The (Big) Problem With RIM

An anonymous reader writes "Research in Motion, by all accounts, had a terrible week. But things might get even worse. The Canadian technology company posted dismal quarterly earnings numbers, missing revenue and sales targets, while margins continued to shrink. Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis conceded the PlayBook had been thwarted by a lack of apps and content, not necessarily by a weak platform. Like Apple with its iOS, and Microsoft with Windows, creating a successful platform will be dependent on the eco-system it supports, but RIM hasn't shown ability to foster that." Speculation has begun as to whether or not RIM will wind up having a PlayBook firesale in the same vein as the TouchPad.

Comments

Market fragmentation

[ge7]

RIM's problem is basically same as Nokia's was - their platforms eco-system is practically dead. You cannot find any of the apps or games you want on them. I don't use my phone (old Windows Mobile 6.2) much so I haven't needed that many apps on it, but on those few times that I have had a need for something, it really sucks when the apps are only available for the big three - iOS, Android and Windows Phone 7. This is true for even such known programs as Skype (I actually did find some old WM6.2 Skype version, but the voice quality sucks with that version).

Where RIM is failing here again is just trying to get their own system out. There's just too many platforms. Hell, even on PC's most companies only make their products available for Windows and maybe OS X. They cannot compete with iOS at this point, and while a little bit better, Android has the same kind of fragmentation problems (though to a lesser degree). In my opinion RIM should go with Windows Phone 7. As RIM is mostly used by business people, they would even get Office and Exchange directly to it. Perfect for businesses.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Bert64]

If anything, it's the PC market all over again...

You have Apple, the premium vendor providing a consistent platform...
You have Android like windows, the cheaper option but runs on vastly more hardware and anyone can put it on their hardware...
And then you have RIM and HP who represent the likes of Commodore and Atari, they also provide a consistent platform like Apple, but don't have the mindshare to attract third party developers.

Windows phone 7 would be a very poor choice for RIM at the moment, not only is the current version very much consumer oriented, but they would not really be able to provide much value-add on such a platform... Why buy RIM if you can go to any of the other windows phone 7 vendors? Android might be a better bet for them, as they can customise it heavily and run their own platform on top (or they could offer a pure software stack for use on other vendors phones). They could run their corporate email software in a sandbox isolated from the rest of the phone...

Re:Market fragmentation

[rolfwind]

Big three? Window Phone 7?

Re:Market fragmentation

[Anonymous Coward]

No. While that may be one of the factors involved, it certainly isn't the only one. Have you ever used a BlackBerry? I have a Bold 9700 next to me (about a year old) and it is a piece of shit.

The build quality, shit. The OS? Shit. The web browser (and I'm on OS 6)? Extra shit. Lets not forget that this is one of the higher end models too. I pity all the people who have Curves.

The _only_ redeeming quality about the thing is its keyboard. Now, if you don't mind me, I'll carry on programming for my Nokia N950.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Tapewolf]

RIM's real problem - the reason there are no apps for their next-gen platform - is that they still haven't released a proper SDK for it AFAIK. They promised the ability to write native apps, Blackberry apps, and Android apps in such a way that they could be run on the Playbook, and to the best of my knowledge the Blackberry and Android layers still don't work and the Native SDK is still a month away in exactly the same way that fusion is 20 years away.

Unless things have changed very recently, the only way to make a Playbook application is in Adobe AIR which is really helpful if you're trying to port a C library from Android, Java code from Android, or port your old Blackberry application (if you were masochistic enough to write one).

Last I saw, a lot of the forum posts seemed to be along the lines of:
"Where can I get the NDK?"
"It's in private beta, uh, you can't have it."
"Oh. [disappears from the forum]"

Re:Market fragmentation

[ehiris]

Sounds good if you are ok with a daily reboot.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Anonymous Coward]

The same could be said about nokia

Re:Market fragmentation

[DrgnDancer]

On the face it your idea has merit, but I don't think RIM will do it, more to the point I'm sure they can do it and remain viable. RIM has always been Blackberry. They made their fortune off of being *the* real smartphone vendor that enterprise took seriously. They designed everything from the ground up and built a system that businesses were willing to pay big bucks for. Then the iPhone came out, and they sat there, sure that nothing could challenge their business dominance (who cares about consumer phones anyway?). Then Android came out and they still did nothing. Then iPhone got enterprise integration and they started to look a little worried and came out with a few new phones... Now two thirds of the people in my office (of a major multinational mind) have turned in their company issued Blackberries and use their personal iPhone or Android device.

What can they do by switching to Windows 7? Become another player fighting for the tiny little pieces of the pie? That won't support a company like RIM. This isn't HTC, they aren't used to surviving on razor thin hardware margins. They're used to naming their price and having big businesses beg them to sell more. In the unlikely event that they could even make the switch, it would be a much smaller and less important company on the other end. Until something major changes, their are exactly two winner in cell phones right now. Google and Apple. Google's partners are in a race to the bottom, and Microsoft hasn't had any significant success. At best MS will become a third "winner" with their partners fighting the same losing battle as Google's are fighting now.

Until a serious game changing event rolls along, the only real question in the phone market right now is whether Microsoft can carve out a niche of its own.

Re:Market fragmentation

[goose-incarnated]

If I had mod points, you'd get it. Until there was pressure from iOS and Android, both RIM and MS treated their mobile devs like crap. Which I find confusing, 'cos Apple also treats their iOS devs like crap (not much different from the way they treat their users, come to think of it :-)), but it seems that Apple is better at creating Stockholm Syndrome than RIM was.

If you were to group the most successful companies, you'd find that a healthy percentage of those companies rely on Stockholm Syndrome with both their customers and their partners to stay in business.

Re:Market fragmentation

[gander666]

Sigh, I was a huge Atari fan back in the day. Great systems. I ran a BBS, I have 8" floppy drives (more data) and lots of fun, interesting hardware. I miss those systems.

Good observations though.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Dogtanian]

And then you have RIM and HP who represent the likes of Commodore and Atari, they also provide a consistent platform like Apple, but don't have the mindshare to attract third party developers.

I assume you were referring to the 16/32-bit Commodore Amiga and Atari ST, as that would be the most likely in this context.

Actually, those formats were very successful as gamer and hobbyist machines in Europe from the mid-80s until the early 1990s, and were well-supported by games developers (if less so in a business context). A lot of US-centric commentators assume that because they didn't do much over there that the formats were a total flop- not so.

Similarly, I've seen cases with more recent technologies where those that US (and sometimes European) commentators considered to be a flop are actually doing quite well in other parts of the world, in particular Asia. I suspect that this *won't* apply to RIM and HP, but in general it *does* pay to take a worldwide view before dismissing something as a failure.

Re:Market fragmentation

[realityimpaired]

No, RIM's real problem is that their upper management doesn't understand their market. The reason the Playbook failed wasn't the lack of apps, it was because they insisted on tethering it to a Blackberry for basic functions like e-mail to work. They tried for lock-in, and they failed, because the market doesn't want a device that's basically useless unless you have this other device from the same company, so they ended up buying something like an iPad, which costs the same and doesn't have that limitation. The lack of multitasking on an iPad really isn't as much of a limitation as you'd think, and at the end of the day, the fruity product is a better buy than the Playbook.

Similarly, the Blackberry is a great business tool, has tons of control when it's hooked up to an Exchange server, and businesses love it. But RIM makes it insanely difficult for people to develop apps for it (not that it's particularly hard, just that it's a lot of hurdles to jump through in order to develop it and then get it accepted into the app market), which means that the app market is quite limited when compared against something like Android or the iPhone. Yet again, RIM doesn't understand what the market wants, and sets artificial limits and restrictions that end up hurting themselves in the end. They're making a product that you can use for business, and only business, and people end up buying something they can use in their off hours as well... since both iOS and Android support Exchange, there really isn't a case to be made for buying Blackberry over those platforms for business any more.

Finally, their hardware is too expensive for what you're getting. Others have mentioned build quality, and that's part of it... goodness knows my LG Shine Plus (Ally in the US, Aloha in Europe) has survived more falls and abuse than any Blackberry would survive, but it's also that their phones feel cheap, and plasticky. They're supposed to be a high end product for business use, and it feels like you're getting something that was made at a third-rate knockoff factory in China. Why on earth would I spend $600 for a Blackberry when I can get a better Android phone for half that, and pick up a global messaging app from the market? (assuming you don't have global texting on your cell plan already, which I do... let's face it, BBM is really the only avantage BB has over iOS and Android any more, and that's disappearing now that cell carriers are actually offering decent plans)

Re:Market fragmentation

[PhuFighter]

Yeah. This whole mindset with RIM is frustrating. I fail to understand why so many things are so secretive. E.g. the builds of their OS - Windows, iOS, etc. have betas available, but RIM keeps on keeping it a secret and having each carrier release it individually. And getting information on how to develop for the system is amazingly difficult. All of their hardware efforts are moot if they don't open up as a company, be able to take some criticism, and work with the development community to help them develop software.

Oh, providing a decent API helps too. Their secrecy has got to stop.

P.S. I don't think going Android is the way to go. If I want Android, I'd get HTC or Samsung. But I have my BB still because of the keyboard and the security still. Of course, I put the SIM card into the 'ol iphone occasionally.

Re:Market fragmentation

[goose-incarnated]

FTFA

For its part, RIM has recognized this , and it has been in the labs cooking up a new software platform dubbed QNX, a central piece of its efforts to restore the company

While their secrecy is killing them, their open-ness regarding future products will not doubt contribute an Osbourne-effect-ish ... uh ... effect to their demise. I've no real love for any of the players in this market (see my posting history).

btw: Note to the mods - it's really funny that I get modded down for a post that criticises iOS, then get modded down for a post that criticises Android, then get modded down for a post that criticises WP7. I expect my posts critical of RIM are going to get the same treatment?

Re:Market fragmentation

[nine-times]

it really sucks when the apps are only available for the big three - iOS, Android and Windows Phone 7.

I don't believe that's really the root problem here. That's a problem, but it's not *the* problem.

The *big* problem with RIM is that they stink. The hardware on the phones aren't bad, but almost everything else about them is. The interface-- well, can we just admit that Apple came along and ate everyone else's lunch in the cell phone industry? Can we just start by admitting that? The industry was stagnant and producing awful little phones with awful interfaces, and it's not until Apple showed that they were going to take over that everyone else responded by making better platforms. Android and Windows 7 are a response to Apple disrupting the entire industry, and somehow RIM failed to respond-- probably because they thought they were immune.

But now back to the interface, the blackberry interface is basically lipstick on a pig. On my blackberry, which is less than a year old, it feels like I'm running a 10 year old interface with a new skin. The graphics are smooth and there are kind of some fancy transitions and stuff; I'm not complaining about a lack of eye candy. I'm saying the design of the user interaction is extremely dated and stupid, and that was after they overhauled it.

The behind-the-scenes stuff stinks too. I support a lot of Blackberries, and they're constantly having random stupid problems where someone stops getting their mail or they get duplicates, and that's while using their touted BES stuff. It's junk. It breaks constantly. ActiveSync provides more stable results.

I'm not so sure about your suggestion to use Windows 7. It may be their best choice, but it's not a great choice. RIM is essentially headed down the same road as Palm at this point. They were huge, they sat on their hands and watched the world move on, they're probably going to try to become another hardware vendor with a commodity OS, but that makes them just another one of many hardware vendors with the same OS, and it's not clear they'll compete well. On top of that, it's not entirely clear to me that Windows phone 7 itself is doing very well. Sure, Microsoft will keep making it, but can RIM make money selling it?

The hour is later than you think, and RIM probably doesn't have any winning strategy here. Their best option may be to hope they can sell to someone who wants something about their intellectual property or their supply chain. But who would buy them? HP is out. I doubt Apple cares. I don't think Microsoft would be interested.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Bert64]

Exactly, and RIM are doing quite well in business and at least in some countries, among schoolkids (blackberry messenger is free, sms is not)...
HP are also having a last gasp due to their fire sale prices.

Re:Market fragmentation

[sakdoctor]

If I had a mod point, you'd get it for using Stockholm Syndrome in the content of Apple's products.

Re:Market fragmentation

[rtfa-troll]

The same could be said about nokia

That's 100% true. If we continue the PC market analogy, Windows 7/8 looks exactly like IBM's OS/2 and I don't see how Nokia coming in with new proprietary phones can save Windows any more than IBM's MCA saved OS/2. I'm sure that in 15 years there will be loads of MS fans whining about how much better Windows 8 was than than iOS 5 and Android 4, but it was just discriminated against by Apple / Android / whichever wins in the competitive market. As with Windows Mobile, there will be a bunch of anoraks running around telling us how it's the only system which gives you full flexibility and completely ignoring

Re:Market fragmentation

[sarhjinian]

If you've used a PlayBook, you'll note that the real problem isnt that you need a BB to do email, its that even if you have a BB phone, the PlayBook (specifically the bridge function to the phone) is slow and glitchy. Its faster to just use the phone because at least then you get autocorrect, the ability view attachments in under half an hour, and decent inteface speed.

The impression i got with the PlayBook is that, unlike apple, where you can tell that Jobs et al take a serious interest in the development of products and do get their hands dirty, I doubt Messrs Laziridis and Balsillie used the device at all.

Re:Market fragmentation

[binarylarry]

Android is a response to Apple, Windows Phone is an attempt to clone the success Apple had in the past.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Anonymous Coward]

either that or the fact that the phone and the platform are shit, not forgetting that the entire blackberry experience is on par with pushing a pencil into your ear.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Joe Jay Bee]

Try dropping the Bold sometime. I can understand criticising RIM's software quality or whatever, but one think I wouldn't dare fault them for is the build quality. BlackBerry phones, in my experience, take a lot of punishment before they give out.

