[James Nieves]

I'm pontificating I realize this. However I want to share my own thoughts, and I really would enjoy other's input. The discussion is about RIM's overall road-map, and how I believe they've forecasted this industry and are simply waiting quietly.

The cell phone market has been around for awhile now. But as the decades progress, the question is coming to all of our minds, what's next.

I believe RIM is simply playing the market differently than let's say Android or Apple. And different is not necessarily worse or better. Innovation is very similar. Let's take a look at the world of phones before Apple. Dumb phones galore. And yet back then phones were what blackberry's still very much aim to be today. People were content with flip phones because they served our purposes. But as things needed to be done RIM developed the blackberry phones as TOOLs. Enhancing our dumb phones and connecting us to the things we need to get done. And to this day that's still what Blackberry is all about. Blackberry essentially opened the market for smarter phones. Apple and Android hopped on to a trend. They saw a market emerging and attacked it.
I can't talk about Blackberry without talking about Apple, because they changed the game, in a way not to dissimilar to how I THINK blackberry will attack with BB10.

As the web grows we grow, and apple was right there to tell us what we think we wanted. However the whole app store concept wasn't all that "new" the innovation really came to apple in denial of Adobe. Playbook users can easily see how the flash enabled browser makes many of the little "apps" rather pointless, just hope in the damn browser. But in Apple's denial of flash they had to make a work-around and that work around is now the biggest app store in the universe--because really what is an iphone without all it's apps? Nothing at all but a phone *that works* ..cough.

In offering the world things like Angry Birds and Temple Run they've jumped ship. Iphones sell because they are like touch screen game boys. Damn, might have to tell Nintendo why they're loosing market share too. I used to think we lived in a world of people lost in electronica and addicted to being "connected" but that's just not the truth. We live in a world addicted to being stimulated. Little touch screen games? Dumb us down please I beg you.

I'd rather we all be "connected" look at BBM and all it's potential, look at QNX look at TAT. Look at all these things that can connect us to ourselves rather than throwing birds at pigs... I rather have a phone than a toy any day. I'll get an itouch for music and games and leave the cell phones to those that made cell phones relevant.


NOW ONTO THIS DISCUSSION OF RIM STRATEGY:

This will be brief. I believe RIM is using the playbook to test QNX so that BB10 is a refined experience. In having the OS and adapting it to a cell phone, it's similar to how Apple used the itouch to purport the iphone to such fame. They built up a catalog of apps before the phone was released and I PRAY RIM is doing something similar... I post all this in hopes of some feedback! Tell me something.. Tell me I'm wrong, anything. As mentioned in other threads- RIM won't win with apps, they need the UI to be so fantastic and the hardware to blend with the software.

Also Apple uses their stores to put their products in people's hands- it helps sell it really does. BlackBerry needs to market BB10 ASAP accrue some hype and have a stellar release! RIM went placid in the American Market because what RIM needed to compete was better software- now they have it, assuming they implement well. I believe from Os5-7 rim hasn't pushed the envelope much because the envelope was too far pushed by Apple and Android. Now however is transition time. Apple refuses true multitasking along with many other features you wouldn't catch a BB without. What do you think is the best way for RIM to take back the game?!



PS ( Sorry, that wasn't brief )



Sent from Blackberry Playbook

[mtint]

Well, it's obvious RIM is testing and refining the QNX on PlayBook before launching it on smartphones. The other, which sounds to me obvious, is shift to more focus on consumer market - which includes creating network of BlackBerry branded shops (seeing it in Asia), and most importantly "giving-up" on BIS with BB10 devices. The last means RIM will shift away (gradually) from carriers, in terms of being dependent on them selling devices.

What I see as critical shift (strategic transition) is drawing a clear-cut between consumer and corporate markets - something not that much possible with BIS/BES concept/platform.

On the corporate market side, it sounds the task is to become a "back-end managers" of the corporate mobile/on-the-go communication and mobile computing needs of organizizations. The Fusion etc tells that.

On a side note - the lack of "native" BBM on PlayBook/QNX, yet, do not think has much to do with managing two pins on single account. More looks like it is a matter of building "the new platform" which will carry BBM and other push services on BB10/QNX devices, which currently are managed by BIS/BES platform. The old good push email is (will be left) to ActiveSync/Exchange.

Of course all the above are mostly speculations, but more or less, at least to me, that sounds to be the direction RIM is moving to.

[James Nieves]

you articulate your thoughts well, I deeply agree with the strategic measures RIM needs to take to seperate their markets. in a way I feel that BB10 won't be enough, like blackberry needs another ace to recommand the market. but talking RIM takeover is probably unrealistic

Sent from Blackberry Playbook

[Plazmic Flame]

RIM & Blackberry 10... the last line of defense for the kingdom of RIM.


RIM is in a really tough position... and it's not going to be easy for them to regain their former glory... but it's definitely possible.

BB10 will have to be so solid in regards to software stability. A good majority of people left BB because of either software glitches, "little clock of doom" or battery pulls. This needs to be solved.

QNX is great but still not there yet. I had the chance to use a Playbook for about 2 weeks, OS 2.0, and it's pretty damn awesome if that's what we can expect on the smartphones coming soon. My only gripe was using App World, for some reason it's laggy. Even when I revisit youtube videos, I notice that I wasn't the only one with this issue. Don't know what's going on there since outside of App World, the Playbook works flawlessly and moves smoothly.

Also with BB10, old ways of multitasking are out. Holding onto the motto "true multitasking" will be an absolute disaster for RIM. The reason why iPhones and WP devices are getting good battery life is because of the "fast app switching" or "app freezing" which only makes sense. There's not need for some app to be constantly pinging somewhere to get updates or to be running in the background if nothing is going on. Way better to just get notified on your end when something is received or for the app to go into a standby mode if nothing has been going on for the past couple minutes, like an IM app or something.

One mistake they've already made though, they've announced they're giving out BB10 dev phones... ugh. You know very well that these devices will be making their ways into the camps of Google and Apple and will be picked apart thoroughly both in regards to software and hardware. One thing RIM needs to learn about are SERIOUS NDAs as well.

[James Nieves]

Hmm I thought the BB10 Alpha's being given out were just modded versions of the playbook os on a cell phone form factor? Regardless what would you have them do instead? They need to get developers started if they hope to release by Q4

Sent from Blackberry Playbook