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RIM Struggles Continue
dave562 writes with news of continued difficulties for Research in Motion, who yesterday announced a drop in profits, product delays and layoffs, causing their stock to plunge over 20%. "Why did RIM experience delays? Because RIM recognized that the current hardware wasn't cutting it, and had to upgrade to more powerful chipsets, co-chief executive Mike Lazaridis said. The first will be the BlackBerry Bold 9900 that RIM recently showed off." An article at the Wall Street Journal speculates that the company needs to be taken over or broken apart. "RIM’s operating system could be an intriguing purchase for Hewlett-Packard, which now owns the lovely but unpopular Palm operating system for smart phones. Handset makers like Motorola might be lured to buy The Astonishing Tribe, a Swedish company RIM recently bought that designs snazzy interfaces for smart phones. Patent companies, Google or other tech companies could scoop up QNX, the software company behind the PlayBook tablet computer, and RIM’s BBM messaging platform."
Early leaders in their respective fields, but then got lazy because they didn't think their customers would go anywhere.
Then technologies and features got old and stale, and by the time they realized it, it could never catch up again.
These days, both RIM and slashdot are pretty much doing a slow drain around the bowl. Sad, because you remember what once was, and what could have been.
HP can do for RIM what they did for DEC and Palm... and er, HP.
The RIM tablet version 1.0 was unable to access email without tethering. I mean...what were they thinking? Time to parter with Microsoft or face the Abyss.
Look! Let's buy out another failing company with a somewhat-interesting product to replace the last failing company with a somewhat-interesting product we bought. That'll totally work.
It's like when they bought Colubris to replace their Symbol OEM APs, only to buy 3Com a little while later. I dunno, maybe they can squeeze some money out of it.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Research in Motion have broken new barriers with the PlayBook tablet, a BlackBerry that can’t read email. And needs to be tethered to a phone.
“We feel a technology preview is just the thing we need to fight iPhone and Android in the consumer market,” said founder and co-CEO Mike Lazaridis. “The missing core functionality should be seen as areas of spectacular potential. Also, the board has ascertained that you should stay away from the brown acid, it’s not so good.”
The PlayBook has launched remarkably, with thousands of the devices being recalled for crippling operating system bugs straight after release.
In a double-tap Osborne through the head, the PlayBook uses the new QNX BlackBerry OS, which does not run current BlackBerry apps, will not be available on phones for another year and will not work on any current BlackBerry device. This is separate from OS 7, to be released soon, which will also not work on any existing BlackBerry. RIM’s present mobile carrier partners were “overwhelmed” to be stuck with so much already-obsolete stock.
RIM led the world into the smartphone era, several years before Apple’s iPhone turned everyone into the sort of twat you only ever used to see carrying a BlackBerry.
Technology industry rumours suggest a Microsoft takeover of RIM, considered an excellent match in competence and vision. “Synergy’s just another word for two and two makes one!” said Steve Ballmer. “We will assimilate your technological stench of death into our own.”
http://rocknerd.co.uk
In what manner are they going toe to toe with Google or Apple? Every sales figure I've seen shows Droid and iPhone battling for the top two spot and Blackberry at number three and falling further behind. More businesses are adopting Droid and iPhone for the enterprise environment, while the short fad of teenboopers with Blackberry is long over. Storm was not well received, and Playbook was almost universally panned. Oh wait, it plays flash...
When they had a superior product they were on top. They failed to realize the threat the iPhone presented, and Google saw the potential of touch interfaces and joined the race on time.
RIM thought they were untouchable and when they decided to move it was a rushed response that came too late.
The only salvation I see for RIM is to embrace Android.
Port the encryption and infrastructure, along with the marvelous keyboards they make to Android and I'm sure they'll survive. Or even grow. Nothing is stopping them from trying and remember that they could even skin android to look like a blackberry. But it'd run aps and have an awesome browser and all the google utilities...
With companies like RIM offering their own mobile hardware and OS, they leave themselves vulnerable to being irrelevant against whoever happens to be the biggest fish in town for the year. Android handset manufacturers have it a bit better with a common OS, but they still have to churn out a new device practically every few months to remain relevant. I'm in no way an Apple fan and have bought none of their products, but they seem to be the only player who gets how to remain relevant by having standardized hardware and a standardized OS, which equates to a standardized user experience, much closer to how it is with PCs. Only problem with Apple is that they are only in it for themselves and do not like the idea of giving their users true choice.
What we need now is the creation of standardized and open handset form factors and open handset hardware which is also to a degree standardized. I'd really like to see a revolution in handset hardware similar to when the ATX form factor was introduced for PCs. Companies like RIM, Apple, Samsung, Google, Nokia, etc. would have so much to offer the industry if they all play on a more even playing field. I'd prefer this to seeing companies like RIM fail and have their customer base give more market share to other companies that directly oppose the direction mobile devices should take.
When is the last time you have used blackberry phone ?
2 minutes ago.
The blackberry is still far superior for Exchange email and calendaring than any Android or iPhone device that I've tried.
Several execs in my company tried to move to shiny new iPhones, but all of them came back to Blackberries. Well, some carry both a BB and iPhone.