I own a Curve, btw. It's solid as a rock.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree but disagree. RIM STINKS for the average user, but it is somewhat effective and used repeatedly by corporate entities.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Anonymous Coward]

The same could be said about nokia

That's 100% true. If we continue the PC market analogy, Windows 7/8 looks exactly like IBM's OS/2 and I don't see how Nokia coming in with new proprietary phones can save Windows any more than IBM's MCA saved OS/2. I'm sure that in 15 years there will be loads of MS fans whining about how much better Windows 8 was than than iOS 5 and Android 4, but it was just discriminated against by Apple / Android / whichever wins in the competitive market. As with Windows Mobile, there will be a bunch of anoraks running around telling us how it's the only system which gives you full flexibility and completely ignoring

Ignoring what? Douchebags who can't finish their sentences?

Re:Market fragmentation

[drinkypoo]

I assume you were referring to the 16/32-bit Commodore Amiga and Atari ST, as that would be the most likely in this context.

Actually, those formats were very successful as gamer and hobbyist machines in Europe from the mid-80s until the early 1990s, and were well-supported by games developers (if less so in a business context). A lot of US-centric commentators assume that because they didn't do much over there that the formats were a total flop- not so.

I was an Amigan back in the day, but seriously, where are they now? Yeah, a joke that's been handed off again and again that statistically nobody cares about. But those other guys are still around, still themselves, and mostly still doing what they were doing when C= was trying to compete with them.

Re:Market fragmentation

[roman_mir]

The interface-- well, can we just admit that Apple came along and ate everyone else's lunch in the cell phone industry?

- they have a somewhat interesting interface, but I am not going to say that their interface is what I want.

I use Nokia 6303c - that's all I want in a phone and I took the camera out as well and disabled all feature that are not the phone itself.

You give me a phone that has no numeric pad, and you'll see how quickly it ends up in the closest river.

Re:Market fragmentation

[zmollusc]

Meh, I have had various cellphones over the years and the only one which broke (cracked screen) was a Blackberry.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Matheus]

Add to that the fact they still seem to think they know better than anyone else, even though they are clearly losing.

Prime example: My BB Torch. Honestly, from a hardware standpoint, I love it. It's well built. It gives me the option of the hardware keyboard well concealed and it built like a tank (I've chucked it across a room more than a few times, sometimes just to show my friends how well built it is) BUT when it comes to the OS it's like they completely ignored all of the lessons learned by the likes of iOS and Android. Yes, you've been in the smartphone business longer than anyone BUT you're new to touchscreens and have a lot to learn. The lack of an OS supported swipe lock is the best example and is *still not remedied as of the last update I've done. I've had to resort to an App that only partially integrates with the OS so has constant problems with the transition especially when a call comes in while locked. It's a good thing they have the hard-keyboard because the on-screen one is crap. Plus, the auto-complete/replace features while typing mean you are constantly having to re-type words that you typed correctly and wanted them that way. The word you actually typed isn't even first in the list of options most of the time if you're paying attention...

anyway... I don't really want to rant about all of the specifics. The point is they came out with a new phone to compete with Apple and Google and didn't even bother to do their homework first. I don't have a PlayBook but I'd bet good money they did the same thing there. They need to get humble and quick then let what they do well (corporate integration, great hardware, etc) shine through.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Joe Jay Bee]

I had a Motorola Defy (Android thing), which had a Gorilla Glass screen. This was supposed to be waterproof, scratchproof, dustproof and, most importantly, when you drop it on the ground it won't break because the glass is supposedly so tough.

I dropped it on the ground exactly once. The Amazing Won't Ever Smash Gorilla Glass smashed. I've dropped my Curve several times and it's still intact with barely a scratch. My ex's Curve got dunked under water several times also and it lived. I really, genuinely couldn't say anything bad about BB build quality given all that.

Re:Market fragmentation

[squiggleslash]

I really wouldn't write off Windows Phone quite yet. I don't think it's Nokia that's going to save the platform, I think it's their desktop platform that's likely to do so. Spent yesterday playing with Windows 8 (the desktop/tablet) operating system, and... well, if they can fix it so the OS isn't another Vista, then I'm trying to figure out where any rival to Microsoft fits.

Basically, with Windows 8 you'll see touch-based desktops, tablets that aren't toys (ie you'll be able to do real work on them, and even make them your primary machines), and that leaves... well, if your phone OS acts just like your PC OS, but not in a bad way, then why wouldn't you see that as desirable?

I've never wanted an iPad, or even a Honeycomb tablet, but I can see myself wanting a post-W8 tablet - a real computer, running a real operating system, with a touchscreen UI for when I'm on the road, and the ability to hook up to a large screen and keyboard for when I'm not. My problem right now is that the people I want to produce the operating system for that device - Canonical/Google - are going in totally the wrong direction, Google focusing on stripped down mobile operating systems, and Ubuntu still clinging to the mouse like it's going out of style.

The market is different right now to 1992. And it's worth remembering that in 1989, OS/2 was the "future" (even though it wasn't that popular), and Windows was a flop that was being roundly beaten by GEM, as well as a large group of non-PC systems.

Right now the market is completely immature. There's no "serious" (ie non-toy) tablet with a proper touchscreen UI available, for instance. You cannot, seriously, base predictions about who's going to be successful two years from now on market share today. And I'd say that Microsoft has a very, very, very good chance of owning this, unless its rivals get their acts in gear.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no Stockholm Syndrome with regard to Apple's products. Nobody is pointing a gun or threating any once live when one does not use Apple's products. If there is even a remote effect of the Stockholm Syndrome present with respect to an IT brand it must be with regard to Microsoft. It has held the whole pc world hostage since the decline of the home computer market. Only now the reign of Microsoft is slowly fading giving us users more of a choice again. Mostly thanks to Google, Mozilla and Apple.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Anonymous Coward]

Ubuntu still clinging to the mouse like it's going out of style.

That expression is used to describe someone giving something away - not clinging to it. Giving away things as if they're going out of fashion, etc.
I agree, Microsoft could end up owning this, but I don't think they have a "very, very, very good" chance of pulling this off. Why would you think MS is almost certain to dominate the tablet market? MS have not exactly shown themselves to be adept in readily sliding in to new markets. They've a chance all right, but no-where near as good as the one you're suggesting.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Anonymous Coward]

context*

Re:Market fragmentation

[guidryp]

FTFA

  Note to the mods - it's really funny that I get modded down for a post that criticises iOS, then get modded down for a post that criticises Android, then get modded down for a post that criticises WP7.

I am not a mod at the moment and I haven't read all your posts, but I would have modded down your post as well.

Not because you criticized iOS (What criticism?) but because you compared iOS Devs/Users to kidnapping victims.

This is both hyperbolic and insulting to the millions of people who use/develop for iOS (I am neither FWIW), even insulting to actual kidnapping victims.

I understand, that some people don't like some companies, but why do they so often resort to insulting the users?

Mod down, well earned IMO.

Re:Market fragmentation

[nine-times]

I'm not saying it's the interface that you want, but rather that the iPhone, along with it's interface and it's UI design, destroyed the phone industry as existed before. Apple was so wildly successful that they forced the rest of the industry to reinvent itself. Can we admit to that?

Re:Market fragmentation

[Dog-Cow]

I'd like to know what year it is in RIM's world, such that QNX is a new platform?

Re:Market fragmentation

[goose-incarnated]

Funnily enough, that got modded up. And, I did not draw a comparison only between Apple and their users/partners, I said that that would be true of many successful companies. Look at Sony, or vendor Lock-In from MS. Actually, your post very accurately displays the knee-jerk reaction of fanboys, regardless of whether they are Apple fanboys, Google fanboys, RIM fanboys, Nokia fanboys, MS fanboys, or even Fanboy fanboys (do such things exist)?

Re:Market fragmentation

[MightyYar]

You have Android like windows,

It is similar in that respect, but remember how PCs got to that point - a much different road!

There was no intention to make the PC an "open" platform. The PC was the IBM PC, and they were just as closed as Apple. They had a better name within business, but Atari and Commodore got started when ALL computers were closed. When Compaq created the first PC clone and then won the resulting lawsuit, it opened the floodgates to PC clones and forcibly "opened" the platform.

Android, on the other hand, started open from the get-go. We are now in the "lawsuit" phase compared to the PC platform, not the Windows vs Mac phase yet. Android is Compaq, not Microsoft (even snatching up a hardware vendor!). If Google is successful in defending Android, then it is going to be hard for anyone to compete with companies who peddle an OS that they don't spend R&D on - at least on the low end. There will always be room at the high-end for a more seamless package, as Apple has shown in the PC market. Then again, with an open system, hardware vendors have nothing to stop them from modifications that make the whole thing hassle free for the customer - unlike the Windows license that restricts hardware manufacturers from doing things that make their customer's lives easier.

What was my point again? LOL, oh yeah - I don't think the cell phone market is very analagous to the PC market. Concisely: There was no "open" platform in the PC wars. Also, Apple's iOS is the IBM of the PC wars, not - well - Apple. Android is a beast where no analog existed until perhaps Linux, but way too late in the game to make a difference.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Dogtanian]

I was an Amigan back in the day, but seriously, where are they now?

Obviously no-one but a rabid fanboy would dispute the Amiga has been dead in terms of mainstream support for at least 15 years.

But that wasn't the point being argued- it was that the ST and Amiga were like Blackberry's tablets and WebOS in that they "[didn't] have the mindshare to attract third party developers". Which is blatantly incorrect- unlike their alleged modern counterparts, they most certainly *did* enjoy the support of third party developers for a number of years, in Europe at least.

How many "big name" companies are producing games for the original PlayStation nowadays? None, obviously, but we wouldn't say that the format was a commercial failure on that basis- merely that its time has passed.

Re:Market fragmentation

[BrokenHalo]

The _only_ redeeming quality about the thing is its keyboard.

I could say the same about my Sony/Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro, which has quite a nice slide-out keypad. Actually, I also like the fact that the device is about as small as any smartphone gets. But the fact that it is so damn SLOW really pisses me off. And it seems to me that there is not one smartphone that is very good at actually making (and taking) phone calls. Most have silly slidey doodads that are as likely to hang up a call as answer it, and none that I've tried performs at all well in areas where signal is weak, while other peoples' 10-year-old $15 Nokia dumbphones seem to have no trouble holding a rock-solid signal.

Much as I like Android, there have been many times when I have regretted my choice of hardware; I should probably have stuck to lugging my laptop around for anything requiring internet access.

Though on second thoughts, I'm forgetting that I don't have one any more, though I'm still paying the bills for the wireless dongle. My hand-me-down freebie MacBook died messily a couple of weeks ago, so my only choices are the phone or the desktop (linux) boxes...

Re:Market fragmentation

[phishtahko]

Nevermind school kids, half the people I know under 35 have a Blackberry specifically because of BBM.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree but disagree. RIM STINKS for the average user, but it is somewhat effective and used repeatedly by corporate entities.

Back when the blackberry corporate phones offered features that weren't available on every Joe Schmoe's phone, that was relevant. Today every blackberry user with a company phone is bitching that his android is so much better and pressuring the IT department into allowing alternate phones. That includes the high-up executives that can make this an order, which is why RIM is losing sales big time.

Nothing could make me happier, btw. I've always hated RIM and I'd love to see them bankrupt. Actually, that's not true. Seeing Apple bankrupt would make me happier, but at least the RIM dream is realistic.

Re:Market fragmentation

[TrueSatan]

I wouldn't worry about Canonical/Google preparing free operating systems for mobile devices seeing as KDE, and others, are working towards this end already and, if they do it well, can bring GNU/Linux into the picture as a fully viable contender. The KDE work is being done under the Plasma Active banner...see the following link. http://community.kde.org/Plasma/Active

Re:Market fragmentation

[Anonymous Coward]

Ubuntu still clinging to the mouse like it's going out of style.

That expression is used to describe someone giving something away - not clinging to it. Giving away things as if they're going out of fashion, etc.

Incorrect. It simply means doing something excessively. It has nothing to do with the specific actions that they are doing (in this case, clinging vs. giving away). It's just a modifier that specifies the degree to which someone is doing something.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Toth]

I applied for their Beta program for the Playbook SDK and received the reply below a couple weeks later;
Our company uses several custom-developed applications on several hundred blackberries. We have five professional software developers and a couple dozen amateur hacker-geeks. The Playbook's technical capabilities blows away any other tablet but is currently useless as a business tool. A company with a BES server could implement Playbooks tomorrow with very little concern about security IF there were applications.
The guys are testing Citrix on it now and it appears to be ok but until there are other remote apps (Teamviewer, RDP) None of the techies will use it for anything other than a toy gadget.
RIM won't allow us to have a native SDK for the Playbook because they want to focus on games??!!
I used to like Novell too.

