[JRSCCivic98]

LOL Now that I got a good laugh out of you guys with the misspelling of the name in the subject line (some of you will get it and some won't), here's where the info came from.

That's right, it seems to have come from the Jim-meister himself. Below is the article blurb taken from the News/Blogs section here. Jim Balsillie dismisses comments made by Nokia's Stephen Elop | CrackBerry.com

In a recent interview Elop was noted as having stated "the smartphone ecosystem was now a three horse race between Windows, Android and Apple." Which prompted a response from Balsillie "I don't know how you can say that we are not in the race," Ballsillie backed up that statement by re-enforcing some Research In Motion facts such as the 70% growth they saw last year and their achievement of being the number one smartphone producer in the UK. Balsillie aslo refuted claims of RIM being solely Enterprised based by advising that 80% of BlackBerry subscribers are consumers. When Ballsilie was asked about people writing RIM off he responded "Are people writing us off? We have had huge growth in the last year. I wouldn't write us off".

Hummm, 80% consumer... that leaves only 20% for Enterprise. Seems a bit small of a chunk for them. Could it be that BES and BB isn't as big a seller as it used to be in years past? I think we're starting to see a big hit on RIM's homefront from other platforms here and this can easily be understood from what we're seeing in terms of mobile technology advancements from their competitors. While RIM's business may be growing, it's growing because they're farming other markets that they never did before. If they had remained within the same markets as they were 2-3 years ago, they'd be losing business right now. I guess the only question remains; how many more markets can they continue to farm to show growth for their company with their existing stagnant platform? How much longer will it be before those newly farmed markets start seeing the newer platforms from RIM's competitors and start ditching their BBs? I think it's fair to say that RIM has to quickly move QNX to their BB hardware very soon. The time they've bought by growing their business via these other untapped markets can only buy them so much time.

At least this is my viewpoint on the matter. Please discuss.

[WillieLee]

Consumers make up 80% of their sales now, not total subscriber base, as enterprise has only recently begun to spend again. You might have heard that there was a recession? Sorry to break your heart but you'll have to bash them over something else.

[grover5]

LOL Now that I got a good laugh out of you guys with the misspelling of the name in the subject line (some of you will get it and some won't), here's where the info came from.

That's right, it seems to have come from the Jim-meister himself. Below is the article blurb taken from the News/Blogs section here. Jim Balsillie dismisses comments made by Nokia's Stephen Elop | CrackBerry.com

In a recent interview Elop was noted as having stated "the smartphone ecosystem was now a three horse race between Windows, Android and Apple." Which prompted a response from Balsillie "I don't know how you can say that we are not in the race," Ballsillie backed up that statement by re-enforcing some Research In Motion facts such as the 70% growth they saw last year and their achievement of being the number one smartphone producer in the UK. Balsillie aslo refuted claims of RIM being solely Enterprised based by advising that 80% of BlackBerry subscribers are consumers. When Ballsilie was asked about people writing RIM off he responded "Are people writing us off? We have had huge growth in the last year. I wouldn't write us off".

Hummm, 80% consumer... that leaves only 20% for Enterprise. Seems a bit small of a chunk for them. Could it be that BES and BB isn't as big a seller as it used to be in years past? I think we're starting to see a big hit on RIM's homefront from other platforms here and this can easily be understood from what we're seeing in terms of mobile technology advancements from their competitors. While RIM's business may be growing, it's growing because they're farming other markets that they never did before. If they had remained within the same markets as they were 2-3 years ago, they'd be losing business right now. I guess the only question remains; how many more markets can they continue to farm to show growth for their company with their existing stagnant platform? How much longer will it be before those newly farmed markets start seeing the newer platforms from RIM's competitors and start ditching their BBs? I think it's fair to say that RIM has to quickly move QNX to their BB hardware very soon. The time they've bought by growing their business via these other untapped markets can only buy them so much time.

At least this is my viewpoint on the matter. Please discuss.

Clever title...once again you have impressed yourself.

[JRSCCivic98]

Clever title...once again you have impressed yourself.

Clearly you're not one to get the joke. Here, let me hold your hand for you. http://forums.crackberry.com/f152/bb...e-hoax-563482/

Oh, and yes... I did impress myself. So, I feel pretty good about this... :Cable Guy:

[grover5]

Clearly you're not one to get the joke. Here, let me hold your hand for you. http://forums.crackberry.com/f152/bb...e-hoax-563482/

Oh, and yes... I did impress myself. So, I feel pretty good about this... :Cable Guy:

It was obvious. You always impress yourself. We are clear now I would guess.

