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Blackberry Competitor Announced
conq wrote to mention a BusinessWeek article reporting that NTP has licensed its wireless email patent to a new Blackberry competitor. Essentially, they're creating a competitor to Blackberry out of whole cloth, and bolstering their case against the popular handheld device maker. From the article: "The deal comes amid dwindling options for RIM, seller of the popular BlackBerry e-mail paging service. NTP four years ago successfully sued RIM for infringing on NTP's wireless e-mail patents. After a tentative $450 million settlement fell apart in June, RIM has battled back through court appeals, holding out hope that the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) will strike down NTP's patents." This has not been a good month for RIM.
My Pocket PC PDA phone finally failed after I ripped out the charging jack by accident. A family member had an unused Blackberry 7100 phone that I threw my SIM card into. I've been using in for 2 days and I honestly believe the Blackberry is one of the worst produced handhelds I have ever seen. The scroll wheel is efficient only if you use the push e-mail, but the device does not seem very powerful, intuitive or expandable. Simple can be a good thing, but not if simple means "simple enough for the mentally challenged."
If Blackberry's major market was offering non-techie CEOs an easy to use device, I guess it works fine. Yet as common PC users become power users, I'd guess they'll outgrow the device and want more power and expandability (and customizable user interface). Using it right now reminds me more of an etch-a-sketch combined with a speak-and-spell. The Blackberry with T-mobile doesn't even use T-mobiles GPRS Internet plan, they want me to get some Blackberry plan. Even my old Nokias use the GPRS Internet plan (a great backup if you break phones as often as I do).
If Blackberry beats out the patent problems, will they have much of a future with a product that seems outdated by almost 5 years? Do many users here use their Blackberry and like it? I've been using PDAs since before the original Newton, and this device is just hokey. I feel like I have a trophy wife that looks nice but doesn't actually do anything. What am I missing?
So Visto have managed to licence what appears to be a non-existant set of patents from a company no-one has heard of. They must be betting the barn that the US legal system continues to come down hard on RIM and they have to shut up shop. Visto aren't new though, they've been around providing push email services for a while.. so perhaps they just bottled out when the NTP lawyers turned up.
One final point.. do you think that RIM would be having these problems if it was a US company rather than a Canadian one? Microsoft gets away with infringing patents all the time, but it's yet to be proved that RIM actually *has* and yet they are punished far more harshly than Microsoft ever was.
Never email donotemail@WeAreSpammers.com
The only thing it has going for it is the push email. My MS Smartphone receives email but only when it connects and checks my mailbox. Maybe if I had an important email that was received 1 minute after it just checked, I'd have to wait 29 more minutes to have it automatically check again. If my almost half-hour were THAT important to me, I would consider a BB.
You're right though.. they SUCK as a PDA but that's because they aren't supposed to be PDAs. It's an email terminal and nothing else. The user interface is complete crap, the scroll wheel is impossible to get used to. The only thing it does well is make and receive calls and email push.
Reviews with a twist! http://www.sardonicbastard.com
With such a generic patent (wireless email) and success against RIM, will they go after the Treo next? Other "smartphones" ?
I'm not sure what the secret to success is, but the secret to failure lies in trying to please everyone -Bill Cosby
1. Go back to old way patents were done - which includes working implementation upon application. Thus ideas become unpatentable. Same with business methods. It will also render 90% all the unreadable legalese to obscure what you are patenting obsolete.
2. Punish non-English application. No, I don't mean application in a foreign language, just the ones that read like they are. Plain english is a must. Jail time in Gitmo otherwise.
2. Raise price to apply for patent to $10,000 - while it may seem to screw the "little guy" it actually will kill corporations trying to patent every little thing. Even a little operation will be able to afford to patent 1 worthwhile application, but will corporate America still be able to afford to apply for 10's of thousands of trivial patents?
3. Part of application fee (say 1/2) will go as a bounty to anybody who can disprove it - in other words show prior art, etcetera. This could be anybody - college students, professors, employees of another company.
That's it:)
NTP has promised to exempt government employees from the shutdown, so noone in congress will be impacted: CNN link about it.