================
Thank you for your application to participate in the closed beta for the Native SDK for BlackBerry Tablet OS. We have received a large number of requests to join the beta, including yours, and apologize for the delay in responding
As we discussed in our blog post (http://devblog.blackberry.com/2011/08/native-sdk-for-blackberry-tablet-os-closed-beta/) the focus for the beta was game developers who would be leveraging OpenGL ES to create or port games to the platform. As your application currently stands, you did not meet the initial beta criteria, and we are unable to provide you with access today. We have added your name to the list for access to the beta when it’s opened up to a broader audience. We appreciate your patience and look forward to seeing your native application running on PlayBook in the near future. Please check the Inside BlackBerry Developer’s Blog for updates or follow us at @BlackBerryDev.
Thanks,
BlackBerry Developer Relations Team

Re:Market fragmentation

[farrellj]

Actually, QNX is not a new platform, in fact, it pre-dates *ALL* of the platforms out there, the QNX operating system is 29 years old. It's a very successful niche player, being a real-time microkernel based Unix like operating system. It is used in many embedded applications around the world. I do have a pesonal connection to QNX, I was fortunate to know Dan Hildebrand, who was one of the early leading lights of QNX, as well as a number of past and current employees. I followed the continuing success of QNX over the years. It is a company and an operating system that can stand on it's own, but RIM acquired them from the Harmon Company (aka Harmon/Kardon). If RIM goes done, it won't be because of the quality of QNX...and I hope that they spin off, or sell off QNX if they go down.

ttyl
          Farrell

Re:Market fragmentation

[Anonymous Coward]

Using the PC market as an excuse for something really does not work -- for good or bad Microsoft has a monopoly there and breaking that can require extraordinary circumstances. Personally I don't think the PC market somehow inherently can only support one or two software ecosystems, it's just taking a bit more time than it would have in "perfect competition".

Mobile is much more volatile and younger field, but even there I can't see why several ecosystems couldn't flourish.

Re:Market fragmentation

[__aazsst3756]

Dead on analysis, and why both CEO's need fired. Hell, any company that has 2 CEO's should fire the board.

The answer to your last question is Google. They are the only ones with enough cash, and are desperate for IP. Don't worry, they won't check to see if the IP is even relative to today's market before they hand over a check.

Re:Market fragmentation

[squiggleslash]

You're right on the "going out of style" thing, it didn't look right when I wrote it.

Microsoft has had many successes over the last few years. They finally did beat GEM. They did kill Netscape for all intents and purposes. They haven't taken over the server market, but they do have a seriously large proportion of the market.

In all of these cases, their dominance was done partially by producing a "good enough" product (although personally I always thought Windows was considerably better than GEM, and many argue that IE4 was better than Netscape), and partially by making use of their existing dominance on the desktop.

And they really are doing this in spades this time. The next "desktop" operating system is also a tablet operating system. Indeed, the major complaint I have with the system is that it doesn't work that well as a desktop system. Using it with a mouse is fairly horrible, although there's plenty of time for Microsoft to fix that.

I think MS will dominate the tablet market because:

1. They're the only company producing a tablet operating system that isn't a "toy". That is, it's not stripped down, it's not locked down, the same applications run on the desktop and the tablet UI, it's realistic to suppose you can by a Windows 8 tablet and make it your only computer
2. Users of existing Windows operating systems (7, XP, etc) will, ultimately, upgrade to Windows 8 or its successors. Unless Microsoft does something stupid and makes it the next Vista, The platform is going to have overwhelming support. But, you know, even Vista is a poor comparison - most Windows users are using "version 2" of Vista now anyway, and it, Windows 7, is well liked. Even if Windows 8 is a flop, Windows 9 would likely not be.
3. They're implementing the same new UI across both Windows 8 and their mobile operating systems, and they're ensuring the UI is comfortable in both environments.

Microsoft will not ultimately be the only company doing this, given Apple has already indicated they intend to move Mac OS X in that direction. But the real concern to me is that the platforms I use and love don't seem to "get it". I'm hoping the Windows 8 preview will be a wake-up call. Perhaps Google and Canonical need to talk.

Re:Market fragmentation

[shmlco]

"Which is blatantly incorrect- unlike their alleged modern counterparts, they most certainly *did* enjoy the support of third party developers for a number of years, in Europe at least."

DOS. Windows. MacOS. Linux. ... Amiga OS. It's not that they didn't "enjoy the support of ANY third party developers. It's just that the numbers -- in terms of mind and marketshare, and compared to its competition -- were insignificant. Couple with the fact that they didn't enjoy the support of any of the major developers (MS, Adobe, etc.), and you have a recipe for failure.

Just because you loved yours doesn't mean that the platform as a whole was viable.

Re:Market fragmentation

[jimicus]

The thing is, RIM had plenty of notice of these things happening. Microsoft were in the process of making EAS a viable alternative to BES a few years before the launch of the iPhone; it was only a matter of time before someone produced a half-decent phone that integrated with EAS and then RIM would have real competition on their hands.

Re:Market fragmentation

[shmlco]

" I don't think the cell phone market is very analagous to the PC market. Concisely: There was no "open" platform in the PC wars."

The fact -- and to what degree -- Android is "open" doesn't matter. Like DOS and Windows, Android is the "bundled" OS pushed by the majority of carriers and vendors, used and reused across a wide variety of mostly commodity phones (PCs). Not to mention that developers can write software for it just as easily as they could write software for DOS and Windows.

And with Google lobbying for even more standardization in order to turnaround OS versions and updates faster, its "openness" is even less significant. What good is an "open" platform to a vendor if it can't be customized? It just becomes even more of a commodity.

That's why Nokia went with Windows Phone 7. At least with it they'll have SOME differentiation from the pack of Android clones.

No, there are a lot of Windows/Mac similarities.

Re:Market fragmentation

[shmlco]

"They need to get humble and quick then let what they do well (corporate integration, great hardware, etc) shine through."

RIM has one and only one crown jewel: They've got a great secure messaging platform.

In my estimation they need to write apps and put that messaging system it on iOS, on Android, and on Windows Phone 7. Charge a fair monthly access fee. Unlike some other "messaging" apps, they've got the name, they've got the business reputation, they've got the security, they can integrate with the existing BB platform, and they can do it cross-platform.

They've lost the hardware wars. Time to go with their strengths.

Re:Market fragmentation

[MightyYar]

The fact -- and to what degree -- Android is "open" doesn't matter.

I completely disagree. The fact that it is open means it can be more completely customized. That means someone like HTC can theoretically provide a user experience similar to that of Apple without spending the R&D money to build their own OS.

What good is an "open" platform to a vendor if it can't be customized? It just becomes even more of a commodity.

That is an exceptionally good point.

I would also point out that the whole Android ecosystem could be undone by a loss of patent lawsuits by Google or the Android vendors. If the amount they have to pay for license fees starts to approach the cost of a home-grown system, the advantage vanishes. This is why I say we are at the "Compaq" stage of things still in the phone market vs. the PC market. If Android is made more expensive and less customizable, then it indeed becomes more like Windows.

Re:Market fragmentation

[shmlco]

"The reason the Playbook failed wasn't the lack of apps, it was because they insisted on tethering it to a Blackberry for basic functions like e-mail to work. They tried for lock-in, and they failed..."

From what I've heard, the tethering was more do to the fact that their entire system is setup in such a way that one and only one BB cab access a BB account. Allowing multiple devices to access the same account impacts security, not to mention the various synchronization issues involved.

Re:Market fragmentation

[shmlco]

"You give me a phone that has no numeric pad, and you'll see how quickly it ends up in the closest river."

Ah. Buttons. How quaint...

Re:Market fragmentation

[mounthood]

If they use android (for the apps) and build enterprise management they could hang on for a bit. Enterprises would be able to issue Android phones and still retain control for legal issues, etc... Quality would be an issue but they could leverage their existing clients. If they fail at that, they could then go to Apple/Google/MS and beg them to integrate their products with a RIM enterprise management system - for a tiny margin.

The hour is later than you think, and RIM probably doesn't have any winning strategy here.

But when should we short them? That's what I want to know.

Re:Market fragmentation

[PwnzerDragoon]

So Microsoft is violently forcing people to use Windows? This explains a lot.

Re:Market fragmentation

[CastrTroy]

Whatever the reason for this, they need to make it work. People don't care about the technological reason for why it can't work. Even if it required moving a hardware card/dongle from the phone to the tablet, it should have been made to work. Instead of making a "Play" book, they should have made a "work" book, as much of their reputation and market was based around business usage. A RIM device that cannot send email though the blackberry service is all but useless. I think the only reason they really don't allow it, is because they don't want people ditching their phones, and just using the tablet for their Blackberry related stuff.

Re:Market fragmentation

[guidryp]

You said Apple treats it Devs/Users like crap and is better at creating Stockholm Syndrome than anyone else. You also didn't say anyone else treats their users like crap. Just Apple. There was no actual content to the criticism. Just "treats like crap" and imply they only like them because of some kind of mental disorder (AKA Stockholm Syndrome). This is essentially no better than calling buyers iSheep or various other insults aimed at buyers.

That you are now modded up for this, is a sign that /. is becoming more like dig.

Your point about fanboy modding is now validated, not by you being modded down for an insult that you complained about, which is valid regardless of who the target is, but for being modded up for insults. Now that is fanboy modding.

Congratulations. Point made, just not for the reason you intended.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Fujisawa Sensei]

And once again the owners of the Amiga platform fucked up. That would have been the ideal platform for modern tablet and phones, but they missed it.

Re:Market fragmentation

[grub]

Mike and/or Jim joked a while ago that they could probably use a third CEO as they are so busy. Yet Apple, with just one CEO, is taking RIM's lunch money and drinking their milkshake. They're a pair of delusional has-beens and no one in their company has the balls to say the Emperor has no clothes.

Re:Market fragmentation

[zyzko]

RIM's problem is basically same as Nokia's was - their platforms eco-system is practically dead.

It is now because everyone is jumping ship from Symbian because Nokia efectively EOLd it. But before it was quite alive - yes the first Software market was cumbersome, and Ovi store just started working right when the Elop and axe came. But even before app store was a glimmer in Steve's eyes people were quite succesfull developing and distributing Symbian apps were it's market share was high (read: Europe). It was just so shiny and polished but nobody had that at the time. I don't know if you look at things from stateside of the lake - Nokia really had no marketshare there ever (around 15% at best times when global share was nearing 60% at the peak - which was not due to having no software but their inability to bend over to carriers wishes and trying to sell phones like they do in the rest of the world) and so I guess the Symbian software is not visible.

Re:Market fragmentation

[MightyMartian]

The tablet market is immature, but since I think tablets and smartphones are linked, I think the huge lead Apple currently has will likely be maintained. I don't think this is the 1978 of tablets, I think it's the 1983, lots of competition, but a clear leader is still there. I think Apple has the edge, and unless it stumbles badly, will continue to be the market leader.

Re:Market fragmentation

[MightyMartian]

Microsoft's share of the server market is probably around a third. While that's a big chunk, it's still not even half, and certainly not a majority.

Re:Market fragmentation

[JonySuede]

You got the sequence of event wrong, Android was announce before the iPhone on november 2007 and the iPhone was announced on January 2007.

However the first Android phone was on the market way after the iPhone but you had access to the android dev board way before you had access to the iphone if you were int the right group.

Windows Mobile was there way before both of them, it was a real smartphone with a sucky default ui. WinMo 4,5,6 was a nice platform for research as you could replace everything in the phone with what you wrote and the documentation was quite extensive if your lab had the right MSDN subscription.

Please stop the revisionist approach to history.

Re:Market fragmentation

[jeremyp]

btw: Note to the mods - it's really funny that I get modded down for a post that criticises iOS, then get modded down for a post that criticises Android, then get modded down for a post that criticises WP7. I expect my posts critical of RIM are going to get the same treatment?

So we can eliminate people modding you down just because they disagree with you. The only possible reason left is that your posts were shit....

Re:Market fragmentation

[cgenman]

RIM's problem is basically same as Nokia's was - they didn't do anything to justify their platform's existence. All of these companies seem to think they can copy Apple's success by doing exactly what Apple is doing. That's not how it works. What Apple did, was something truly unique in the market that got their platform established. This is true on iPhone and iPad. Android came along, and offered a platform to a wide variety of vendors, where the users had the freedom to do and change almost everything. And then Windows Phone 7 came out which offered... Um... WebOS came out which was a slightly more polished iOS. PlayBook is... what exactly?

Offer the consumer something really, really unique and worthwhile. Or you're not going to get over the hump of platform transition. It's not just a question of having lots of applications...Linux-on-Phone has that. It's a question of offering a few really, genuinely compelling key points that nobody else does. 'Droid did that. RIM, at the moment, hasn't delivered that since the early Blackberry days.

Re:Market fragmentation

[davester666]

Um, Apple only completely redefined mobile app development.

Before Apple did this:
-users had a difficult time finding and loading apps for their phone, or they got apps from their carrier for relatively high prices
-developers were being raped by app vendors/carriers, generally getting less than 1/3 of the app selling price
-mobile apps, in general, looked and worked like crap compared to even the initial 3rd party apps for the iPhone
-updates to apps...ha
-updates to the phones OS...ha
-zillions of phone models, each one with a slightly different version of Java and a different set of Java libraries on it...write once...debug everywhere...

Before Apple, it was orders of magnitude more difficult to make money at being a mobile app developer.

While Android has several app stores, it's still significantly more difficult to do app development, and app developers report they make less money from it.

Re:Market fragmentation

[goose-incarnated]

You said Apple treats it Devs/Users like crap and is better at creating Stockholm Syndrome than anyone else. You also didn't say anyone else treats their users like crap. Just Apple.

From my original post:

If I had mod points, you'd get it. Until there was pressure from iOS and Android, both RIM and MS treated their mobile devs like crap. Which I find confusing, 'cos Apple also treats their iOS devs like crap (not much different from the way they treat their users, come to think of it :-)), but it seems that Apple is better at creating Stockholm Syndrome than RIM was.