[hootyhoo]

This can't be right.

I thought bes customers are rims bread and butter.

Reading through some threads here one might think that rim isn't all that concerned about the consumer market.

Something doesn't make sense.




*sorry. I don't have a sarcasm smilie on wap*

Nice to see you in the forums CIVIC.
Its boring without you.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[Rooster99]

Sorry, Jim must be mistaken.

I clearly remember a poster stating on here last week "If you aren't a BES user you're not RIM's target market."

Wish Ballsillie would get his facts straight.

- R.

[belfastdispatcher]

Maybe that's 20% of recent sales, what about revenue tho, BES ain't for free, I bet that generates some cash. Also enterprise tend to hold on to their handsets for a lot longer then consumers.
What BES brings to RIM is constant, sustainable revenue, consumers change with the wind

[Pete6]

I think that a lot of comments here are US-centric. RIM may not be doing quite so well in the 300 million strong USA but in the rest of the 7 billion of us on the planet, RIM is selling phones like crazy.

Here in Eupope I see many young people touting BlackBerrys. I therefore believe what uncle Jim says.

I also believ that provided RIM get QNX devices out withing the next 6-9 months, they will be in an excellent market position. Why?

Apple is now entrenched. The iPhone ceases to impress or asound. Apple has its rstrictive marketing policies that seem to be tightening by the month in Apple's favor. Apple is also now leadeless.

The Android market is going like gangbusters but the Adroid OS itself is a a bit of a mess undr the suerface and anyway QNX devices should, if the statements are to be believed, can run most Android apps.

Nokia/Microsoft looks to be the next major player and this is where I shall be looking to buy next if QNX does not deliver. This partnershio will be massive.

However the major advantage of RIM/QNX/TAT is that they will soon be the latest thing on the market and all the other players will have to counter RIM's new lead. GO RIM.

[sivan]

I think that a lot of comments here are US-centric. RIM may not be doing quite so well in the 300 million strong USA but in the rest of the 7 billion of us on the planet, RIM is selling phones like crazy.

Here in Eupope I see many young people touting BlackBerrys. I therefore believe what uncle Jim says.

What do you see as RIM's advantage over Nokia in Europe? Clearly another dominant but somehow desperate company. Is it all about keyboards, BBM and maybe BIS data?

[belfastdispatcher]

What do you see as RIM's advantage over Nokia in Europe? Clearly another dominant but somehow desperate company. Is it all about keyboards, BBM and maybe BIS data?

BIS data compression and BBM is a huge advantage for Rim in Europe where 1-2 hours drive can see you in a different country roaming from most places, not to mention roaming without crossing borders as signals tend to extend past them by 10 miles at least. The exception would be UK but they tend to take their holidays in the sunnier parts of Europe.

I gave this example before, 300-400 bbms, 30 photos and a few voice notes resulted in 1.86 mb roaming data charges when my wife was in new york for a week. No other platform would come even close to it in this respect.

And I'm afraid teenagers have woken up to the free bbm, my niece goes trough 2000 sms a month easy, all her friends have bbm now.

[Pete6]

What do you see as RIM's advantage over Nokia in Europe? Clearly another dominant but somehow desperate company. Is it all about keyboards, BBM and maybe BIS data?

I see very little actual advantage for RIM other than the last product to market usually has the luxury of saying, "We are the latest and geatest."

There are many people who will rush out and buy the latest piece of technology just because it is new and exciting.

If that technology actually works properly, then more sales will follow.

[The_Engine]

Good to see you again Civic. But....

This is sales #'s as many pointed out, and the consumer smartphone market increased like 500% or something ridiculous in the last 2 years. So haven't Lost enterprise users, they just did not gain as many Enterprise users as they gained general consumers.

now most of those new consumers are in emerging markets, so this is still one of those #'s doesn't really give you the full picture.

But anyway, yes, I'd like to see a QNX phone real quick. But doesn't look like that is happening until a year or more from now.

[red777]

I think that a lot of comments here are US-centric. RIM may not be doing quite so well in the 300 million strong USA but in the rest of the 7 billion of us on the planet, RIM is selling phones like crazy.

Here in Eupope I see many young people touting BlackBerrys. I therefore believe what uncle Jim says.

I also believ that provided RIM get QNX devices out withing the next 6-9 months, they will be in an excellent market position. Why?

Apple is now entrenched. The iPhone ceases to impress or asound. Apple has its rstrictive marketing policies that seem to be tightening by the month in Apple's favor. Apple is also now leadeless.