I've always thought of RIM as Palm Pilot, the next generation. The same people who bought the first PDA's from Palm were the first to use Black Berries. Carrying contacts and calendars around was, and is, a very good thing. But, when Black Berries did that, plus email, Palm's weren't competitive anymore. It took awhile, but Palm has all but disappeared (I know, Palm is now buried in HP somewhere.)
Well, email on a phone isn't a big selling feature anymore. It's all about the apps and web access. Email is just the bare minimum - a minimum that RIM couldn't even meet on their Playbook tablet launch (WTF!?)
So... as a Canadian, I'm sad to see RIM's decline. The game isn't over yet, there's still value in the Enterprise and Government sectors... for a while anyway. But, I think their days as a consumer brand are numbered. There really isn't room for 4 platforms in the mobile space... even 3 platforms is pushing it. iOS and Android are here for at least the medium term. Windows Phone and RIM have to fight it out for a distant #3.
If I had to bet, within 5 years, Microsoft will buy either all of RIM, or the pieces - both largely serve the corporate markets.
Hey—ignore all the haters. I'm just glad to hear you could find work, especially in this economy, and with that job in Iraq on your CV.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
The blackberry is still far superior for Exchange email and calendaring than any Android or iPhone device that I've tried..
That's the problem. They're great at that and not much else. iPhones and Androids are good at email and good at a whole bunch of things. I guess the market for really hardcore email / Exchange integration isn't all that big.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
That's funny, 2 minutes ago here, but I detest it. Hate it hate it hate it.
I find my google calendar on my HTC Desire much nicer.
Sure, the exchange stuff is great for work, but that's it.
If RIM goes bust, maybe they will take the damn thing away! \o/
The bad: They made $769M profit same time last year while taking in less revenue so they are not growing in terms of profit. The PlayBook sold only 500K. Apple sold 3.27M iPads in slightly more than the first quarter it was available when it launched last year.
The ugly: Besides the delays and layoffs, does the management think newer hardware will solve their problems.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
This story needs a nice bitcoin tie-in. For example, what is the values of RIM in bitcoin?
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
They just kept releasing a bunch of basically identical models or why their profits would fall that far simply because a BB with a new outter shell was not released for a few months.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Disclaimer: I'm a RIM employee.
We're not worried. We pulled in $700mil in profit last quarter. The market somehow believes that we're going out of business as a result. Our market cap is now less than our annual revenue. What kind of sense does that make?
Sure the product needs some work. If you think we're sitting idly on our hands, your wrong. But we're not exactly losing money, and we're a company with no debt and a $3B pile of cash. This stock market mess has made us an _amazing_ acquisition target, but we're nowhere near closing our doors.
if youre not worried you should be. you could say the same for nokia and look what that turd is doing. and BTW what the fuck were you guys thinking with the playbook ? throw out your turd of an OS and put your stuff on android. you dont know how to code -- get over it.
Port the encryption and infrastructure, along with the marvelous keyboards they make to Android and I'm sure they'll survive. Or even grow.
I had a company-issued blackberry for about a decade. Each year or 18 months or so they would get refreshed, and I'd get the latest model. The early models were solid and great in almost every way, but each subsequent model was worse than the one it replaced. They haven't made a decent keyboard in at least 5 years. Their screens got more pixels and more colors each year, but the overall quality of the screens got slowly worse. My employer supports iOS now, and I'm happy to never have to touch a blackberry again.
I also did some app development for blackberry devices, and I can tell you without a doubt they have the worst platform, the worst tools, and it's obvious they never cared about making development workable. I only ever saw one third-party non-game app that was decent, and I estimate it took 15 people 6 months to build that. Compare this to some of the iOS and Android apps that a single person can put out with a couple weeks worth of effort.
Going with Android seems like it would be akin to starting over. I don't see what assets they have that HTC or Samsung don't have. They have their Enterprise Server thing, but I don't understand what advantage that has over Exchange + ActiveSync which every other platform seems to support. I would be happy to be enlightened about what advantages Rim might have left.
There aint no pancake so thin it doesn't have two sides.
RIM could have ported their software to iOS, Android, WebOS or WP7 and just stopped making their own hardware and OS. The real value of RIM is not in the phones -- it's the IP, the software and the customers they have. There's real value and money in the enterprise market but nobody really cares very strongly about which phone RIM sells. Having a choice of phones with a common software/apps/protocols stack for secure messaging would have been not a bad thing.
Now there's a chance that someone buys them or they having to do a Nokia sooner or later. Accepting the unavoidable earlier would have been better.
Or RIM is saved by the PlayBook. Even trying this is madness, I would say.
on all sides
No. QNX is an epic base. They just need to open their platform up and allow developers free reign like android has.
I'd be worried if I were you. RIM's market share is being eaten into like crazy by Apple and all the 'Droids. I know of two medium sized companies in the last nine months who have dropped Blackberries for iPhones. I think the tide has turned.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
um.. do you still have a job? I mean.. with layoffs and all.
the words "co" and "chief" are mutually exclusive when applied to "executive." that's their first problem.