If you were to group the most successful companies, you'd find that a healthy percentage of those companies rely on Stockholm Syndrome with both their customers and their partners to stay in business.

Are you so blinded by fanboyism that you cannot even read? I wrote four very long sentences, of which three called SS on companies in addition to Apple, and of which one called SS on Apple.

Just how blind are you?

There was no actual content to the criticism. Just "treats like crap" and imply they only like them because of some kind of mental disorder (AKA Stockholm Syndrome).

You are doing a very good job of displaying that particular mental disorder, especially by reading things that aren't there. I called SS on many companies, not just Apple, but OH NOES!!!! HE CALLED APPLE BAD THINGS!!!

Congratulations. Point made, just not for the reason you intended.

Point made indeed, and you are the one who made it. I called SS on a bunch of whiny losers, and you show up to provide evidence of them.

Congratulations.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Anonymous Coward]

Which I find confusing, 'cos Apple also treats their iOS devs like crap

Apple may have some draconian rules as to what you can and can't do, but their developer tools, API's and documentation are very, very good compared to most competitors (WP7's tools are pretty damn nice too). Developing for BlackBerry is a horrible experience, same goes for Symbian. Android is slightly better but not as good as iOS.

Re:Market fragmentation

[ConfusedVorlon]

Apple impose some significant restrictions - but I'm not sure that's the same as treating devs like crap.

Old code keeps running, the sdk is pretty useable, it's easy to write apps that run on all the devices and that look good.

The main point is that they have created a system that writes big cheques to devs. Nobody else has managed that.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, and...?

Re:Market fragmentation

[zyzko]

Just because you loved yours doesn't mean that the platform as a whole was viable.

Amiga (and on other countries Atari ST) were *the* gaming machines for number of years. The other platforms you mention evolved and had more general-purpose business software, Amiga and Atari did not (they had their niches in business use, Amiga in the video production world and Atari in music). They were truly the last "home computers" - PC got big only after their prices fell - and got gamer atention really only after that. Amiga was a viable platform, sold like hotcakes, had all the games (superior stereo sound at a time PC's had beepers and first SoundBlaster was expensive and inferior, superior graphics when PC's had commonly CGA and EGA was add-in), but was killed mainly because Commodore the company totally screwed up their finances. And it did not evolve while the PC did.

Re:Market fragmentation

[drinkypoo]

Does AmigaDOS have memory protection yet? Because back then, it didn't, and if you combine that with a web browser it makes it the ideal platform to get owned. Viruses were rampant on the Amiga platform, and most people I know (including myself) used a number of programs to deal with the problems, scanning every download somewhat obsessively to try to be sure that you wouldn't begin infecting bootblocks galore.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd almost go further than that: RIM's problem is that they make many promises but they never deliver or if they do, they do so extremely late. As an admin working with their server software, I know how long we've been waiting for release 5 of that (over 1 year and a half late) or how long each of their devices goes over the allotted release date. Heck, even the PlayBook was so late, they managed to bring it out after the iPad 2! This is what's crippling RIM. People are sick and tired of waiting and waiting and waiting.

Re:Market fragmentation

[squiggleslash]

Apple doesn't have an edge because it doesn't have a non-toy tablet yet. [I hope I'm not offending anyone using the term "toy", please read this in full before reacting!] That's the problem. I think Apple will have a non-toy tablet in the medium term, I know that's where they want to take Mac OS X, and I suspect the iMac will become a tablet in the medium term.

But it's very important to understand that the only "tablets" out there right now that aren't toys are running Windows, and they generally suck. What makes Windows 8 interesting is that it takes the lessoned learned from the iPad/etc, and creates something that's both usable and useful.

Yes, in many ways it's like 1983. In 1983 Apple was leading the market with the Apple II. The Apple II was a home computer. It had a limited role in the "serious" space that IBM/Microsoft was making headway in, and had some interesting applications like Visicalc that could be considered proofs of concept - much as the iPad version of iWork is. But the Apple II wasn't open enough (in the sense only Apple could make them), it wasn't powerful enough (no more than 64k of RAM without paging, with an operating system that barely qualified as one), it wasn't available in a configuration useful for the business desktop.

So while Apple lead the home computer market at that point, it was never going to win the personal computer market. Apple is "leading" the tablet market right now, but with a device that's more to look at than use. Nobody in their right mind will buy an iPad, or anything like it, to use as their primary computer. I'm not saying "toy" to be insulting, I'm using the term to explain the major difference between what's produced now, and what's coming down the pipe, not just from Dell/HP/other companies that work with Microsoft, but also from Apple themselves. The devices called "tablets" today, that aren't the awful stylus-Windows thingies, aren't something that'll ever displace the PC. The stuff Windows 8 is designed for really will.

When will Apple produce the tablet iMac? I don't know. I'm guessing it'll be after Windows 8. And even if came out earlier, Windows has the huge advantage of being the primary OS on "serious" computers right now. Just as Mac OS X hasn't challenged the dominance of Windows XP/Vista/7, and the original Mac didn't challenge the dominance of the MS DOS PC, I just don't see Apple overthrowing Windows in the near future. The change to a different form factor is not going to be enough to do that.

Am I wrong? Well, here's a few ways in which I might be:

1. The preview of Windows 8 felt kludgy on the desktop. It might be that there's a reaction against it there in much the same way as the first version of Vista was unpopular, and it'll take Microsoft time to fix that
2. Early tablets might not be powerful enough to run a full operating system efficiently, resulting in a system that ends up being the worst of all worlds, too slow to work well on the desktop when hooked up to a keyboard and monitor, and too bloated to work well when it's being used as a tablet. I don't think that's very likely, but it's possible.
3. People might revolt against the entire touch UI concept, preferring to use a desktop interface using mice and pointers where possible. I think that's quite possible, especially right now when we're still trying to figure out how to make it work. The first Mac suffered from much the same problem, having what was a horrible awkward to use UI, suffering the problems of being first.

That's what I think anyway.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Anonymous Coward]

Try dropping the Bold sometime. I can understand criticising RIM's software quality or whatever, but one think I wouldn't dare fault them for is the build quality. BlackBerry phones, in my experience, take a lot of punishment before they give out.

I own a Curve, btw. It's solid as a rock.

A rock has more apps, though.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the issues is that RIM's platform is quite different from all others. They depend on the RIM servers to a large extent. This platform is one reason their devices and services are preferred by those who value security of their data and privacy. None of their competitors offer that. Therefore RIM is not just a hardware builder and an OS developer, they also provide related services in important areas of security and privacy. If RIM were to endorse Windows 7, the entire platform becomes just another Windows phone and they lose that advantage.

However, this is only an advantage for a diminishing portion of their market (government and corporate), and the downside is that their platform is less appealing to the rest of the market, so maybe hanging on to that platform to preserve that smaller and smaller part of the market is not the right decision in the long term, unless they find a way to leverage it.

The way it is looking, more and more corporate types use Apple and Android phones, so its seems like that advantage is dwindling, at least in the mind of most users.

As long as RIM keeps the current management, I don't see their market approach changing.

I have been looking at replacing my aging Curve, but the more I wait, the more it looks like the replacement will be an Android phone.

Re:Market fragmentation

[shmlco]

Grew up with them. They might have been *the* gaming machine... for an extremely limited number of people. The majority went from the Apple ][ to IBM PCs and DOS. PC games and the rise of the dedicated game machine killed off even that market.

PCs had plenty of side-scrollers and other types of games (Zork), right up until Doom appeared in 1993.

Re:Market fragmentation

[MightyMartian]

I've heard iPads described in a lot of ways... but "toys" isn't one of them. They seem to be gaining a good deal of acceptance in the business world. I think you'll find Apple is in a far better position than Microsoft would like.

Re:Market fragmentation

[destroyer661]

You hit the nail on the head here. Even IF you received an invite, the SDK was utter crap. I spent 3 hours downloading all of the little pieces, getting the build chain put together, writing a small "hello world" app. At the end, I tried to build it and run it on the VM provided, and it failed, giving me some obscure error. I tried Googling and pushing the build around with all kinds of different parameters and manual packaging but no luck. Their forums were no help at all and the SDK interface itself was just absolute junk to use.

I sort of feel bad seeing a Canadian company like RIM fail, but at the same time they seemed to miss the boat entirely with how they treated the developers right out of the gate.

Re:Market fragmentation

[rtfa-troll]

Ignoring what? Douchebags who can't finish their sentences?

No, no, ignoring trolls unless we find them so sad their funny. Anyway, thanks for pointing out the missing statement...

... ignoring the fact that it needed a proper equitable eco-system and reasonably open software development model to have a chance of succeeding.

Re:Market fragmentation

[shmlco]

The fact the they could theoretically provide a better user experience is irrelevant if Google won't let them do so. In fact Google's actively pressuring vendors to do otherwise by withholding Marketplace access or by not allowing them to bundle Google apps like Mail and Maps if they don't follow the rules.

HTC could tell them to stick it and use Android to base their own system, but without the above integration what you end up with isn't really an "Android" phone, now is it? Actually, you sort of end up with the situation we're seeing with Amazon, who appear to have based their new tablet on a older version of Android, and built entirely without the Google couplings.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Anonymous Coward]

I only agree with some of this entire post. To me, RIM's biggest single mistake was not to take the browser seriously. Of course, that implies a lot of other decisions connected to that, such as the display resolution and the UI.

I am not sure what you mean by "the design of the user interaction is extremely dated and stupid, and that was after they overhauled it." An example or two would help, and if it is so bad, it should not be hard to come up with something.

Your experience with what you call "behind the scene" is totally opposite my own experience. I have had 5 Blackberry smartphones (all variants of the full keypad models, the last 3 were Curve variants, GSM and CDMA) and they all worked well, particularly the email client is absolutely top notch. Until the last one, they all ran through the corporate BES, but the last one is my phone and it runs Internet Services through Verizon. I have yet to see a better or more reliable mail client on any platform, bare none. I never got duplicated email or missed any. I have had many more problems accessing my mail on the PC with Outlook, and I only use Outlook with POP. My work PC with Outlook on Exchange is considerably worse even than Outlook on POP in terms of reliability and speed. My Blackberry Curve will happily handle POP and a half dozen webmail accounts like yahoo, gmail and more obscure webmail on mail.ru and on my own domain. Setting up these accounts only took a minute. In my family, there are 3 Curve phones, and all work just as fine with different combinations of email.

I agree with the statements about RIM using Windows 7, and about the future of the company. If anyone buys them, it probably won't be for the technology, which was once hot stuff, but now is "nobody cares".

Re:Market fragmentation

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, you just suck at criticism, that's all.

Re:Market fragmentation

[rtfa-troll]

I think you are basing your ideas on Microsoft's vapourware. There's just been a new announcement and the Windows tablets will in fact be crippled and unable to run desktop apps. I know Microsoft specifically denied this when Intel stated the same, but that's Microsoft for you. Notice, by the way, the way they continue to trick people; “We’ve been very clear since the very first CES demos and forward that the ARM product won’t run any x86 applications,” they do not say "desktop applications" and the reason is that people were assuming that they would make the desktop applications source code portable. They haven't. I guess there are a number of CEOs that have committed to a Windows tablet future and are now starting to wonder what they hell they have done.

Re:Market fragmentation

[nine-times]

If they use android (for the apps) and build enterprise management they could hang on for a bit.... If they fail at that, they could then go to Apple/Google/MS and beg them to integrate their products with a RIM enterprise management system - for a tiny margin.

Nope. Their enterprise management stuff is overblown and not worth as much as people say. At this point, people are using BES out of inertia as much as anything. There may be a couple of companies who actually get value out of the stuff, but not enough to support RIM. ActiveSync is a better solution in 95% of cases.

But when should we short them? That's what I want to know.

I don't know, but it may be that you should have already. I'm not a stock market expert, but I do know about the tech industry, and I can tell you that RIM has been dead in the water for a while already. If you didn't know it before, the flop of the Playbook should have clued you in.

Re:Market fragmentation

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

I have known four people who were able to get access after receiving that email just by explaining their situation. I was able to get access for BBSSH dev just by asking, before the beta was even announced; so while your point is valid (they are shooting themselves in the feet) you definitely havenothing to lose by asking.

Re:Market fragmentation

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Seriously?what little pieces? Did you try downloading the sdk, using the privided hello world template, and building it?

For me that's all it took; and one extra step to set up signing keys for deployment to devices.

And here is the most important thing - if it was not that simple did you take as long as it took you to post here... to provide them feedback? As a participant in the beta, that's all they ask of you. Otherwise they would have no reason to run a private beta at all.

Re:Market fragmentation

[wumpus188]

The PC was the IBM PC, and they were just as closed as Apple.

Are you aware that first IBM PCs included commented BIOS assembly source along with their documentation?

Re:Market fragmentation

[Anne Thwacks]

1983 was way different - then IBM _was_ computing. We all knew that whatever IBM came up with, it was the winner, no matter how botched (and most of us cried when we saw the interrupt controler circuit). Those were the days when "no one got fired for specifying IBM"!

We are approaching a "no one gets fired for buying Apple" culture, but will not get there. I cant say for sure, no one will get fired for buying a Windows 8 tablet, but they may well get clubbed to death for suggesting it to our management team, because they had WinMobile 5, 5.5 and 6, and the cursing has not stopped!

Sure they moan about Android, but they moan about everything.

Here in the UK, BB has the teenage girl market totally sewn up - if you dont have BBM, the other girls wont speak to you! BB need to bring out a "Hello Kitty" model, a "Barbie" model, and a "My Little Pony" model (autographed by Justin Bleiber) and forget the business market.