The Android market is going like gangbusters but the Adroid OS itself is a a bit of a mess undr the suerface and anyway QNX devices should, if the statements are to be believed, can run most Android apps.

Nokia/Microsoft looks to be the next major player and this is where I shall be looking to buy next if QNX does not deliver. This partnershio will be massive.

However the major advantage of RIM/QNX/TAT is that they will soon be the latest thing on the market and all the other players will have to counter RIM's new lead. GO RIM.

I find it sad that some of us here in North America think that the cell phone market revolves around us. That's why I think some of us have this whole "RIM is a sinking ship attitude" just because RIM isn't as strong here in the states as it was two or three years ago.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[Pete6]

I find it sad that some of us here in North America think that the cell phone market revolves around us. That's why I think some of us have this whole "RIM is a sinking ship attitude" just because RIM isn't as strong here in the states as it was two or three years ago.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

The fact is that whilst there are a lot of people in the world other than those that live in the USA, many of them have no use for/cannot afford/don't know how to use a smartphone.

The US is a very rich, per capita, market and this makes it the forefront of the marketplace. So the numbers I quote are somewhat false when yuo consider that many places in the word do not yet have cell phone coverage.

The Chiese market is growing fast and many places there will miss out on land lines completely - too expensive.

It is also worth noting that the Chinese economy passed that of Japan last week. The Chinese are now 2nd after the US in the worled economy table.

[lnichols]

OK Jimmy B, so if 80% of subscribers are consumer then make BIS better you moron!!!! Give us the same e-mail experience I here the BES users say is so great, because e-mail on BIS isn't that great.

[i7guy]

Sorry, Jim must be mistaken.

I clearly remember a poster stating on here last week "If you aren't a BES user you're not RIM's target market."

Wish Ballsillie would get his facts straight.

- R.

Uh isn't a BES user by definition already the target market?

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[JRSCCivic98]

lol, I'm the devil in disguise, I like to turn what someone says into something I want others to view my way. That's the beauty of info some of these people spew out. The context of what they meant is very grey. Either that or Jim's been hit in the head too much with pucks.

Anyway, Nokia and MS won't matter much. WP7 sucks right now and unless they revamp the UI and customization possibilities, it's even worse the BBOS. Personally, I view the Nokia/MS merger no different then the Palm/HP merger. I don't think you'll see a lot of WebOS stuff come out and be market leaders in the mobile world anymore. WebOS will most likely take the middle to low part of the road and be happy there. HP will use WebOS to richen the UIs of their core products like printers and such. They'll probably also migrate WebOS into their network and server gear for console type controls on them. They'll probably introduce some tablets to the market, but in the end they'll be viewed as just a larger scale version of the phones the user could have bought but didn't.

There was a big pow wow statement made by AT&T CEO Apple’s App Store is bad for consumers, AT&T CEO says | BGR | Boy Genius Report (poor loser can't deal with losing iPhone exclusivity deal ) where he basically says that users shouldn't have to buy apps for different platforms. He says that they should pay once and have an app that works across multiple platforms. This is the direction that I think RIM is trying to take. RIM's AppWorld sucks... we all know that. 20k apps... lol No one wants to build apps for the current platform of their's, so they've looked at building a platform agnostic OS via QNX. First it was Flash and Air, now it looks to be Android apps as well. Honestly, I and others, thought RIM should have looked to Android to help them out for an OS, but RIM's too proud for that and they didn't want to pull a Palm and Nokia move. lol So, instead they put their nose to the grindstone and came up with ways to reinvent their OS and solve the tired battle they were trying to fight. Their biggest problem is that they take too long to do something. They like to work alone and when you work alone, you can't be the guy who's recognized as #1. You're going to be the guy that works all the time and gets moved to the basement where you can't find your red stapler. They're also looking to maximise on apps by going the agnostic route with it. By adding in support for various platforms, they're hoping their sucky AppWorld content won't be the only thing that users of their QNX platform will be stuck with. Everyone knows that OS capabilities and App availability (for things you can't do with a really good browser) is where the attractiveness comes from. Face it, it's fact. No one runs Linux on a PC because the apps available for it are boundless. Same with mobile platforms.

So, ultimately what you get from RIM is the workaholic type scenario where they're never really the bright leader and most popular of the group. They're that person who keeps trying and trying to do better. Sometimes they fail, sometimes they succeed, but one thing is sure... they will continue down this same path until they are old and rich and still working until they die. Basically, the Scrooge of mobile. RIM will never be the type of market leader that'll hit a home run and then sit back and live off the limelight of that success story. It won't happen, all they do is nose to the grindstone.

