[syoung300]

Business Feed Article | Business | guardian.co.uk

[noaim]

Business Feed Article | Business | guardian.co.uk

this is a good write up but I am confused as if this is speculation or just some guys thoughts or what

[jbeachy]

this is a good write up but I am confused as if this is speculation or just some guys thoughts or what

Quoting the article header:
-- Eric Auchard is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own -- By Eric Auchard LONDON, June 19 (Reuters)

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[Digital]

IMHO, this is an extremely naive article. The basic unstated premise is that if RIM had done nothing they could have sustained their business sector dominance and that they could have maintained revenue and profit margins. That is simply a fallacy.

If RIM had never entered into the consumer sector nothing would have changed to reduce the threat from Apple's iPhone. In fact, absent RIM's competition, all of RIM's competitors for the US business sector would have higher shares of the smartphone market overall, more public acceptance, and likely would have become more of a threat to the RIM's hold over the corporate sector.

By entering the consumer sector and doing so well, RIM has broadened the base, improved the brand, pruned competitor's threat to its core business sector, and had a living testbed for numerous advancements that could be plugged directly into that business sector.

What RIM had that nobody else had was 1) superior security, 2) superior reliability, 3) superior push email, and 4) superior keyboard.

Those are four very powerful things and that's the reason why the device appeals to business users. Let's cross off advantage 4 because now QWERTY keyboards on smartphones are standard and there are many very competent competitors ... leaving RIM with only advantages 1, 2 and 3.

Advantage 3 is still an advantage, but it isn't nearly as dramatic an advantage as it used to be ... and it is only a matter of time before that disappears entirely, so I'd say advantage 3 (push email) is sunsetting as an advantage.

While RIM has surely endured growing pains with it's consumer rollouts hitting at its infrastructure (blackouts) and its devices (Storm debut inadequacies), it remains the most reliable device maker by a significant margin. This is hard to maintain, but RIM seems to be working hard and maintaining this advantage. Full credit to RIM as this is no easy feat.

That leaves advantage 1, security. Each manufacturer has been and continues to be playing catch-up so security seems to be one of the lesser important features. But make no mistake, all of the device manufacturers are improving their security features (including RIM), and while the advantage appears to be very large for RIM and RIM's security looks to continually improve and stay at excellent levels for the business sector ... the other device manufacturers are slowly but surely catching up.

RIM isn't quite as naive as this article's author. RIM recognizes that leveraging the business device into the consumer device market is a huge benefit to their success that goes far beyond merely short-term profits. In this industry things change too fast to stand still. Either you are moving forward or you are being passed ... sometimes both. If you don't believe me, just ask Palm.