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An Inside Look At the Rise and Fall of RIM
zacharye writes with this excerpt from BGR:
"Research In Motion is in the midst of a major transition in every sense of the word. Publicly, the company is portraying a very defensive image — one that is very dismissive, as if RIM is profitable and class-leading, and the media is out of line to criticize its business, as are investors. Internally, however, there's a different story to be told. It's a story filled with attitude, cockiness, heated arguments among the executive team and Co-CEOs, and paranoia. ... The three-year roadmap for RIM products focused on refining the technology in phones had already been released, rather than looking at where to add major new componentry or trying to identify or even shape future trends. 'One of the main reasons RIM missed the mark with the browser was because
they were always proud of how little data usage a user would use,' a former executive said. 'There was no three-year plan at RIM.'"
RIM was cool back in the day when data was super-expensive. They came up with a then-innovative end-to-end service to cut data consumption to a trickle.
Those days are over, people want streaming video, full email, full browsers, etc. on their phones.
Trolling is a art,
Doesn't their "three-year roadmap" conflict with the company name?
If RIM was smart, they would use the Droid platform running on another CPU core. That way, users could have both a BB that corporate users and developers want, why tapping into the popular droid market for future expansion. Eventually, they could migrate 100% toward the Droid platform with some additional BlackBerry APIs glued on to it.
When you're not in the position to negotiate, sometimes you have to dance with the elephant.
Life is not for the lazy.
Arrogance rarely wins, why is it so popular?
Nope, to RIM 1 or 2 MB a month is normal data usage, “RIM would be proud of the fact that someone would only use 1MB of data in a month in 2005."
"Mike is convinced people won’t buy an iPhone because battery life isn’t as good as a BlackBerry,” a different source said. Mike apparently is in disbelief that people can use over 15GB of data on their iPhone and Android devices,"
So this genius at RIM is so much in denial that he doesn't get that Apple is cutting away at RIM while Android and iOS are raping RIM because he doesn't understand the market anymore.
they're probably pissing off a lot of their customers by preventing them from deleting apps that are of no use to them, for example, MySpace
http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2011/7/5/wanna-be-the-ceo-of-nokia-take-the-simple-quiz.aspx
It is a little scary and sad to see the parallels in these two once giants make so many mistakes. Not that they are making the same mistakes but they both clearly have one thing in common: inept top level leadership.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
RIM needs to do what Jobs did to next in the mid 1990s. It's time for them to accept that their phone business is cooked. Nobody is waiting a week out in front of any stores to buy a RIM device. Nobody even knows what differentiates one device from another. It's 2011, not 1991, cellphone sets are widespread and the market has spoken, nobody wants a RIM phone.
RIM needs to get out of the hardware business, and port their mail reader to an application and sit on top of android, iOS, and Windows mobile (lol).
They need to focus on making BES suck less, and getting their application into as many hands as possible.
Loose the hardware, nobody will miss it.
I read the first paragraphs and then skimmed further into it. What I got was "RIM started out well but then didn't really do anything new or good after that."
Okay, let's be clear on what RIM and Blackberry are and what they are not. RIM and Blackberry are about business. They target business users and cater to the needs of business. What they are not and never have been is a pop consumer devices. Many of the comments were targeting recent trends in phones such as iPhone and Android and the like. As much as I like my Samsung Galaxy phone, it's a consumer device just as the iPhone is. Both can be retrofitted with "needed business features" but from its core to its shell, RIM and Blackberry are business first and foremost.
RIM is not going anywhere just yet. They have their place. Business and government want central control and management of their infrastructure and Blackberry can be used as an extension of their infrastructure in ways that others do not... not yet anyway. (And I presume some of that is based on patents held by RIM.)
And I am rather disappointed that people these days are unable to look down the road or even back up the road where they came from. I think market trends are good to watch as it is an indicator of what works, what doesn't, what's long-term and what isn't. The iPhone/Android battle makes the market exciting. It's a catalyst for change and improvement... or it would be if it weren't for every business with an "on the internet" patent trying to sue one another to death. It's certainly very lively, I'm sure all will agree. But moving at a rapid pace when you already have a steady market niche would present further risk to RIM that isn't really present for the likes of Apple, HTC or Samsung.
While Android and iPhone are used in many business environments, only Blackberry doesn't compromise the sovereignty of the business over its data. Apple wants to control all iPhones and the apps that go on them. Android is anarchy. Blackberry provides tools of control and configurability to business over even those of the phone carrier. (For example, using a BES, I was able to turn on tethering for a phone whose carrier did not permit it.) This is important to business people who understand the difference. (Unfortunately, since executives are prone to buying the pie-in-the-sky "cloud" idea for everything, what business people are willing to understand is demonstrably limited.)
