
As a BB enthusiast, it's come to this....I have to get my Mum a new device. I naturally want to get her the best BB I can get for her, but I'm afraid of the newest flagship device. I'm afraid it will nuke itself and she won't know what to do. So what do I find myself contemplating? Getting her an Atrix or waiting for the 9370. If I'm saying this, as a BB fan and long term user, what can I expect of a consumer who hasn't got the attachment to the brand, through years of use, that I have?
These are tough times for RIM. I'm sticking with them. But I can no longer, confidently, trust it to be the best device for members of my family who may not be too tech savvy.kbz1960 likes this.11-11-11 08:51 AMLike 1 - I love BBerries. I prefer BBerries over anything else. But this article's premise is flawed from the title - or first line. We see no evidence at RIM of anyone with the ability to put his/her finger on the pulse of Mr. Consumer like Steve Jobs did.
I was not a Jobs fan; far from it. But the man was a marketing genius.
I hate to say this....as a user of a 9810 that came up with a JVM 545 error and a 9930 who has already experienced three random reboots, I don't know that RIM can come up with a device that is "close to perfect."
As a BB enthusiast, it's come to this....I have to get my Mum a new device. I naturally want to get her the best BB I can get for her, but I'm afraid of the newest flagship device. I'm afraid it will nuke itself and she won't know what to do. So what do I find myself contemplating? Getting her an Atrix or waiting for the 9370. If I'm saying this, as a BB fan and long term user, what can I expect of a consumer who hasn't got the attachment to the brand, through years of use, that I have?
These are tough times for RIM. I'm sticking with them. But I can no longer, confidently, trust it to be the best device for members of my family who may not be too tech savvy.11-11-11 09:03 AMLike 0 - I read this on these forums every so often, and the thing to remember is that you can't market what you don't have. In other words, if you don't have the iPod, iPhone and iPad in the first place, "marketing" isn't going to do you any good. SJ's genius had less to do with marketing and more to do with being able to recognize why competitor's products failed, and how Apple's might succeed.
Put another way, when analysts were calling for a company succession plan, it wasn't because they were afraid that without SJ Apple wouldn't be able to market its generally successful products; they were actually afraid that without SJ there wouldn't be any successful products to market.11-11-11 09:16 AMLike 4 - IMO There is still room for RIM to be competitive in the market, Iphone has the title at the moment but RIM isn't doing as terribly as people think, Blackberry market is increasing in many places like europe, Australia, India and Canada, granted there has been a lapse in sales in US. Thats why we get such a biased opinion on this because a lot of the Tech guys base what they report on american statistics. But in a lot of other places, namely INDIA and Canada sales are going up. In canada BB is the top market seller, In india a reported 100,000,000 people own a BB, out of the 400,000,000 phone owners roughly, BB has 27% of market, IP has 23% and Android has something like 17% and then the rest have some other brand. So RIM are still strong, maybe just not in the US at the moment.11-11-11 09:24 AMLike 0
- 11-11-11 09:33 AMLike 0
- I love my blackberry and will stay with the BB candybar form factor as long as they keep making them.
That said I am not particularly fond of RIM itself and think the two bumbling idiots in charge can manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory given the opportunity.11-11-11 09:36 AMLike 0 - I read this on these forums every so often, and the thing to remember is that you can't market what you don't have. In other words, if you don't have the iPod, iPhone and iPad in the first place, "marketing" isn't going to do you any good. SJ's genius had less to do with marketing and more to do with being able to recognize why competitor's products failed, and how Apple's might succeed.
Put another way, when analysts were calling for a company succession plan, it wasn't because they were afraid that without SJ Apple wouldn't be able to market its generally successful products; they were actually afraid that without SJ there wouldn't be any successful products to market.
RIM lacks that initial view and it could be argued that they are currently having trouble executing even that which has been their bread and butter. Don't get me wrong; I saw the iP4S and was standing there, credit card in hand, completely underwhelmed. So much so that I simply returned to my Atrix, no iP4S *or* 9860.
All that being said, what I reach for first is my 9930.11-11-11 01:37 PMLike 0 - Steve Jobs made computer technology fun for the average consumer. He was an engineer, an artist, a pragmatic, and an idealist - maybe it's rare to find this in one person leading a tech company.
RIM is capable of being great again. They're more capable than their competitors at making the next great smartphone. A great new BBX device plus their service infrastructure plus a great OS2 update for the PB would take them back to the top. BlackBerry is still cool despite what some media sources are trying to spew.Jake Storm likes this.11-13-11 04:23 PMLike 1 -
either way, research shows 83% of figures are made upJBenn911 likes this.11-13-11 05:25 PMLike 1 -
Remember than MP3 players were fairly new and hadn't yet become the standard for portable music. Apple's brilliant marketing (silhouettes and the iconic white ear-buds) brought MP3 players into mainstream. Of course, most consumers had only heard of the iPod (again, due to Apples amazing marketing). The iPod thus became synonymous with portable digital music.
Marketing and Hype are what drove the iPhone. Again, take a look at the first gen iPhone. It had miserable battery life, and lacked features common to even the cheapest give-away dumb-phones at the time (it couldn't even handle MMS). All it really offered was a good browser -- a great feature, but certainly non-essential compared to the many other features that it lacked. Apples success with that pile of garbage was due to nothing more than media hype and a good bit of (deceptive) marketing.
As it stands today, Apple's products are a bit behind the competition in terms of both hardware and software, yet they're unimaginably successful. It's pretty obvious that that success is not due to the products quality or capability. It's undeniably marketing and hype.11-13-11 10:40 PMLike 0 - That's silly. It's pretty obvious that the iPod's success was due entirely to marketing. There were already other products on the market more capable than the iPod. The iPod itself had a rather clunky UI and a fairly uninspired design (go back and take a look at some of the gen 1 iPods)
Remember than MP3 players were fairly new and hadn't yet become the standard for portable music. Apple's brilliant marketing (silhouettes and the iconic white ear-buds) brought MP3 players into mainstream. Of course, most consumers had only heard of the iPod (again, due to Apples amazing marketing). The iPod thus became synonymous with portable digital music.
Marketing and Hype are what drove the iPhone. Again, take a look at the first gen iPhone. It had miserable battery life, and lacked features common to even the cheapest give-away dumb-phones at the time (it couldn't even handle MMS). Apples success with that pile of garbage was due to nothing more than media hype and a good bit of (deceptive) marketing.
Caymancroc likes this.11-13-11 11:02 PMLike 1 -
They offered a passable product, sure, but that had virtually nothing to do with their success. Their excellent marketing campaign is what brought digital music into the mainstream and made the iPod synonymous with digital music. Had any of the other major players marketed their product as well as Apple, the tech industry would be a much different place today.
I won't continue this with you as flame wars don't benefit anyone and you don't seem terribly interested in addressing the points that I've brought up.11-14-11 12:14 AMLike 0
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