Technical company with large installed base gets lazy and stupid.
Examples:
Palm
Nokia
Rim
Companies that did a 360 on their products and did OK:
Motorola
With some of the new stuff coming out for smartphones like the Iphone and Androids, RIM phones are becoming less
relevant by the minute.
OS/2 was superior to Windows of the time, Beta was superior to VHS, MCA was superior to ISA. All of those superior products died too.
And very poor support for anything other than exchange...
I've used them at work, and not been terribly impressed... The requirement to run a separate proprietary server for blackberry, the need to use their own custom APNs, not being able to add more than one account, no support for imap/caldav/carddav/etc...
And email is their best feature, web browsing is pretty lousy, media support pretty poor, they are fairly mediocre voice handsets (especially with the tiny number keys for typing phone numbers)...
I personally find the iphone email client much better than the blackberry one too (i carry one of each, iphone for personal use and blackberry for work).
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
The Bold 9000 had a wonderful keyboard, and the 9900 is bringing back that keyboard.
Developers Developers Developers Developers say what you will about Ballmer's stability but he's dead on. Developers drive platforms. Before Android you had essentially RIM vs Apple and Apple was moderately more open. Guess where all the developers went? Now Android came along and they are basically bending over backwards trying to get as many developers as possible and because of it they have become the largest market share.
If Developers are on a fence between android and RIM. RIM is smeegol in the corner saying "my precious blackberry nobody will touch you but me my precious." while android is on the other side of the fence screaming "come over here damnit come over here. free gadgets, free laptops, android everything."
If RIM wants to make a comeback.. they need to get some new revolutionary patent(prob isnt going to happen) or they need to be as open as android. Which basically means open source through and through. Which in my opinion isnt going to happen unless the executives all get fired.
QNX might be the best thing ever. They got here too late, in my opinion.
Most would argue Mac OS X is the best operative system on the market (I believe it is) but it's current market share is around 7%. Quality does not mean you'll win.
And so far, QNX is a package full of great intentions, not yet a finalized and actually good thing (from what I read)
I do believe the crappy keyboards were the ones that did not follow the monolithic approach that got them famous. All the keyboards I've tried (recent or old) that had that familiar layout worked great (my opinion, obviously)
The "enterprise" market is a boring one... You get boring, corporate-grey products... And your company will get a reputation for providing boring products that are only used at work. Devices will always be old, and have be several years behind in features.
The margins won't be great either, companies refresh their hardware slowly and will always look to save money.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
That's what Nokia said.
Woopdie do, you pulled in $700m in profit last quarter. Your competitors pulled in $6B and $2.3B (Apple and Google). They are eating your market share faster every day. Further, with increased pressure from IT managers to reduce infrastructure, your model of dedicated support hardware just doesn't make sense anymore. Keep fighting the good fight, but the market is reacting not to your current performance but to your future prospects.
You lost 5% of market share of new phone sales(30%-25%), and your market share dipped to 8.2 from 8.6 from just January to April. Apple is raking in the cash on their devices and you guys were there first.
no support for imap/caldav/carddav/etc...
We have dozens of them where I work... most of them are using IMAP to access Google Apps Enterprise accounts. At least half of them have other email accounts set up as well.
Perhaps you found them so restrictive because of the policies IT had in place. Because at least half the stuff you are complaining about they do in fact do.
As for the iphone vs bb... i have an iphone, and for me its the right device. But the bb keyboard is FAR better for composing anything of any length than the touch only iphone.
I don't give a crap about 'apps' or 'games', but i do like the iphones contact manager and web browser better.
Media support I find irrelevant; I use my phone too much for productivity to waste battery listening to music on it... but I do find the iphone camera pretty dismal compared to most other phones.
The media is seriously over analyzing RIM's woes. It takes 5 minutes of hands-on use to see that Blackberries are woefully behind iPhones and Android devices.
If you think we're sitting idly on our hands, your wrong
I didn't know Lazaridis had a
Trolling is a art,
I finished post secondary about 1 year ago and I had a person helping me find a job and she points out RIM is hiring like 5000 people a year that I should apply there. I say to her, "Android is going to explode in popularity and because of it RIM is going to lose market share heavily and 1 year from now RIM is going to start firing people and since their mentality is so proprietary and closed source they wont change and wont recover unless a miracle." 1 year is almost upon us and I was right.
The reality is that place is like area 51. You go there and you need to swipe ID basically everywhere you go, you could hide the stanley cup inside there and it would go missing for a very long time. A business like this isnt an open business and isnt going to be changing anytime soon unless the highest level execs get fired.
When they had a superior product they were on top. They failed to realize the threat the iPhone presented, and Google saw the potential of touch interfaces and joined the race on time.
RIM thought they were untouchable and when they decided to move it was a rushed response that came too late.
The only salvation I see for RIM is to embrace Android.
Port the encryption and infrastructure, along with the marvelous keyboards they make to Android and I'm sure they'll survive. Or even grow. Nothing is stopping them from trying and remember that they could even skin android to look like a blackberry. But it'd run aps and have an awesome browser and all the google utilities...