The basic notions that made Blackberry great from the beginning are still valid today. The things I see happening in the industry right now is a lot of glitz and eye candy but not so much in the way of new ideas. RIM isn't making a lot of noise right now, but they don't have to. If RIM wanted to play in the Android market or to create yet another line of phones, they would do so at the peril of their core market. If I were RIM and felt it were necessary, I would create a new brand and not call it Blackberry at all so that people would know the difference. RIM has something that no one else has and they need to stay with it.
Reasons RIM is circling the drain:
#1 - You used to have two options: Desktop Redirector or on-server redirector. Desktop Redirector "worked" but was otherwise always Pure Fucking Crap, and required that your home or work desktop be on 24/7 and that you be logged in to it with the program running. On-server redirector worked a hell of a lot better, didn't require a running PC, but ate up a ton of server horsepower, required some pretty arcane setup, and cost an arm and a leg to license.
Now, you can do the same damn thing on a Droid or iOS phone with Outlook, Google, or a hundred other options... at no extra cost beyond the server.
#2 - Attachments. Back in the day, Crackberries had "a few apps" and could occasionally read a text-file or really, really freaking small attachment (again, only on server: desktop redirector didn't "do" attachments). Now, I can load and read virtually any attached document on a Droid or iOS phone.
#3 - Apps. Face it, the amount of stuff I can load onto my Droid phone is incredible... more to the point, useful. RIM, meanwhile, has made programming for even their newest phones so arcane that developers who were gung-ho on the platform initially have thrown their hands up in disgust and walked away.
#4 - Hubris, Hubris, Hubris.The only reason RIM is even still alive is that it's going to take another year and a half for people who are "locked in" to a free-handset contract with their phone provider to get out. Meanwhile, we're recommending to every person that comes in wanting help with their blackberry that when the time comes, they should really strongly consider looking at the iOS or Droid phones, that play well with our environment without requiring dozens of hours of tweaking, constant settings resets, and can do a lot more.
My cousin works for a company that up until 1 Jan 2011 was RIM exclusively, you could not have another mobile device at work there.
We are at dinner, his phone has "locked up" and he proceeds to start taking out the battery, I ask why and he says "thats what you do when a Blackberry locks up, you don't do that to an iPhone?" When I asked how often he has to pull the battery, he answered "Once a week or so." I can't remember the last time my iOS devices required a hard reboot.
On 1 Jan 2011 his company lifted the restriction on mobile devices, he got an iPhone 4 when they rolled out on Verizon, now he also has a company issued iPad to replace paper maps (he is an airline pilot).
That article to me seemed to be nothing more than a bunch of sour grapes and gossip from anonymous sources. I'm not saying RIM is, in fact, a thriving titan of mobile technology on the cusp of taking over the world. What I am saying is that that article provided no more useful information about RIM than US Weekly has about the Celebrity Train Wreck of the Week.
I have a 2yr old blackberry, and I'll share a few product comments.
Message indicator light.
- pop ups are annoying, why Apple hasn't realized this, I don't know.
Blackberry messenger.
- as long as your contacts also use it, it's great.
Keyboard shortcuts.
- Designed for blackberry apps can be really fast to use. Ported apps often feel clunky.
I think the other features are pretty equivalent.
Native web browser sucks, third party browsers are better
App selection is narrow, but there are quite a few excellent apps that let me get things done.
Endomondo, poynt, honeydew
Camera is pretty good, I've seen better and worse on other phones
keyboard is nice, but I'd likely adapt to a touchscreen
Dumb things, lots of them
Arbitrary limits on email addresses for a contact, only 3 email address?
Can't set the default calendar
Some bugs just never get fixed, I don't think they care.
memory leaks & not enough memory,
Reboots are a normal part of usage, a reboot app is one of the most popular.
At the end, since I mostly just send sms & email, the keyboard and no-pop ups are great. But such trivial features are really not much of a competitive advantage.
Blackberries lock up, and theyre slow, and the browser sucks, but I still would take it any day of the week over an iPhone or even an android (unless they release a Galaxy S with a decent battery and a better keyboard...). Why?
1) The keyboards are always phenomenal. I can take notes on a blackberry quite well, keeping pace with a speaker. And the notes are always, automatically synced to the Exchange server, so I dont even have to worry about backups.