Re:Market fragmentation

[sjames]

I was going to name a couple things RIM could do, but then thought for a moment. They couldn't figure out that people might want email on a pad device, so they won't do any of the sensible options. They really have gotten the attitude of "We're Blackberry, of course you'll throw money at us". There can be no recovery from that.

If they weren't that screwed up, I would say that they might win by adding and Android box that looks like any other android but allow their native secured business friendly apps to overlay the screen. That and make it do business things like email in the native partition.

Re:Market fragmentation

[zyzko]

I guess you grew up in the USA?

Europe had a whole different home computer market - here in Finland for an example everybody, and I do mean literally nearly every schoolkid-everybody had a C64 or Amiga 500 at some point. C64 was named as "The computer of the republic" because of its popularity. Brits had their own home computers (mainly because they were made-in-gb) and naming them not-viable platforms would be silly.

It's years were limited but when it was on it's peak it was a viable platform. You are right that consoles and PC games (and piracy to some extent, and the utter management failures at nearly every home computer companyt) killed "home computers" in the early-mid 90's - in some places sooner than in others but saying that the platform was not viable is just not true.

Yes, the kings - DOS and Windows have been succesfull at adapting and backwards-compatibility has been amazing to the point that it has sometimes hurt the platform. But in software industry 5 years is an eternity when talking about entertainment and phones - you do what sells now and then move on, and viable platform is what users have and Amiga had that spotlight (in some parts of the world) for about 5 years. Can you really predict what is hot for iOS in 2016?

Re:Market fragmentation

[Pseudonym Authority]

Is that really their excuse? Well that's nice I guess, but I don't really give a shit, and if they won't make it happen, I'm not spending 146236$ on their produces to make it work. Honestly, did those idiots really think that people were going to by a $500 tablet, a $500 phone, just so they could tether them and not have apps? What a total failure at pretty much every point.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Anne Thwacks]

And most of the hardware schematics were readily available.

Re:Market fragmentation

[guidryp]

Until there was pressure from iOS and Android, both RIM and MS treated their mobile devs like crap. Which I find confusing, 'cos Apple also treats their iOS devs like crap (not much different from the way they treat their users, come to think of it :-)), but it seems that Apple is better at creating Stockholm Syndrome than RIM was.

Are you so blinded by fanboyism that you cannot even read? I wrote four very long sentences, of which three called SS on companies in addition to Apple, and of which one called SS on Apple.

You are doing a very good job of displaying that particular mental disorder, especially by reading things that aren't there. I called SS on many companies, not just Apple, but OH NOES!!!! HE CALLED APPLE BAD THINGS!!!

Point made indeed, and you are the one who made it. I called SS on a bunch of whiny losers, and you show up to provide evidence of them.
 

I was accurate. You did not say anyone else treats their users like crap. Just Apple. You did say Apple was the best at creating Stockholm Syndrome. Just pointing this out and you let fly with more insults. Classy.

Regardless of which group of users you are insulting with claims that they suffer from Stockholm Syndrome, it is still an insult. I don't care who you are targeting. I mention Apple specifically, because you went farther with them, than the others.

In your last line you make it crystal clear you are insulting the users of these products, calling them whiny losers, further supporting my point.

I have never owned an Apple product in my life (nor RIM, nor any smartphone of any variety). So it isn't that I take your insult personally, just that after a while is tiresome that some people who clearly don't understand what makes good products, or why certain products sell, in the end fall back to calling the people who buy them losers, because they simply don't get it.

I don't use any of these products, but I also understand why RIM sold well, why Android phones sell well, and why iPhones sell well. It has nothing to do with the users being losers(or SS sufferers), it has to do with the product being particularly good at something when they sell well. Thoughtful analysis would come from figuring out what they do better and not from claiming end users have mental disorders.

These kind of childish insults of the users of any product is what lowers /. discussions to the level of dig.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Anne Thwacks]

Can you thnik of another reason my people would use it?

Re:Market fragmentation

[zyzko]

Yes it does - a horrible kind of in OS4. And back then it didn't because 68000/68020 used in the popular models (500/1200) had no MMU so it could not have been implemented anyway. MMU came with 68030 turbo cards which enabled virtual memory but memory protection never really was built in the os - what I understand doing it at this point would massively break backwards-compatibility so not gonna happen for old 3.9 -based OS. But I think that if someone would make an "Amiga" tablet it would not really be anything but the logo and inside something else.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Shoe Puppet]

[Citation needed], please.

Re:Market fragmentation

[ge7]

It is actually around 50%, but many of those servers are internal (exchange, mail, processing, crunch jobs etc..). MS has around a third on publicly facing web servers, but all server types should be counted.

Re:Market fragmentation

[sourcerror]

" they do not say "desktop applications" and the reason is that people were assuming that they would make the desktop applications source code portable."

You can run Metro application both on the tablet and on the desktop, so what's your point?

Re:Market fragmentation

[MightyYar]

Yes, and Apple II was open as well in that sense. But in either case, making a clone got you sued.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Anonymous Coward]

You got the sequence of event wrong, Android was announce before the iPhone on november 2007

Yes, but at that time it looked like a clone of Windows Mobile

Re:Market fragmentation

[MightyYar]

Actually, you sort of end up with the situation we're seeing with Amazon, who appear to have based their new tablet on a older version of Android, and built entirely without the Google couplings.

Which sort of illustrates my point - Amazon did not have to become a huge software house like Apple in order to put out a new, tightly integrated product.

But you are correct - Google tightening up on Android can certainly reduce the advantages of it being open and ultimately make Android on phones and tablets more like Windows on the PC.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Fujisawa Sensei]

And that also shows where the fucked by not pushing towards the 030 platform, instead building hardware and software targeting the dated 020 and company long after the 030s were out.

Cutting edge hardware and software doesn't stay cutting edge for long; you have to keep pushing that shit forward.

Re:Market fragmentation

[wzinc]

I've done iOS and android dev work; Apple's tools are much better and more integrated. Obviously, Apple doesn't treat their devs like crap. Xcode is like luxury development.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Skuld-Chan]

It probably matters on the circumstance - my Droid X has been dropped hard 3 times and still has a mostly perfect screen (its not cracked). The body of the phone is all scratched up though.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Anonymous Coward]

My company has a popular app in all of these markets. believe me, there's no Stockholm syndrome for us concerning Apple. If we had any choice at all, we'd tell them to go fuck themselves. They are not good to developers.

As far as RIM, our jaws dropped when we found out we'd have to program in Adobe Air, that we couldn't port our existing blackberry or even use it in some kind of compatibility mode. Our astonishment was complete when we discovered that they'd built a tablet deliberately without support for local mail. Our blackberry users are about 3% of our overall customers, even though we introduced all three on iOS, Android, Blackberry at about the same time.

My only regret is not buying Put options on RIMM at the time we were discovering all these things. Short-term, RIM is a fine company, with many happy customers. Long-term, they're as doomed as the Mayans.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Anonymous Coward]

"Smartphone... Smartphone... Hello, Smartphone!"

Re:Market fragmentation

[Goody]

They are gaining acceptance in the business world, but I think you'll find they're more an ancillary tool, not a primary computing device, at least in Windows shops. I use mine to take notes in meetings, and access email when I'm not at my desktop or I'm on the road. When I'm working on a document or spreadsheet, it's back to the laptop running Windows 7. Apple still has a ways to go until the iPad or any tablet can be a primary device for business.

Re:Market fragmentation

[russotto]

There was no intention to make the PC an "open" platform. The PC was the IBM PC, and they were just as closed as Apple.

Yes, just as closed as Apple, which offered a system schematic and complete commented ROM listing for the "monitor".

Re:Market fragmentation

[nashv]

You got the sequence of event wrong, Android was announce before the iPhone on november 2007 and the iPhone was announced on January 2007.

November 2007 is after January 2007 ?

Besides that, there is a difference between a public announcement and industry-insiders knowing when something new is forthcoming.

Re:Market fragmentation

[nashv]

Yes. That much is true.

The debate though, is not about that fact. It's about how much credit Apple really deserves for innovation.

And as of 2011, does the iPhone really deserve its sales on the basis of its capabilities etc., or if it is , as someone mentioned before, a case of Stockholm syndrome?

Re:Market fragmentation

[JonySuede]

sorry I have the flu and my thinking is also obstructed, I deeply apologize.

Re:Market fragmentation

[PwnzerDragoon]

You tell me, they're your people.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Dogtanian]

Grew up with them. They might have been *the* gaming machine... for an extremely limited number of people. The majority went from the Apple ][ to IBM PCs and DOS. PC games and the rise of the dedicated game machine killed off even that market.

I agree with the other reply- it's blatantly obvious you grew up in the USA and it probably didn't even occur to you that the situation might be different in the rest of the world (the bits marked "Here Be Dragons" on your map).

Given that I specifically mentioned Europe in the post you were originally replying to, and more importantly that post's grandparent had already clearly pointed out that the ST and Amiga were far more successful in Europe than the US, I don't see how you missed it.

Here in the UK (and outside the US in general), the Apple II was nowhere near as popular and it's certainly not true that the "majority" owned one, not in the home (where the Spectrum and C64 were dominant) and not even in the education market (where the BBC Micro ruled). After them, people switched en masse to the ST and then Amiga. Yes, the PC did get some popularity in the mid-80s when Amstrad launched some cheap clones, but it was only circa 1993 (around the time Doom was launched) that the PC and 16-bit consoles truly took over.

You may now replace your head up your backside if you so wish.

Re:Market fragmentation

[narcc]

Here in the UK, BB has the teenage girl market totally sewn up - if you dont have BBM, the other girls wont speak to you! BB need to bring out a "Hello Kitty" model, a "Barbie" model, and a "My Little Pony" model (autographed by Justin Bleiber) and forget the business market.

The teen-girl market is a lock for RIM because they're both affordable and offer the best mobile for communications on the market. Additionally, BBM offers features such as received and read confirmations, which you won't find on other platforms -- no more wondering "did they get my message" or "did they read it".

Forget the business market? Well, right now RIM is the ONLY company that makes a phone useful for business! While the physical keyboard and optical trackpad make writing effortless, a huge bonus, the Blackberry platform simply handles PIM data far better than the competition. Your schedule and notifications are visible (and editable) right on the home screen!

For advanced users, everything important is a keystroke away. Open the calender, jump to next week, add an entry -- three keystrokes. On other platforms, fumble until you find the calendar app, scroll to next week, do who-knows-what to add an appointment, try to type some uncommon name in on that soft-keyboard...

Heaven forbid you forget a detail and need to go back to your email! With Blackberry, you have true multi-tasking -- something iOS and Android still haven't mastered -- jump back and forth between applications without worrying about losing your place. (It's a single keystroke, there and back again -- a nice UI trick to make you more productive). With the optical trackpad, copy and paste is quick and easy -- not a slow hit and miss finger-fumbling process like on a touchscreen only interface.

See, a business phone needs to give you the info you need as quickly as possible, let you enter the info you need as quickly as possible, and stay out of your way. Business users see their phone as a tool -- RIM knows this, and makes serious use quick and easy -- the less time they spend tinkering with their phone the better. Need your schedule? Just look down. No fumbling around looking for and launching apps. Want to make a change? It's one click away. Well, with RIM, most important things are just a keystroke away.

My wife, a huge android fan, just dumped her new Samsung for an antique Blackberry 8500. With her new job, she found that an old Blackberry was a better match for her needs than a new Android handset. She needed to manage a lot of contacts, a lot of messages, and a constantly changing schedule. Sounds like something a smartphone ought to handle well. As things stand today, no other "smartphone" manufacturer even comes close to what RIM has been doing for years.

RIM may be a third-place player in the smartphone game now that it's dominated by the consumer market -- but no other manufacture even come close to matching even their old models in terms of productivity. Even Google's CEO uses a Blackberry

Forget about business! You must be out of your mind!

Re:Market fragmentation

[narcc]

Developing for BlackBerry is a horrible experience

I see that you've never developed for Blackberry. I know some idiot who couldn't handle simple registration instructions wrote that article last year, but it wasn't true then, and it certainly isn't true today.

Compared to developing for Android, for example, writing apps for Blackberry is beyond easy. With the new tools they've developed, it's even easier.

iOS is a huge PITA -- and they make you pay for it! Buy a Mac and pay your fees. Oh, and if Apple doesn't like your app, it's all for nothing.

Re:Market fragmentation

[shutdown -p now]

Google focusing on stripped down mobile operating systems

I think Google is slowly ramping up Android to fit the same niche that Win8 is trying to claim - e.g. if you look at changelogs for Honeycomb, 3.1 and 3.2 have added a slew of APIs for various input devices other than touch, and this specifically includes mouse (e.g. you can handle hover events in your app in 3.2). Also, have you seen Asus Transformer?

The problem is that it's all done quiet like, and app developers seem to be ignoring this, for the most part. Win8 is different in that its design guidelines explicitly call out developers to provide good mouse support alongside touch. If Google were to do the same for Honeycomb, I can fully see them competing in this niche - and, what more, they could have a significant head start.

Re:Market fragmentation

[shutdown -p now]

Blackberry platform simply handles PIM data far better than the competition. Your schedule and notifications are visible (and editable) right on the home screen!

I'd be curious to see how it compares to Android, actually. One particular feature you've described also works there (at least on Honeycomb, I haven't tried it on 2.x phones).

Re:Market fragmentation

[shutdown -p now]

Not all tablets are necessary ARM. We may even see x86 tablets that are comparable in weight and battery life department (though at this point it's relying on Intel vaporware regarding mythical x86 chips that are low-power enough to be used in cellphones... I'll believe it when I see it).