I think what you're forgetting here that a lot of their business sales revenue results from using their mobile platform to leverage their proprietary BlackBerry Enterprise Server sales so I find it pretty unlikely that RIM would choose to suddenly discard that higher-margin strategy in favor of choosing to go to Android which is already overcrowded with handset vendors churning out cheap low-margin phones.
Honestly, while I think RIM's attitude towards developers really hasn't done them in any favors in recent years, I think the biggest thing that's been killing them is one of pitfalls that Google is starting to fall into, which is having numerous channels of software sales distribution which makes application installation and deployment way, WAY more complicated then it's worth compared to iOS devices.
They have carrier specific stores, handset specific stores, and more recently even device specific stores, so let's face it, if most SysAdmins have to do a bunch of research just to figure out where to get applications from and how to deploy said applications on a specific series of devices, few consumers (no matter how tech-savy) are going to be prepared to put with all the confusion which is why I think migration on both the consumer and corporate side will continue to steadily head away from RIM to other mobile operating systems until RIM's management FINALLY figures out that the mobile market has changed greatly and they can grow a pair to enable them to finally stand up to the carriers when they try to dictate separate stores and what features should be included in the hardware design (case in point on that was letting Verizon kill wi-fi on the Storm)!
I'm honest enough to admit I lie to myself.
The blackberry is still far superior for Exchange email and calendaring than any Android or iPhone device that I've tried..
That's the problem. They're great at that and not much else. iPhones and Androids are good at email and good at a whole bunch of things. I guess the market for really hardcore email / Exchange integration isn't all that big.
Yeah, I agree, my BB is great at email, but not so great at just about anything else (except SSH). I carry an Android for personal use and rarely use my Blackberry outside of business hours.
Apple has problems, Just started re-calling the Ipad 2 . Remember Apple? That little company with 2 CEO's ? Now has one left and He's on his last legs?
The Iphone 4 was a real problem they never really solved the antenna issue. And now Samsung is cloning the next generation.
Android ? Just a hackers wet dream.
Get serious.
I have visited OSNews a few times, and the readership there is decent, albeit not as good as slashdot. However, when it comes to news about Microsoft, I definitely prefer reading the articles and comments there. Slashdot has too many trolls, $hills and fanbois. Not everybody mind you, but it's not as easy to find unbiased opinions.
I am still shaking my head on the RIM purchase. Actually, I was shaking my head when Harman bought them. Neutrino continues to find use in products in the medical, aerospace, rail and automobile transit, computer networking, and defense comminucation and weapon markets. I am not exactly sure why a Google would want QNX since most of their business from embedded licenses are in industries Google has no presence. The mobile phone market is puny for QNX.
RIM is still one of the best choices in the enterprise world and it'll be a while before that ever changes.
Or one more Blackberry outage (this week) oughta do the trick.
As a RIM employee, you need to read this guy's thoughts on your company and its future. ("What's wrong with Blackberry...").
Now. No -- now as in right now.
Because right now, you're in a world of shit, regardless of what those balance statements are telling you.
OS/2 had no applications.
Beta tapes were 1 hour long (longer ones later, but it was too late by then). Plus they wore out faster.
MCA was a closed standard, ISA open.
There's always more to the equation than simple technical superiority.
Agree 1000%. The Bold is what brought RIM from a corporate tool to the mainstream, and then they shit the bed by trying to gain marketshare by diluting the brand with cheap toy phones. They need to cede the toy marketplace to Apple and Android, and innovate and compete in the "really good communication tool" marketplace. The people who buy phones because of the bling factor are going to be awful customers anyway. Be the Mac of the phone world: develop and deliver on an idea that their hardware is expensive, and worth every penny. (Apple, sadly, has the reputation, but not the delivery.)
U.S. Government is a big buyer of Blackberries. See the recent article here on Slashdot about gov't gadgets for numbers. They're a big chunk of your profit. And as soon as the iPhone or Android gets FIPS certified you will lose most of your U.S. Government business overnight.
Right now, most of the people I know in gov't use Blackberries only because they're forced to. Not a week goes by where I don't have users asking me when they can use their iPhone, iPad or Android device and return the BB.
We're piloting iPads and Samsung Android tablets now.
Oh, and thanks for making the BES compatible with iOS and Android devices. That'll smooth our transition when we dump your crap.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Disclaimer: I'm a RIM employee.
We're not worried. We pulled in $700mil in profit last quarter. The market somehow believes that we're going out of business as a result. Our market cap is now less than our annual revenue. What kind of sense does that make?
Yeah well, when your company's revenue was up 15% over the same quarter last year, and net profit is down 10% from the same quarter last year... that's not something you'd want to draw attention to. $700mil may look like a large number on the surface, but it's actually much smaller than it should have been.
RIM could look at two options: 1) introduce an Android Blackberry or 2) slowly wither and die. Bifurcation, you bet.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
My Evo Shift is actually superior to the BB for email IMHO, it has better attachment support and the conversation view is great (mass deleting messages from our monitoring systems was a PITA on the BB because delete prior wouldn't delete on the server).
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Google bought Android. They didn't write it themselves.