2) Battery life is phenomenal compared to Android power-devices. If the thing doesnt last through 8 hours of talking and data usage, then its worthless to me. Most days I dont use it quite that much, but others Im on the phone all day.
3) Keyboard shortcuts are phenomenal. It is trivial to fly around the menus on my Bold, compose a mail, copy/paste, bookmark and all the rest. Very little fiddling with menus.
4) BES is king. Active-sync is nice, and has its pros (like not needing yet another server and yet 2 more GB of RAM), but it also has a lot of cons-- certificate woes, iPhone woes (where it simply refuses to connect, even if the certs are all correct-- could be any number of things), lack of manageability, and not as many things are synced. Its getting better all the time, but BES still has fewer issues, easier deployment, better security, and more management options. And the new 5.0 BES has a web-management interface which (despite being ActiveX-style crufty) is great-- allows you do manage which public folders you sync, lets you do backups, etc.
If your idea of a smartphone is occasionally getting some emails and doing phone calls, sure, get an iPhone or Android. Some of the folks in my office have iPhones, and love them in general. But if you (like me) find yourself typing email on your phone even if theres a computer nearby, you really want to use a Blackberry. Theyre wonderful for business use, and I think it would be a mistake for RIM to start catering to home users-- theyll never beat iPhone at that game. The strength of a Blackberry is productivity.
On the keyboard note, I find that with SwiftKey for Android, touch-screen keyboard complaints are a thing of the past. I can tap out a full length, properly written (no txt abbreviations) message in no time, with little effort. Granted, I was never a BlackBerry user for more than a few days, so I can't compare directly, but I think I can type on my Galaxy S just as fast as anybody with a BB.
Good thing too, as it's not as if you can pull the battery on an iPhone.
For a corporate device, nothing beats the speed and efficiency with which you can use the BlackBerry. I have an Android device and a BlackBerry and I can still respond to email/text messages faster on the BlackBerry. I will give Mike the benefit of that one. It's battery life is also incredible and I do appreciate that feature. That much said, outside of the corporate/government arena, the BlackBerry is pretty well useless. The Android wins hands down for features of web browsing and social networking. I like both of the devices. RIM builds a device that is a workhorse, not full of bling. I think RIM could begin a comeback by not requiring carriers to use their NOC and opening the device up just a little bit.
So this genius at RIM is so much in denial that he doesn't get that Apple is cutting away at RIM while Android and iOS are raping RIM because he doesn't understand the market anymore.
Sadly, this type of yesterday thinking permeates most of Fortune 1000 and is what most CEOs aspire to. To be a good CEO today, you need to be able to lie, talk bullshit, and have a two week plan. Period. And oh ya, be on the board of your friend so you can continue to vote for ever higher and completely unjustified salaries and benefits.
Seriously, most CEO's have a plan for tomorrow and maybe the next product release. That's it. If they have a one year plan or hell, even a two or three year plan, its a complete farce and a joke. They have it because its deemed a requirement to have for stock holders, not because they actually believe it or intend to follow it.
American CEOs have been shorting the shit out of the entire country for decades now. Its SOP. Its why so much manufacturing has left the country. In in part why American is sliding from prominence all the while the pay divide has never been larger.
Pragmatically, with no hyperbole, most CEOs should be fired - and justifiably so. Realistically, they get bonuses and higher salaries while destroying the economy around them and anything else if the next guy's problem because their sole job is to short the company, you and me, to day.
Your article, Mr Boy Genius, shows you're not qualified to be an editor.
And get a 2nd source, or give us a name. "One (disgruntled) former executive" is not a story, no matter how many times you repeat or rephrase the same worthless quote.
RIM is a Canadian company.
How to keep DOS from crashing... don't run any TSRs!
Once upon a time they were the only game in town. Now they aren't. The end.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
It's a problem that is really quintessentially Canadian.
I'm Canadian and we see it too. Our attitude at all levels is how do we maximize efficiency? How do we distribute? How can we best ration.
These are all very technical questions and require very smart analysis... but they are ultimately destructive.
As opposed to the more American attitude of how can we do more? How can we increase the supply? How can we create demand?
#1 - OWA is already set up (maintained so that users can have web-based access to the Exchange environment).
#2 - BES Express is not "effectively free", as it requires extra hardware to run on, and the server admins did NOT like the idea of adding it on to the existing server as-is.
At the moment, we're not "getting blackberries" any more. We're waiting out the few users trapped in cellphone contracts and unable to switch out without spending money on a new phone.