Re:Market fragmentation

[shutdown -p now]

Which I find confusing, 'cos Apple also treats their iOS devs like crap

Regardless of how Apple may be treating their devs, your earning potential is simply highest on their platform, at least as of today. Even accounting for losses due to app review process delays and unexplained rejections.

That, and their SDK is native code. More importantly, even though you have to learn the abomination that's Obj-C, you can still write most of your application in C or C++ for maximum portability, and only use Obj-C constructs in iOS-specific UI layer of your app. You can also reuse loads of existing C/C++ libraries. That's a big deal, and is something not available on either BB or WP7 even today (though Win8 looks like it'll change it).

Re:Market fragmentation

[shutdown -p now]

The kernel may predate them all, but platform is more than the kernel - it's also all the system libraries, UI etc. Does QNX as used in Playbook use Photon, for example?

Re:Market fragmentation

[narcc]

They've lost the hardware wars. Time to go with their strengths.

All is not lost there -- remember, until 2011, they were ahead of Apple. Until late 2010, they were ahead of everyone else.

Their strengths lay in more than just their messaging platform, but in the hardware/software that makes managing messages and PIM data so easy. It makes a boring phone to play with, but one that really encourages you to make use of their best-in-class PIM functions.

Their strength is in communication and information management. It's what makes even their older models better than newer iOS and Android phones at being business tools. The phone stays out of the way, and let's you get your work done quickly. You don't need to spend a lot of time fumbling around with applications. Just about everything you need is a single keystroke away.

Their hardware keyboard is fantastic, coupled with their optical trackpad, manipulating text is beyond painless. Big surprise, dealing with text is most of what you'll be doing with a business tool! Neither iOS nor Android have a product that can compete on that front. Nor do they have one with as sophisticated notifications system or can compete on managing PIM data.

We're starting to see Android wake-up and recognize this, with the droid pro -- unfortunately, it's a poor Blackberry clone. No optical trackpad, second-rate keyboard, etc. The touchscreen only UI is pretty bad as far as productivity goes. We're finally seeing the market wake-up to that.

The Bold 9900, for example, is selling very well. Had RIM released this instead of the Torch last year, we may not be having this discussion.

Re:Market fragmentation

[narcc]

. They couldn't figure out that people might want email on a pad device

Please. Only the tech press and someone who hasn't spent half-a-minute of time thinking about it can't figure out WHY the playbook lacked native email.

The Playbook was designed to work with your blackberry. This way, you need only manage one device -- the device you're already managing. Lose a playbook? Big deal, all the data is safe on the phone, and no longer on the tablet.

Want to share a tablet between users? Perhaps a sales staff where only part of the force is out on any given day? Just give them one of the playbooks from the stack -- they've got all their data, email, presentations, etc. on their phone, and through bridge, now instantly on the tablet. All with virtually zero effort on their part, just a quick and simple pairing process.

It was absolutely brilliant from a business users perspective. You could deploy the tablet tomorrow without worrying about a thing. IT wouldn't need to manage them, and replacing a tablet was as simple as buying a new one.

It seems like a smart move to me!

Re:Market fragmentation

[MightyYar]

But it was closed from a market perspective - no one could make any changes and sell their own "clone".

Re:Market fragmentation

[narcc]

t was because they insisted on tethering it to a Blackberry for basic functions like e-mail to work. They tried for lock-in, and they failed

Lock-in? Um, no. You're way off there. Go read my above post about WHY the playbook lacked native email and why it was a VERY good thing for business users.

Re:Market fragmentation

[narcc]

The hardware on the phones aren't bad, but almost everything else about them is. The interface-- well, can we just admit that Apple came along and ate everyone else's lunch in the cell phone industry? Can we just start by admitting that?

Admit that? Really? Have you USED an iPhone? It's a usability nightmare! The touchscreen only UI is practically useless for doing anything related to text, anything requiring precision, well, anything other than scrolling a list or pinching to zoom is an exercise in futility.

Best UI to wow spectators, perhaps, but certainly not to actually use. Try typing an email on an iPhone and then on a Blackberry. Guess which one will get done faster, and with less frustration?

The same goes for scheduling -- at a glace on BB, a fumbling process on the iPhone and similar touchscreen only nightmares.

You may find the BB interface "clunky" but as far as usability and productivity are concerned, even the older models are unmatched by any "modern" alternatives.

Re:Market fragmentation

[narcc]

Apple was so wildly successful that they forced the rest of the industry to reinvent itself. Can we admit to that?

You do realize that Apple was behind RIM until this year, right? Their "wild success" was more hype than anything else. They have never been the #1 smartphone -- they're only recently #2.

Their sucess, oddly enough, is heavily dependent on the false perception that they were #1 for so many years. The real truth, of course, is they've never been in the top spot in terms of market share.

They're successful, sure. But much of that success depended on the illusion of success that they had. Look at the iPhone 1 -- a miserable pile of garbage that couldn't even handle MMS. It's beyond me how such a thing sold at all.

Re:Market fragmentation

[sjames]

Playbook was designed to work with your blackberry. This way, you need only manage one device -- the device you're already managing

And the people (and businesses) have voted with their dollars. They voted no (even the ones that already have a BES), so I guess that's not what they wanted.

Re:Market fragmentation

[nine-times]

The debate though, is not about that fact. It's about how much credit Apple really deserves for innovation.

I don't know why you think that's the debate. And frankly, I don't know where we'd begin to debate that.

The point here is that RIM failed, and part of the reason they failed is that they didn't respond effectively to the threat created by the iPhone.

Re:Market fragmentation

[narcc]

I'd be curious to see how it compares to Android, actually.

In my wife's case, the difference was night and day. For her needs, the Android device was practically useless, where the BB did everything she needed and more seamlessly and painlessly.

Before her new job, her Android phone was great for her -- it was terrible for messaging, but the other features kept her very satisfied and happy. For what it's worth, she absolutely hated my BB's before her needs changed, now she can't live without it.

It's astonishing how much the trackpad and keyboard improve productivity. The software makes full use of that, and makes messaging and PIM functions obvious, intuitive, and (above all else) incredibly fast.

I could see something like the Droid Pro with Honeycomb, a better keyboard, and a trackpad coming close. Though it'll be a few years before Android can really match RIM in terms of business productivity. I doubt iOS will ever even try.

Re:Market fragmentation

[nine-times]

Try typing an email on an iPhone and then on a Blackberry. Guess which one will get done faster, and with less frustration?

I own both a Blackberry and an iPhone, and I can type faster and more reliably on an iPhone. Some of it is what you're used to. If you expect an iPhone to work exactly like a Blackberry, you're going to find it to be a frustrating experience.

Re:Market fragmentation

[narcc]

And the people (and businesses) have voted with their dollars. They voted no (even the ones that already have a BES), so I guess that's not what they wanted.

Either that, or what I suspect, tablets aren't terribly useful for business.

The Playbook is the only tablet on the market certified for US Governemnet use. They must have done something right. Oh, security. That's what RIM did right.

The lack of native email got them lots of bad press, which hurt them pretty bad. Still, it was a very sensible decision, as I've already pointed out. Had the press thought for half-a-minute about why there was no native email instead of screaming "zomg! a black-burry without teh emails" the tablet may have sold much better.

Re:Market fragmentation

[nine-times]

Their "wild success" was more hype than anything else.

Yeah, it's not. Sorry, this is why I wanted us to start by admitting at least that much, because otherwise we're trapped in a funny world of denial and self-delusion.

Even before the iPhone started to gain market share, even before they started selling the damned things, they already had done immeasurable damage to their competitors. They had changed the way people thought about their phones.

The real truth, of course, is they've never been in the top spot in terms of market share.

It depends on how you measure it. "Lies, damned lies, and statistics" and all that. If you go by model, then I believe the iPhone has been #1. If you go iPhone vs all Blackberries vs. all Android phones, then no, it hasn't been #1.

Look at the iPhone 1 -- a miserable pile of garbage that couldn't even handle MMS. It's beyond me how such a thing sold at all.

But look at the garbage that other people were selling at the time. It's not at all surprising that people would opt for a good phone with limited functionality than a crap phone.

Re:Market fragmentation

[sjames]

It may have seemed sensible at the time, but they're not flying off the shelf to government or anyone else. They would be just as approved by the government if they would accept the market feedback gracefully and do what it wants, but they seem cluebat resistant.

They have a great platform they can actually build something on, but unless it's something the market wants, it won't work out for them. They are in the enviable position of having the market actually come right out and tell them (most are forced to guess) but for some reason they're sticking their fingers in their ears.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Anonymous Coward]

Big three? Window Phone 7?

LOL, yeah funny. Windows Phone 7 has a much smaller market share than RIM, even in terms of sales today.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Anonymous Coward]

That is the dumbest thing I have read all day.

Re:Market fragmentation

[larry bagina]

except, of course, for those that did.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Anonymous Coward]

Their best option may be to hope they can sell to someone who wants something about their intellectual property or their supply chain. But who would buy them? HP is out. I doubt Apple cares. I don't think Microsoft would be interested.

Google would be a good candidate to buy them, for their patents that is.

Re:Market fragmentation

[bronney]

I am sure 8" gives you lots of fun. ;)

Re:Market fragmentation

[narcc]

But look at the garbage that other people were selling at the time. It's not at all surprising that people would opt for a good phone with limited functionality than a crap phone.

Well, that's the point, isn't it? As a phone, it was a huge joke. Ridiculously short battery life, lacking basic features common to even the cheapest dumbphone of the time. Its best feature was the browser. As a mobile browser, it was best-in-class. As a phone, well, it was a pile of garbage.

It changed the market, sure, I'm at a total loss, however, to explain why outside of the massive hype that drove it forward.

Re:Market fragmentation

[narcc]

I'll except that your one of those rare people who actually type faster with a touchscreen keyboard. Still, every other aspect of working with text is still tedious and frustrating. Moving the cursor, for example, is a game of trial and error on a touchscreen-only interface. Selecting text is less horrid, but still slow and tedious.

Let's get this out of the way now. A touchscreen is good for a few things, but miserable and frustrating for many other things.

This is why we're *finally* seeing phones like the XPRT and Droid Pro which are slowly, and poorly, imitating RIM. When it comes to productivity, the touchscreen only phone is not the best way, or even good way, to interact with your device.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Anonymous Coward]

"You give me a phone that has no numeric pad, and you'll see how quickly it ends up in the closest river."

Ah. Buttons. How quaint...

Well the likes of you are forever doomed to never carry the world's most popular Smart Phone from Apple.

Sad, but its your life.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, right now RIM is the ONLY company that makes a phone useful for business!

Good thing nobody told the enormous number of businesses who are now using iOS devices for everything from email to inventory tracking.

Sheesh. Talk about a reality distortion field. RIM must own the patent rights.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Builder]

Before the iPhone, you were not the customer - the carrier was. Phones were designed to satisfy the carriers. The iPhone changed that in that the manufacturer retained rights over what they (and by extension their users) could do with the phone instead of all of those rights residing with the carrier.

Before the first iPhone left the first shelf, the iPhone had already changed the mobile phone market forever.

Re:Market fragmentation

[nine-times]

Nope. Ultimately the point is that the iPhone lacked a couple of features that most people didn't really use (e.g. MMS) and traded it for everything else working properly for the first time in the history of cell phones.

I'm not going to argue too much (I doubt there's much point, since I'm guessing you just *want* to hate the iPhone), but the battery life of even the original iPhone was quite good in comparison with other smartphones of the time. If you remember, they got slammed for not including 3G, but 3G phones at the time had worse battery life (that's why Apple stayed away from 3G).

It wasn't just that the browser was good. The email client was exceptionally good, and would connect to normal POP/IMAP accounts without trouble or any crazy special modifications. Blackberries still want you to set up stupid extra accounts, a process that's needlessly complicated and error prone. Amazingly, the iPhone was less crash-prone than a lot of phones of the time, including dumb phones. Things like viewing pictures or listening to music on your phone went from being a chore to being a pleasure. Even text messaging was easier and made more sense. Managing your calendar and address book on the device was, for maybe the first time, a realistic proposition, and even before it had ActiveSync support, the over-the-wire sync was more reliable and trouble-free than anything else at the time.

Essentially by making things simpler and more polished, Apple transformed the smartphone into an everyday thing. Before the iPhone, smartphones may have technically worked, but using one was a painfully stupid experience that only geeks wanted to put up with.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry but I don't see how Android developers are fighting a a losing battle here. Apple's IOS has enterprise integration, sure, but it was only JUST fixed so it won't mess up the current enterprise exchange systems. Let's get one thing straight as well. If as an organization I cannot from a single account or server lock down or remotely wipe a device I don't want it. The real race here is for the dual SIM & dual profile phones. Along-side that there needs to be a management server/ platform/ plugin which will allow large organizations to have REAL enterprise integration with Andorid or IOS devices. If RIM can beat these other two innovators to that end then they might have a chance to turn things around. The average person wants to carry around 1 device not two. Once RIM begins to show they understand the consumer and consumer demand begins to rise then developers will starts to knock on RIM's door again and RIM will need to correct its dev kits right quick.

My personal bet is that Android wins this race as they have shown a faster dev. cycle as well as faster innovations. They've understood the consumer-base just a bit better and I think will continue to do so.

Re:Market fragmentation

[DrgnDancer]

Not Android developers. Google's hardware partners. Those guys are fighting increasingly bitter battles on increasingly thin margins.