Unfortunately the problem is that even when RIM brings in hundreds of millions in profits, investors are still the same group petulant babies that use democracy to pad their pockets at the expense of society, and use paper wealth as a replacement for a penis, who say "Damn it! I'm not making as much money as my unrealistic expectations lead me to believe that I should have, hence I will join in this all out media attack on the Berry because I want to be cool and don't care enough to research the companies I'm investing in myself, relying instead on the ocassional single column article in the free newspaper I get everyday to determine my views". People are aweful. When can something be done about them... But yes, RIM needs to continue to focus on being the be all and end all of mobile communication, and as far as I've seen, it doesn't look like they're changing that focus. Even with the Playbook, which really should have been marketed as a blackberry accessory at this point, the focus is still clearly on communication. The way it bridges with blackberries is just awesome. But I bet they felt a hell of a lot of pressure to "do something with the QNX purchase" in the "next couple of quarters" because the investors in the tech market are rarely people who understand that taking an extant operating system and developing it in a secure way that seamlessly integrates into extant enterprise environments with the full benefit of the secuirity affoarded the current line of devices isn't a "next couple of quarters" type task. And business reporters certainly don't seem to give a damn about operational details of a company or realities of specific markets.
About an hour ago. I'll be upgrading to another one next month. Blackberry isn't very popular on /. but there are still plenty of us who use them.
Most corporations don't want Google or any other outside company knowing the details of their internal operations including meetings and the subject of those meetings. That is why they use Blackberries, since the info is not held on RIM servers, but only on the corporation's servers. If I owned a company I would never allow employees to schedule meetings on Google Calendar. In fact, I would make that a firing offence. Company business is company business, and nobody else's; including Google's. Whoever comes out with a way to keep information secret for companies the way RIM does, they will be able to put the nail in RIM's coffin.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Not sure that is actually a word, but have a peek at:
http://www.qnx.com/company/30ways
QNX has been around, and literally around you, for a long time.
disclaimer: former employee.
Excellent read! Thanks for the link, it's bookmarked for future reference.
Trolling is a art,
Sure the product needs some work. If you think we're sitting idly on our hands, your wrong.
Well, sorry to say, but based on the current state of RIM's products it appears that they're being designed by PHB's with no clue what people actually want. I mean, seriously, wtf is up with the Playbook?
I don't doubt that RIM employs some great engineers. But when you see them putting out products that bear the hallmarks of PHB interference, it's hard to feel optimistic about the company's ability to put out good products any more - and thus, their future.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Exactly. RIM is engaging in marketing because they think the problem is that consumers don't think their products are cool enough or some shit like that (I actually know this from experience, but probably shouldn't say more than that). What they don't realize is that you can't overcome massive product inferiority with sheer marketing. You can overcome some amount of inferiority, but when you're as far behind as RIM is your only option is to step up and produce a decent product. And they seem committed to pretending that their products are good, that it's just the perception that needs to be changed. If attitudes don't change at RIM, they will die. It's as simple as that.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
I'm a potential RIM customer.
Can you explain to me concisely, in a few sentences, why I should choose the products of your company over competitors - most notably, Apple? What would I gain by picking a Blackberry phone over iPhone, or (especially) a Playbook over iPad?
I'm also a developer, potentially targeting RIM platforms.
Can you explain to me concisely, why I should target your devices, and not, say, iOS or Android, for my next mobile application? If you rather suggest that I target them and Blackberry, then what is your portability story (other than "you have to write your app for our platform from scratch")?
The answers to those questions are what drives the perception of RIM as a failing company.
The need to run their own APN's comes courtesy of the SIM provider - they don't meter traffic going out over those APN's. Hence they can offer "Unlimited Blackberry!" Also, the BES stuff works better when its not going straight over the internet - you get absolute control over what the handset can do over the network. If you didn't have that, you'd need a custom APN anyway, that the telco would land on your company's network. Not that it can't be done - most mobile providers will give you a custom APN if you've got deep enough pockets. This means you can do things like land all data traffic (3G dongles, mobile handsets, whatever) on the inside of your network - its like a VPN, only your users can't do anything with the device that you don't want them to. Also handy for VISP'ing 3G connections - the telco does the mobile stuff, you do the internet connectivity stuff, and everyone's happy.
I don't think you understand how BES works. Each company installs their own BES server, generates their own encryption keys, and whilst some data (BIS mainly) can go through the RIM servers, all the important company data goes through the BES server and is encrypted using their own keys. And emails to people outside the company? Not confidential.
Three days ago the BBC had a story about "Why is Indonesia so in love with the Blackberry?". Three million users there and rising.
RIM is kind of a matter of national pride in Canada. It's sort of their Apple, a company they are immensely proud of and so on and so forth.
The Canadian government would probably step in to keep the company going and also to block any sale to a foreign buyer, particularly an American buyer. There is no way they will allow an HP or Microsoft to come in and swallow the company and surely terminate a vast number of Canadian workers. A whole ecosystem has been built around RIM, their suppliers and contractors and it feeds into schools and is the foundation for a lot of the high-tech industries in and around Waterloo. RIM is the flagship. The champion team.