Personally, I don't see RIM coming out with QNX phones until 2012 at best. I think they're trying to wait for LTE to take off so they can get better deals on chipsets that aren't LTE capable. I think we'll also see RIM fragment their lines of devices a bit in the near future. A while ago, some of us in the community asked RIM to build two levels of BB. The cheap *** isht you get now and a higher quality elite level of smartphone that can get the job done for savvy tech people. I think this is what you'll probably see QNX play an initial part in after the whole PlayBook introduction wares off.... which, if you ask me, it already has somewhat. RIM's timetable for product announcement and product release flies awefully close to that of "vaporware". They take too much time developing the OS side of things. If there's anything I would want RIM to do more is to Developer BETA test their OSs without limits. MS does it, Apple does it, etc. In today's fast paced world, you can't do isht with your own internal staff. There's not enough of them to work fast enough to find all the glitches you guys keep missing. Power in numbers gets you results quicker. Learn to deal with that and open your "stuck-up" and "too good for non-alumni of the university across our campus" doors to the public. They are here to help you...

[Reed McLay]

CBC News - Money - RIM profits double on soaring BlackBerry sales

RIM profits double on soaring BlackBerry sales

Thursday, October 4, 2007


The company added 1.45 million BlackBerry subscriber accounts in the quarter, bringing total accounts to 10.5 million.
...

I selected this news item from 2007, about one year after the introduction of the Pearl and World Edition.

In round numbers, there were 10 Million subscribers, most of them Corporate users.

Today, the total subscriber base is approching 60 Million. If Jim Balsillie has good market information, that 20% amounts to 12 Million BES subscribers for a net gain of 20% through half a dechade of tough times.

Then, there are the 48 Million BIS subscribers and uncounted millions of hand me down BlackBerry users that do not subscribe to either data package.

[The_Engine]

OK Jimmy B, so if 80% of subscribers are consumer then make BIS better you moron!!!! Give us the same e-mail experience I here the BES users say is so great, because e-mail on BIS isn't that great.

What experience is that? I am on BES. Its still truncated, still not html, still only supports 1 exchange or BES account (other email accounts are on BIS)

BES makes it departments happy because it gives them very reliable control of the device and policies that govern the device. You can bet most of the same features via active sync in exchange 2007 or 2010.

But sure where anyone thinks thag BES provides a better email experiance than BIS. I guess folder access maybe?

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[JRSCCivic98]

What experience is that? I am on BES. Its still truncated, still not html, still only supports 1 exchange or BES account (other email accounts are on BIS)

BES makes it departments happy because it gives them very reliable control of the device and policies that govern the device. You can bet most of the same features via active sync in exchange 2007 or 2010.

But sure where anyone thinks thag BES provides a better email experiance than BIS. I guess folder access maybe?

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

That's about it. And the ability to have your older/preexisting email sync over to the phone when the account is created. With BIS, you're limited to only new incoming emails and not the old ones. (unless you like to remove the emails out of the inbox and move them back in to trick the BIS servers that new messages came in. )

[i7guy]

What experience is that? I am on BES. Its still truncated, still not html, still only supports 1 exchange or BES account (other email accounts are on BIS)

BES makes it departments happy because it gives them very reliable control of the device and policies that govern the device. You can bet most of the same features via active sync in exchange 2007 or 2010.

But sure where anyone thinks thag BES provides a better email experiance than BIS. I guess folder access maybe?

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

Activesync does not offer the totality of the functionality of BES. You need third party apps to accomplish that.

[FigureThisOut]

That's about it. And the ability to have your older/preexisting email sync over to the phone when the account is created. With BIS, you're limited to only new incoming emails and not the old ones. (unless you like to remove the emails out of the inbox and move them back in to trick the BIS servers that new messages came in. )

Yeah. BIS is what it is, as many have put it, a "glorified inbox." The push is
great. But years ago when things like Exchange/ActiveSync weren't around or
either sucked for the mobile platform, that's when BIS was by far the best for
consumers. The fact that it has great push isn't that big of a deal anymore
considering the advancements in mobile e-mail.

[scorpiodsu]

Activesync does not offer the totality of the functionality of BES.

What might that functionality be?

[i7guy]

What might that functionality be?

Do a little research. Find a BES Administrator and ask what capabilities exist in the most recent release.