Re:Market fragmentation

[UBfusion]

I suppose you meant HarmAn and not Harmon - look it up.

Re:Market fragmentation

[heathen_01]

By secure do you mean they wont lose the messages and are therefore able to hand it over to whoever asks for it nicely?

Re:Market fragmentation

[Just Some Guy]

The Playbook was designed to work with your blackberry.

You say that like tethering your shiny, new product to your old, dwindling-market-share product is a good thing. In reality, it narrows your potential market to people who currently own and are still committed to BlackBerry phones. In contrast, you can buy an iPad or Galaxy Tab and start playing with them right away without investing in any of those companies' other products.

It seems like a smart move to me!

It could've been a smart move with RIM was still relevant. It's sure not now.

Re:Market fragmentation

[max99ted]

No by secure he means remote control over the device and it's data as well as the ability to push corporate IT policies to the device.

Re:Market fragmentation

[tehcyder]

I've heard iPads described in a lot of ways... but "toys" isn't one of them.

Neither is "proper computer" except by drooling Mac fanboys.

Re:Market fragmentation

[markdowling]

"In my estimation they need to write apps and put that messaging system it on iOS, on Android, and on Windows Phone 7."

Excellent idea. Just one question. How are you going to get that RIM app through the App Store unscathed, and how are you going to guarantee it will never be blacklisted?

Re:Market fragmentation

[hazydave]

RIM has echoed Nokia in more ways than one. First of all, their phones, like Nokia's SymbianOS phones, look like Android or iOS phones from a few years back. This is pretty typical of a company that doesn't think they can be challenged, and can't react to the reality that they are. After all, if SymbianOS is the only choice, or your company mandates a Blackberry, there's no need to compete. But in the fact of competition and consumer choice, they both lose.

The other way RIM has echoed Nokia is by "Osborning" themselves. Nokia announced last Spring that, basically, every smartphone product they had would soon be obsolete, they wouldn't have replacements until 2012, and they're all be Windows 7 Phone. So is it any great shock that no one wants a Nokia smartphone this year? RIM did similarly... they announced that the current BlackberryOS was going away, to be replaced next year by something based on QNX, with support for Android apps. So maybe that's good.. but who wants a Blackberry this year?

The Playbook is a decent piece of hardware, and QNX is a great basis for a reliable, portable OS. But they shipped so that it's close to useless, unless you're a Blackberry user. What's that all about?

However, Windows 7 Phone is hardly one of "the big three" yet... all Windows phone sales are still dropping, at least as of last quarter -- Windows 7 Phone sales haven't offset the mass exodus from Windows Mobile. Yet, anyway. Certainly, Microsoft has the money to push this for years if they like, just as they did with the X-Box. But they haven't won yet.

And Android "fragmentation" is really something people say when they're iOS or other platform supporters and can't think of any other FUD to report about Android. It's largely a non-issue... and take this from someone jumping between phone and tablet all the time. It just works.

Re:Market fragmentation

[hazydave]

Except, Windows 8 on tablets won't run a real OS. It's not WIndows, it's just the Metro apps. Everything written in Javascript, HTML, CSS, and Silverlight ... much like WebOS, except for that Silverlight part. In fact, MS has been all over the WebOS developers, getting them to switch to Metro.

Microsoft's had their Mobile Moment here, like they did with the Internet. After years of denying that computing was centered around anything but the PC, Microsoft has noticed that it's actually moving to mobile devices. And that they're hopelessly behind. Their shot a keeping is this market is the same shot they always have -- extend the desktop. Only, the desktop won't work on mobile devices -- regular Windows apps are hopelessly large, CPU intensive, and mouse-based. So the key is, create a whole new class of lightweight, mobile-friendly apps for the desktop, tablet, or phone. That's Metro. And it's not the same as Windows... though it will be. Since Windows is, of course, whatever Microsoft says it is.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Pieroxy]

many argue that IE4 was better than Netscape

IE4 was a freaking *revolution* compared to Netscape 4. IE4 was DOM based, meaning you could change pages dynamically in Javascript. It had CSS. Netscape4 was a piece of crap. It crashed every 30 minutes and was just basically static HTML rendering (but for forms)

Re:Market fragmentation

[Fallout2man]

RIM Providing a consistent platform? Have you even LOOKED at their JDK? The EXACT reason there is such a dirth of Apps for Blackberry is BECAUSE of how horrible the device is to develop for. You have to write your entire UI in code, there are no automatic scaling or resource conversion tools like Android provides so you can't design a uniform UI and instead have to design multiple UIs to support any number of their phones. Their JDK was developed on an ancient version of Java and it's never seen a full update to Java 1.5/1.6 which it desperately needs.

The problem is the majority of blackberries are on older devices because RIM allowed carriers to decide when they wanted to enable OS upgrades and because of this it means that fragmentation on Blackberries is actually WORSE than Android. Because Blackberry didn't foresee this and didn't design their JDK so it was simple to query a device for what features it might support. Hell, I have to at a minimum compile two different versions of my Blackberry app, at a bare minimum to run on touch and non-touch devices.

Hell, Google goes out of its way to show you how to make universally usable backwards compatible apps. Do you know of any Blackberry apps that are truly backwards compatible and run on almost all of their recent devices? I know of one, and only one, LogicMail and to be able to create it the lead developer had to implement A CUSTOM BUILD SERVER. Do you think this is anywhere near a sane environment to develop in? If Android is windows 3.1 then Blackberry is ENIAC, still somehow running on its vacuum tubes despite the world having moved on.

I mean the biggest advantage touted of Blackberry OS 6 was that you could develop native apps in Adobe Air, and the Playbook was supposed to originally support Android Apps. I don't think it's a good sign when one of your primary marketed features in a new OS addition is that you can now develop applications for it without having to use the official API. It screams (we're too lazy and/or incompetent to fix our API and app design model entirely and do it right from the start.)

In the end though I couldn't be happier that Blackberry is dying. While Apple's done some shady things, there are some things not even Steve Jobs will do for money and Blackberry's entire reason for continued existence is just that. The only device built from the ground up to enable complete surveillance of all communications to/from it, good riddance I say.

Re:Market fragmentation

[rtfa-troll]

" they do not say "desktop applications" and the reason is that people were assuming that they would make the desktop applications source code portable."

You can run Metro application both on the tablet and on the desktop, so what's your point?

The obvious point should be pretty obvious. You can't run desktop applications on the tablets. Microsoft's main advantage is that it has lots of applications and that upgrading to a new version of the software brings those forward. This means it doesn't.

The less obvious point is that Microsoft are a bunch of lying bastards who love nothing more than to stab their partners in the gut (from behind). There are a whole load of mobile device CEOs (Nokia's, HTC's etc) who have committed to Windows. They didn't do this because they think Windows is doing well. They did this on the basis of a roadmap. The roadmap said "desktop applications will work on Windows tablet making it the only choice for companies with a legacy installed base*". Now it's turning out they were lied to. Which would be a good lesson if it weren't for the fact that they will get a great bunch of benefits from MS as a Golden hello when their home companies finally realise what they've done and kick them out.

* subject to change; this is the proprietary secret of Microsoft and by looking at the occult images on this presentation you hearby agree to handing over your soul if you breach the terms of this agreement.

Re:Market fragmentation

[sourcerror]

They might have been lying, but how much sense would it make to try to run applications that were designed with the mouse and the keyboard in mind on tablets?

Also see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TC1100
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP/Compaq_TC1000

Re:Market fragmentation

[rtfa-troll]

Unfortunately it's critical to tablet acceptance in big companies. You always have a big bunch of legacy applications in any such place, designed years ago; which nobody wants to touch; which still act as the gateway to a load of important data. In the minds of CIOs, and thus tablet and smart device manufacturers looking forward to the remaining big market for tablets, this would have been an important feature.

Personally, I think these needs will, in fact, mostly be handled by remote desktop functions anyway; however you never know.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, North Americans seem very prone to this & I recall a /. post re mo-fone sales where a heading something like _____ conquering the World was followed by citations of USA sales figures.

On it's release the Amiga 500 set a new record for the fastest selling computer model.
When 1.4 million Amigas had been sold in USA & Canada, 700, 000 had been sold in Australia & New Zealand with about 1/15th of the population. Eventually 10 million Amigas were sold. A small part of the desktop market by then but as many sold as all the CPM-80 computers from 10s maybe 100s of manufacturers put together.

  In the early 1990s Commodore Germany called in Amigas from the rest of Europe because C=, by then based in the Bahamas, didn't make enough custom chips to meet demand in much of the world since Amigas weren't selling well in North America & France. And new Amigas were still sold long after 2 of the 30 C:> divisions went into Chapter11 in 1994, then after a year or two were sold again for a few more years. (Also other devices such as Draco & Newtek's Video Toaster peripheral for Macintosh were actually disguised Amigas)

Re:Market fragmentation

[Anonymous Coward]

When Amiga OS was written even 68000 CPUs weren't cheap. Using a 68010 & 68551 MMU would have made it a lot dearer. The Amiga Lorraine was originally planned to be a $300 game console, although Jay Miner designed computer peripherals because he wanted to make a computer & eventually Amiga or C= agreed with him.

It was claimed a MMU would have slowed AmigaDOS. Virtual memory OS QNX seems to be comparably fast though, they said they were inspired by Amiga's "Exec"

In 1987, 68020s were $400 in Australia, single quantity but I think much cheaper in bulk. The A500 came out at $699.

Perhaps Jay could have designed a Hardware Memory Management Unit. Tandy's 6809E CPU based Colour Computers had the SAM chips & thus could run OS-9 (which was much cheaper than for any other platform because Tandy bought a license).

A faulty program could write over other parts of memory. But Amiga had a robust (very slow) disk file system similar to OS/2s HPFS. Whereas if an MsDOS disk had damaged FATS, big problem recovering anything on the whole disk.

I agree with your general principle about "keep pushing" though. Reading recently an account of C='s history it seems they didn't have the money to do anything properly despite their market dominance. I'm left with the suspicion that they were the final victim of the home computer wars they are seen as having won, they just took longer than some other participants to bleed to death from their wounds. The other possibility is that a lot of money DISAPPEARED where shareholders & creditors couldn't find it.

  It's unlikely RIM can ever be as spectacular a opportunity waster as their ex-compatriot Commodore.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Anonymous Coward]

I HOPE Microsoft, Oracle, EDS or IBM aren't interested. Microsoft with a fast, lean, efficient, hard-real-time OS? Difficult but scary to imagine! And the Blackberry centrally manage your staff stuff would suit them too.
I wouldn't assume HP is definitely out. GODgle might buy RIM. (Why did they buy prototypical Android when they could have bought QNX? More importantly GODgle should have bought SUN & then not sued themselves).

There's possibly a lot of companies, especially in Asia, that might buy RIM if it gets cheap enough. And there's rich US companies in related businesses eg AT&T, Facebook, Amazon, Fed Express, TimeWarnerAOLNetscapeCompuserveDCQuantumlink, MacDonalds, Ford/GM/Chrysler. I'm surprised the USA military doesn't mind using an OS from pinko Canada!

Re:Market fragmentation

[Anonymous Coward]

Admit that? Really? Have you USED an iPhone? It's a usability nightmare! The touchscreen only UI is practically useless for doing anything related to text, anything requiring precision, well, anything other than scrolling a list or pinching to zoom is an exercise in futility.

Best UI to wow spectators, perhaps, but certainly not to actually use. Try typing an email on an iPhone and then on a Blackberry. Guess which one will get done faster, and with less frustration?

Dude, we get it already. You drink the BB koolaide. You live in a RIM universe, where everything else is crap which you hate, especially the iPhone. It must be some other thing granting it success... perception, sheeple, blah blah blah. It can't possibly be that it's actually better in some way. Nooooooo!

Wake up dude, for anything other than email and scheduling BB is a disaster area. You do know there are people who aren't tethered to corporate email and calendars 24/7. Don't you? Can you conceive that maybe, just maybe for them all these superior qualities you perceive in RIM might as well not exist?

(That's the basic course in removing your head from your posterior. The advanced one involves you admitting that even for email some people might find the iPhone interface superior to BB. Your tastes are not everyone else's.)

Re:Market fragmentation

[Anonymous Coward]

Android came along, and offered a platform to a wide variety of vendors, where the users had the freedom to do and change almost everything.

No, Google came along and offered a very cheap OS which stood a chance of competing with iPhone to a wide variety of vendors, where the vendors and carriers had the freedom to change almost everything to suit themselves. Unless they wanted to do something which pissed Google off, in which case they discovered how fast Google would say NO SOUP FOR YOU. (soup being early access to new android releases) And the things which tended to piss Google off, I might add, had nothing to do with end user freedoms and everything to do with protecting Google's revenue streams.

For the eleventy billion handset makers without a viable in-house OS (or any in-house OS), Android was like manna from heaven, even with all the strings Google likes to leave attached. It took them from "no visible means of competing with iPhone" to "practical means of competing with iPhone" with very little investment on their part. So of course it got adopted.

User freedoms had nothing to do with Android's success. Besides all the factors laid out above, I guarantee you user demand for Android phones doesn't stem from 'open'. Only the geek market cares, or even knows what it means. Which is why you get plenty of fairly locked-down Android phones.

Re:Market fragmentation

[Dogtanian]

"A lot of US-centric commentators assume that because they didn't do much over there that the formats were a total flop- not so."

But they WERE a total flop. Where are they now?

Stupid, *stupid* argument I've already .pointed out elsewhere that using the "where are they now?" argument, the original PlayStation was a flop because no mainstream companies make games for it any more.