Perhaps they could sell out to a non-US buyer like Lenovo or HTC or whatever but those companies don't exactly need anything RIM has. I am not sure anyone "needs" what RIM has -after all, they're all already competing and doing well in many cases. Perhaps a main reason to buy RIM would be to shut it down and gut the IP. There is no way the Canadian government would allow a wholesale gutting.
But the stock price is certainly not assuring at the moment.
I do find it relatively interesting that any story about RIM or Blackberry or the Playbook where user comments are allowed is invariably full of comments that utterly sing the praises of the company. They are usually way out of proportion to any negative comments, and usually any negative comment is directly addressed and challenged post for post. Nothing goes unchallenged. I never, ever see this for anyone else, not for Apple or Microsoft or anyone. My suspicion is that RIM is actively seeking out those sorts of comment forums and perhaps encouraging positive messages. OK I will just say it: I think they are paying people to do this. And they are rather clumsy and obvious at it. No, no proof, of course.
RIM, this is nice and all that you apparently care what people think and want to challenge them, but still does not fix the actual problems. Whether you want to admit they are there or not, astroturfing on forums is not the answer. The stock price is controlled by more than the comments on forums.
Sig for hire.
This really does need to be modded up - it's a long read, but fascinating and having seen something like that happen to another firm, it's probably largely correct.
To my mind, it also resonates with Windows Phone 7. Especially the bit about keeping the cattle happy - that immediately reminded me of the silence from MS about Silverlight's future.
my BB is great at email, but not so great at just about anything else (except SSH)
Their strength is in communication/messaging. Email, sure, but messaging is so much more than that now (social networking, as one example). I won't go into detail, as you can very easily check that out on your own.
This is why BB is so popular with women and business users -- it's simply the best phone for communication. Add to that the astonishing battery life, and you've got a winner.
The Torch, while it still has excellent battery life, isn't nearly as good as their curve and bold line. Still, it's ridiculously good at handling word/excel/powerpoint documents (both editing and creation) due to it's larger screen. The torch keyboard isn't as good as the curve/bold, but still beats the Palm Pre and Droid Pro.
Now, even with an extended battery, the right software, and a keyboard at least as good as the Droid Pro, I still couldn't switch. I've found that without that trackpad, doing virtually anything with text is an absolute nightmare. It also really helps take the pain out of web browsing that many touch-screen phone users have experienced.
Music and videos are handled as well as any other phone. The only real problem RIM has is with games -- which are lacking in abundance, diversity, and quality. Of course, that's not why I have a phone. If I wanted lots of games, I probably switch to Android.
As it stands now, RIM offers phones that meet my needs the best. None of the competitors offer a handset that gives me all of the features I think are important, or do them nearly as well. I really want them to stick around!
Required reading for internet skeptics
Well, sorry to say, but based on the current state of RIM's products it appears that they're being designed by PHB's with no clue what people actually want. I mean, seriously, wtf is up with the Playbook?
Seriously, WTF is wrong with the PlayBook? Of all the tablets on the market, it's the only one I find attractive.
I know, "native email" -- which I don't care about even a little bit. As a BB user, I have neither the need nor the desire to have native email support on the tablet. Bridge gives me everything I want, with company-friendly security. Outside of that, and a buggy launch, it's a ridiculously good tablet.
Releasing an Android just doesn't make any sense to me -- they'd be "just another Android tablet". The UI is astonishing, and you'd only get hate for trying to push an new UI on Android, even one as slick as that seen on the PB.
I shouldn't need to sell QNX to a slashdot user, so I won't bother. Honestly, RIM release an Android tablet -- absolutely ridiculous.
Required reading for internet skeptics
Just to let you know that I with my dirty little mind smirked at your comment, even if it appears nobody else did. :-)
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I know RIM's main target market is business, but if they want to compete with Apple and Android in the consumer market they've got to stop making BIS compulsory. It's a mandatory cost that makes plans £60/year more expensive than a comparable plan with an iOS or Android phone. My mail connection to Google is already secure, I don't need an extra layer of RIM encryption.
Every sales figure I've seen shows Droid and iPhone battling for the top two spot and Blackberry at number three and falling further behind
Apple and Andorid only recently (this year) passed RIM -- though in the case of Apple still within the margin of error.
BlackBerry is new to the #3 spot, I can only assume that you started following things this year?
They really need to get their act together if they want to stay at #3, let alone knock Apple out of it's newly acquired #2 spot. The weak offerings last year and the "still no new phones" this year are killing them.
They've made some really smart acquisitions over the past 18 months. They're debt-free and they've got the talent, cash, experience, and the brand to survive this transition.
So, yes, they can and are going toe-to-toe with Apple and Google, turning a profit all the while.
Required reading for internet skeptics
The blackberry is still far superior for Exchange email and calendaring than any Android or iPhone device that I've tried.
