Slashdot Mirror
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.
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
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'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.
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.
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.
The Android platform is a defacto hardware standard. This hardware really isn't that sophisticated -- ARM cores, common chipsets, Android can be made to run on an iPhone after all, there's really no barrier to a manufacturer, as long as they use ARM.
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. [...] 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.
"Churning out" a new device every few months is the way manufacturers provide "true choice." You can either buy the 4G phone with a kickstand and an undeleteable Blockbuster app, or a Sprint phone with a hardware keyboard and is locked to Eclair, or a slider with MOTOBLUR. And none of these ever get their software updated without an act of congress, thus justifying the next phone in the churn cycle. Behold consumer choice.
Apple succeeds at remaining relevant, as you say, probably because their product and platform maps to consumer demand very well, and their platform doesn't try to recreate the, uh, "dynamism and competition" of the Wintel PC market, circa 1995 (an era in the history of computing I would consider one big, abominable mistake). Of course Apple is "only in it for themselves," unlike the well-known altruists at Samsung and Google.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Why does everything have to be open? the "built it yourself" PC market is a niche for geeks. Most computers sold now are laptops which may as well be made by the person selling you the OS as they're not built to any generic standard internally. So why aren't people complaining about the laptop market not being "open"?
RIM isn't dying because they have a bad product, they are dying because they are a phone associated with business and consumers wanting a personal phone don't want a phone from a stuffy business orientated vendor.
RIM had one or two killer ideas, Push Email and Remote Wipe. Both are commonplace elsewhere now, although Push Email tends to be done differently on non-RIM devices due to their patent.
RIM released a tablet computer that has none of their strengths in corporate phones, no email, no 3G connectivity and the usability was criticised too, O2 in the UK refuse to sell it for that reason.
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.