You're probably right but the fact of the matter is that the world is moving away from just Exchange and calendars to collaboration and tying in several different messaging protocols like email, IM, VoIP, video and cellular comms into one single client on a mobile device - so, for example, you can be halfway through a conference call on your business phone, decide you need to leave the office and seamlessly transfer the call to you cellular phone. Or maybe have voicemails emailed to you as attachments. Or register what communications protocols you have available for others to contact you on by using SIP presence.
The company I work for does all that kind of stuff and whilst there are Blackberry clients for all that stuff we do, they also exist for iPhone and Android.
So what I'm trying to say is that Blackberry may well have provided unparalleled connectivity to Exhange email and the like up to this point in time, but because business communications are themselves changing, software manufacturers like us treat BB, iPhone and Android with equal importance and therefore BB now has to compete at the same level with those other devices.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Man, I really love this kind of comments. I've seen a few like this of yours. I think you're a nice writer. Do you do any writing professional or otherwise? You should.
Actually, porn is widely attributed to be the reason as to why Betamax failed and VHS didn't - it has nothing to do with technical superiority of one over the other.
When Sony launched Betamax, they did not want their corporate branding associated to pornography so refused to let the porn studios release Betamax versions of the movies. No such restriction was placed on VHS, the market was flooded with porno on VHS and that's how it won.
Incidentally, I've nothing personal again Blackberries, the missus had one for a while and it was a neat little device that's perfect for integration with business email and collaboration.
But the market is changing. There was a time when I didn't mind carrying about and updating three mobile phones (one for home use, one for business and, because I was out in Spain a lot at the time, one on a Spanish mobile provider) because they were simple phones that just got on with it. But nowadays, smartphones and BB do so much that you spend a lot of time configuring them correctly, downloading apps, etc. etc.
For people like me, that means I just want to use one device for everything, a whilst a BB works fine for the business side of things, it falls down on all the personal stuff I want to do with my phone.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I do find it relatively interesting that any story about RIM or Blackberry or the Playbook where user comments are allowed is invariably full of comments that utterly sing the praises of the company.
Except this one ... and all of the other slashdot stories proclaiming the death of RIM. Are you new here?
They are usually way out of proportion to any negative comments, and usually any negative comment is directly addressed and challenged post for post.
Except this one ... and all of the other slashdot stores about RIM.
Nothing goes unchallenged. I never, ever see this for anyone else, not for Apple or Microsoft or anyone.
Really? You've not see the point-counter point on EVERY Apple article for the past few years? How about the flame-wars in the comments section of nearly every Android article?
My suspicion is that RIM is actively seeking out those sorts of comment forums and perhaps encouraging positive messages. OK I will just say it: I think they are paying people to do this. And they are rather clumsy and obvious at it. No, no proof, of course.
Well, if they're paying people to shill on forums, they're doing a horrible job. Perhaps the relatively few pro-RIM posts stick-out among the same repeated-to-death posts you see on every RIM story? Perhaps when you read "RIM needs to adopt andriod" (stupid, BTW) fifty times, you start to think of it as just one post.
Required reading for internet skeptics
RIM should've licensed out and/or sold directly via the app stores their email, calendar, and BBM clients. They could've dominated the entire market. Now people have gotten used the the lackluster exchange support offered by android and IOS, and have likely learned to just deal with it. They could continue to sell plenty of blackberry units for their encryption capabilities (likely the only stronghold they currently have), while also dominating other markets. I would absolutely pay for a RIM app to replace the trash offered by IOS and android. Email search alone would make it worth it.
It's worth noting that companies like VMware are working on virtualization technology for Android. This would allow handsets to switch between work and home OS images, allowing consumer handsets to be used during work time as secure corporate handsets.
It's possible this could become attractive to the enterprise... no BES, and you can repurpose equipment the employee already owns.
Information wants to be beer.
I have an option to upgrade my old corporate provided blackberry.
The supported phones that I can chose from are:
If I wanted a consumer device only I'd go with the iPhone. But as a consultant who is on the road quite a bit email functionality is still key to me.
I am still considering the iPhone if there is an easy way to pair it to my Laptop so that I have a decent keyboard.
Yet, all Torch users I've been talking to were very happy with the device.
On the other hand I am just inclined to wait and see if you can do better. For now my old blackberry does what I need it for. For play time I have an Notionink Adam at home. Wouldn't want any corporate data on that device for sure.
I think if you keep your focus on the business crowd i.e. security, reliability, long battery life, good remote admin tools, keyboard, key business apps you'll remain the guys to beat in that domain.
BTW originally I hated my Blackberry having been forced to give up my Moto A760. But it won me over. What it does is what I need to do my job and what it does it does well.
I know, "native email" -- which I don't care about even a little bit. As a BB user, I have neither the need nor the desire to have native email support on the tablet.
That's great for you and all, but the rest of us (ie, most people) want actual proper email support. That IS the main problem. Whoever decided that tethering a Blackberry was ever a reasonable scenario was on drugs of the highest quality.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
I used BBs exclusively for nearly a decade, until two weeks ago, when I finally got a personal phone (my company agreed I would be permitted to use my BB for personal and business use from the onset, so I never had a personal phone or a, gasp, land line). I never thought I would switch to a touchscreen phone - the lack of a hard keyboard was always a deal-breaker for me. Until I tried Swype.
Now I have a Nexus S and I'm absolutely delighted by it and wish I'd bought it sooner. Using Swype, I can 'type' faster than I ever could on the BB keyboard, and I'm pretty damn fast on a BB. Adding in all the other features Android includes made me quickly realize I'll never go back to BB, and I was a long-time BB evangelist. When I occasionally use a friend's BB, the OS now feels so outdated. Most of my BB-using friends are on google talk now, so we can still IM (altho I have to admit I miss the little "d" and "r" status indicator for delivered and read BBMs).
You surprise me. Have you actually MEASURED your typing speed, or do you just FEEL swype is faster? I found it quite trivial to equal the Swype "world record" on my BB Torch keyboard on my first try, and to quite easily beat it after 3 or 4 tries. Turns out the small-print on the swype record is "for a touchscreen" and it's not hard to beat on a real keyboard.
Nick Waterman, Sr Tech Director, #include <stddisclaimer>
No, I haven't measured it - that's a good idea, and I'll do that. It feels an awful lot faster. Have you compared? Maybe you'd be even faster on Swype. You're right tho: it could just seem that way because there's far less effort involved (ie you're just moving one finger as opposed to pressing down on each key).
What I can say is that the typical non-Swype soft keyboard is horribly slow - as I mentioned, it's a deal-breaker for me, because I send a lot of emails, often involving detailed explanations.
Try Ars Technica. Really.
The best way to predict the future is to invent it
While things may well turn exactly the way you describe, I see the situation quite differently.
To me the Playbook happens to be the last independent platform in front of Apple/Google duopoly*.
And just for that reason, I'll buy one as soon as they are available here in France.
That less applications are available on it is almost a non-issue to me. Time is now to the Cloud, as they say, which is even more monopolistically gobbled by Google/Apple.
In that area I am intensively searching for php/mysql apps that I, independently, can install in reasonable cooperative server hosts, of which many do exist but only propose ridiculous "your site here" services for now.
I already have been using for years calendars, wikis, document hosting; I recently discovered a bayesian-filtering RSS aggregator that's really punchy --and none of them needs anything more than a good browser.
Because RIM has an excellent experience in establishing safe links between servers and devices, I believe it is at least imaginable that they offer this for precisely the kind of "independent cloud apps" I am dreaming for.
That's why I definitely will drop my $500 or so, whenever I see a Palybook here.
I can do this, I can't do more. I won't cry of I lose the bet.
H.
(*) I believed for some time in the Wetab, http://wetab.mobi/en --even though it really had all the German technical impetus behind it, in the end it was clear that one newcomer just coundn't fund it all, and the resulting quality showed poor. In contrast, yes RIM can ;-)
Herve S.
You don't understand Blackberry. Companies do not use Blackberries the same way individual consumers who purchase service from a phone company use Blackberries. BTW the individual consumer model is also the way iPhones and Android phones work. The consumer model has no way of providing secure communication. The corporate model does.
Each company using Blackberries has a Blackberry server at their company that talks to their email servers. RIM doesn't have access to this data. The data is then encrypted and passed back and forth to the Blackberry devices. Again, RIM doesn't have access to this data because it is encrypted. Only emails to public addresses are accessible. iPhones and Android phones do not have a way to provide secure communication within a company using their devices as RIM/Blackberry does, and this is why iPhones and Android phones are NOT suitable for business. And then there is Google mail where you are just giving them your data to mine.
Internal company emails sent by Blackberry are not accessible/readable by anyone outside the company, including RIM. i.e. Company emails are confidential. Google emails are not confidential, and Google will know everything that you discuss about your company that is in your emails, even if the emails are between employees of said company. If you are happy with sharing confidential information with Google, then go ahead. Most companies of any size are not.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Better call quality
I have no idea what you mean - i.e. how BB is special in that regard - but I haven't had any problems with call quality on a variety of phones (iPhone and a bunch of Android ones) over the last few years. It's "good enough", and I don't see what I'd gain from it being any better. So not a notable point.
physical keyboard
That's a subjective preference. I'll give you that it can be a big selling point for some. Fine, now what if we compare against Android - where there are a bunch of phones with physical keyboards, in various form factors?
secure email
What's not secure about SSL?
BBM
I had no idea what that is, so I looked up on Wikipedia. I stopped reading at the second sentence, which said "communication is only possible between two BlackBerry devices". None of the people I know use a BB device as a personal phone. Heck, for that matter, none of my colleagues use a BB device as a work phone. For the most part, it's iPhone and Android.
More portable
Or you could say "smaller screen". Also very much a subjective point.
is tied to your BB
That's not a positive thing.
so your data is stored consistently in one place
On my Android phone & tablet, mail is stored "in the cloud", and contacts, bookmarks etc are all synced via the same. So my data is consistent, and even if I lose both devices I'll still have it - and yet the devices themselves are completely independent of each other.
better video format support, flash
I don't consider those major selling points over iPad, from personal experience of using phones and tablets (despite the fact that my Android devices can show it, I think I've used the capability only once in the last few months). That said, again, what if you compare vs Android?