I loved the Amiga, don't get me wrong, but I'm under no illusions. It was clear from at least the late 80's that it was a flop.

On the contrary, you clearly *are* residing under the illusion that the US market reflected the situation worldwide (see comments elsewhere in this thread for more detail). The Amiga was gaining massive popularity in Europe in the late-80s, becoming *the* computer of choice for most hobbyist, home and game users that most people wanted (and eventually bought). It peaked in the early 1990s (sales figures say 1992 was its bestselling year) and enjoyed quite a reign of success before C='s lack of investment and commoditisation in the PC market meant it was overtaken and fell out of favour.

Re:Market fragmentation

[darrylo]

The commented BIOS listing did exist (I used to have a copy), although I think it was an extra cost manual (under $100, IIRC). It came in the usual cloth-covered-heavy-cardboard binder.

Re:Market fragmentation

[rakaur]

For not being "government approved," I sure do see a whole lot of iPads at the Federal campus I work at. Most of them aren't toys brought from home either; a lot of the time the government paid for them and they're in use in labs for research and stuff. I've seen tons and tons of them around the campus with government inventory stickers on them.

QNX phone

[Jack Malmostoso]

I have always been a Nokia person, and after the announcement of WP7 I was looking at RIM to get out a phone with QNX soon enough.
Alas, no sign of such thing, so I guess I'll bite the bullet and get an N9, and keep it as long as possible.

predicted this a few years ago

[electrosoccertux]

I had a curve 8330 and predicted this years ago.
They had a funny policy of only releasing security fixes for their OS, meanwhile leaving out features that should have been in it from the beginning.
Simple things like being able to autosplit text messages, it couldn't do, simply capped you at 160 characters.
Or even being able to adjust the vibrate functionality on a text message notification to buzz once for half a second, had to buy an app for that. Shortest vibrate was 2x 1 second vibrations. Very annoying. Oh, and it couldn't vibrate and ring at the same time for a call. It would start the ringtone and in 5 seconds start the vibrate and kill the ringtone, then just continue vibrating for the duration of the call. Had to buy an app to fix that too.

I don't recall the rest of what they left out. I remember there were at least like 4 things that the OS desperately needed but that they wouldn't put in.

I believe their reasoning was "that way they'll buy the next phone hoping it's better with its newer OS", forgetting the part where if your current customer is annoyed with you, the last thing they're going to do is go buy something else from you. So then I got an android...

Re:predicted this a few years ago

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a curve 8320 and it did everything you described yours not doing. Did AT&T offer the newer OS? Because mine ran the factory OS for about 20 minutes, so I can't speak to those features. The thing that killed my blackberry was the blackberry buzz, this hum during phone calls. Occasionally people on the other end said I sounded like a robot. The interface was clunky, but I find Android to be clunky too. I really miss my blackberry, because it had an average battery life of 3 days and I could place calls/texts over WIFI, essential for the radio dead zone I am in.

Re:predicted this a few years ago

[electrosoccertux]

the 8330 was CDMA aka Verizon

Re:predicted this a few years ago

[sydbarrett74]

the 8330 was CDMA aka Verizon

There's the problem right there. I currently have VZN and am about to drop them. Aside from being the most expensive of the carriers, they're usually dead last with OS updates (iOS/Android/WebOS) and the last to offer various phone models (if they even do).

Re:predicted this a few years ago

[electrosoccertux]

may be right about that....

News at 11?

[Concern]

Like Palm, these people squandered a multi-year lead. They had a lock on a wonderful customer base and supplied the dominant smartphone-precursor device to the world, and failed to follow up on through an inability to execute. What happened to the original scrappy, farsighted RIM, that created the Blackberry platform to begin with? Gone - eaten up in the ugly process of becoming a large incumbent business. Now they live on inertia, and their management can't execute their way out of a paper bag. An old story, and a common one.

It has been obvious for many months that RIM was a dead letter - not just behind in the race but lapped many times by multiple competitors. I mean, the Playbook? Really? If you weren't short RIM, sue your broker.

Re:News at 11?

[postmortem]

Yep, they watched as Google went from 0% market share to number one.

Re:News at 11?

[jimicus]

Only months?

I would say it was obvious from the moment Exchange 2003 SP2 (which introduced Exchange ActiveSync 2.5) was released that Microsoft were serious in driving out BES. Once companies started to license Exchange ActiveSync, it was only ever going to be a matter of time before the need to go out and buy a separate system to manage smartphones was eliminated.

The thing is, Exchange 2k3 SP2 was released in 2005. ISTR that few people really took alternative smartphones seriously until the iPhone; a few people bought Windows Mobile devices but by and large these were a fairly dismal failure. The iPhone wasn't released until the middle of 2007, didn't gain ActiveSync support until iOS 2.0 in 2008 and didn't really take off until the 3G model was released, also in 2008.

Which means that RIM had three whole years to come up with some other idea. They didn't.

Re:News at 11?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google's phone failed. They may develop Android, but they sell no Android devices. Google's market share is zero. Android is No. 1... and even THAT claim is suspect... its like saying Microsoft has the most computer market share because Windows is the most popular OS, but, you see, Microsoft doesn't sell computers, and in the same regard, neither does Google sell phones.

Re:News at 11?

[Anonymous Coward]

they watched as Google went from 0% market share to number one.

And soon they'll begin their journey back down to 0%, as they realize that even they can't afford to dump another $20 billion into propping up Android while getting a pittance in return. As all the other Android device makers scramble to fork their own version or find some other OS, Google will be wondering WTF happened. Then when Motorola folds it's game over, and Google staggers in a daze off to the sunset.

Off course this post will quickly be modded down, but bookmark its URL and revisit it in a few years. It'll be spot on.

Re:News at 11?

[SpectreBlofeld]

Have we already forgotten that Google is buying Motorola?

Re:News at 11?

[catmistake]

The purchase more likely has to do with Moto's patents that may have been used against Android than with Google's need to sell phones.

Re:News at 11?

[Anonymous Coward]

they watched as Google went from 0% market share to number one.

And soon they'll begin their journey back down to 0%, as they realize that even they can't afford to dump another $20 billion into propping up Android while getting a pittance in return. As all the other Android device makers scramble to fork their own version or find some other OS, Google will be wondering WTF happened. Then when Motorola folds it's game over, and Google staggers in a daze off to the sunset.

Off course this post will quickly be modded down, but bookmark its URL and revisit it in a few years. It'll be spot on.

Yes, bookmark your post so we can all reflect what a stupid little shit stain you are, flunkie.

Re:News at 11?

[swb]

a few people bought Windows Mobile devices but by and large these were a fairly dismal failure.

I think that depended on where you were in terms of business size.

I think big businesses probably weren't interested in jumping off, either from a we've-just-figured-this-out perspective or because they had a bunch of money pumped into a BES/Blackberry infrastructure (devices, BES servers, BES software, licenses, etc).

At the small-business level, I think ActiveSync and WinMobile gained a lot of traction in a short amount of time. I saw a number of clients with small Blackberry investments (handhelds and no or only a couple of BES licenses) ditch Blackberry or other proprietary solutions (Treo 650 with Goodlink) for 'free' ActiveSync on WinMobile.

iPhone probably helped push big businesses towards ActiveSync more as internal demand for iPhone support grew with iPhone adoption.

But I agree overall -- RIM made a strategic decision to stick with the data model that routed all data through RIM and BES servers vs. the client/server model ActiveSync uses and this I think killed their longterm growth.

Re:News at 11?

[jonbryce]

In the same way that Microsoft's share of the PC market is zero because they don't make any PCs. There is a far bigger margin in software than hardware, so I don't really see the problem.

Re:News at 11?

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Google has never made a phone. The Nexus series has always been made by third parties - HTC and Samsung.

2) It's absolutely not debatable that Android is on top. Have you seen figures from more recently than a year ago?

3) You're a tool.

Re:News at 11?

[xtal]

My guess is they hired all of the management who tanked Nortel.

Want my advice? Fire anyone who hasn't hit "compile" in 12 months and start over. You can't do any worse and will at least solve the management problems.

The Waterloo corridor needs to be house-cleaned.

Re:News at 11?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice logic. Oh wait, you don't have any. You just believe. I get it. Google is your "team." Well Google doesn't know WTF it's doing. It got suckered into buying Motorola, and is pouring absurd amounts of money into its "free" operating system. All in the hopes of eventually showing you some ads to click on.

Firesale for the best?

[Haedrian]

I think a firesale of the playbook would be the best option. Sell it at a loss, think of it as an investment.

If enough people have enough of them in hand, the app ecosystem starts moving forward. Also relax the 'RIM is for serious people' attitude of the app ecosystem - if I want to upload a "fart app" let me. More apps means more interest.

Re:Firesale for the best?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bring it on. I'm looking for a reasonable tablet for mounting on the wall of my house to control my home automation system.

RIM's problem is they're 3rd place with no new ideas and they're inferior to the competition. They're like Nintendo before the Wii, but Nintendo has some clever people working for it. RIM doesn't seem to have any creative types as they're too focussed on security and business.

Re:Firesale for the best?

[goose-incarnated]

Bring it on. I'm looking for a reasonable tablet for mounting on the wall of my house to control my home automation system.

A 7" Android 2.2 tablet can be had here in SA for R1000 (+-$135). At that price you've got your home automation controller, or your automobile heads up display controller, or your media-viewer controller, or your medical system controller, or your industrial system controller.

In fact, as the prices will only go down (not up), using a tablet as a controller to any other system (even a desktop) makes sense

Re:Firesale for the best?

[TheRaven64]

A 7" Android 2.2 tablet can be had here in SA for R1000 (+-$135)

If you can get them for -$135, I'll take ten thousand of them please.

Re:Firesale for the best?

[goose-incarnated]

Here you go - Knock yourself out :-)

Yeah, I know you were aiming for funny mods, but I was hoping that most people would parse "+-" as "approximately" :-)

Re:Firesale for the best?

[Anonymous Coward]

7', Android 2.3, $139: http://www.dealextreme.com/p/8902-7-capacitive-lcd-android-2-3-tablet-pc-w-wi-fi-agps-camera-hdmi-4gb-telechips-8902-73431
10', Android 2.2, $128: http://www.dealextreme.com/p/ramos-w10-7-0-touch-screen-android-2-2-tablet-pc-w-wifi-hdmi-otg-tf-arm-cortex-a9-4gb-66981
8', Android 2.2, $113: http://www.dealextreme.com/p/8-touch-screen-lcd-google-android-2-2-tablet-pc-w-wifi-camera-tf-arm-v5-349-79mhz-70054
8', Android 2.2, $106: http://www.dealextreme.com/p/8-resistive-screen-android-2-2-tablet-pc-w-wifi-tf-slot-800mhz-2gb-100188

If you're buying ten thousand, I'm sure DealExtreme can give you a better deal.

Re:Firesale for the best?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody would read it like that, though, because "+-" already has a clearly-defined meaning. You were looking for "~" to mean approximately.

Re:Firesale for the best?

[narcc]

RIM's problem is they're 3rd place with no new ideas and they're inferior to the competition.

Inferior? In what way? Right now, neither iOS nor any android phone can do what my blackberry does even half as well. (In terms of messaging, notifications, schedueling, etc.)

They went from first to third really quickly, nov 2010 they slid to #2, and March/April 2011 they hit #3 -- I know the new Bold 9900 is selling really well (it's an amazing device, with nothing like it on the market), and their new QNX phones are slated for early next year.

Put QNX beside iOS and, well, Apple starts to look like RIM from your perspective, doesn't it?

What's with the Canadian dollar comparison?

[Kagetsuki]

From the "Firesale" article: "Keep in mind that these prices are in Canadian dollars" - check the exchange rate, 1USD buys you about 98 cents Canadian. The US dollar is now less valuable than the Canadian dollar. I got the impression the author is still assuming the opposite is true.

Re:What's with the Canadian dollar comparison?

[Anonymous Coward]

You tell people that so they know you're talking about a different currency. You wouldn't talk about a product, tell everyone it's price, and then not tell them what currency that price is in. I got the impression you wanted to point out the USD being 2 cents behind the CD, even though the current exchange rate (from closing on 9-16-11) is 1.00000 US Dollar = 0.97838 Canadian Dollar

Re:What's with the Canadian dollar comparison?

[Anonymous Coward]

1.00000 US Dollar = 0.97838 Canadian Dollar

So the USD is 2.2 cents behind the CD?

Re:What's with the Canadian dollar comparison?

[PremiumCarrion]

1.00000 US Dollar = 0.97838 Canadian Dollar

So the USD is 2.2 cents behind the CD?

Well it depends if they're canadian or US cents

Re:What's with the Canadian dollar comparison?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is last year Canadian dollar was not much weaker and RIM was still doing better.

Re:What's with the Canadian dollar comparison?

[c]

> check the exchange rate, 1USD buys you about 98 cents Canadian.

Technically true. However, even accounting for the exchange rate and ignoring taxes, Canadian sticker prices for most consumer goods are about 20% more than in the US. Even for stuff manufactured in Canada.

Re:What's with the Canadian dollar comparison?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. Check the exchange rate. Today. Tomorrow. And the day after. It will be different each time. Whereas the price in Canadian dollars is unlikely to move in the near future.

Currency markets are highly variable. Product prices much less so. Reminding people that a listed price may not be in the currency they think in is just good practice. Even when the currency is trading today at almost 1:1.

Even with a fire-sale

[goose-incarnated]

I probably won't be buying this anyway.

Re:Even with a fire-sale

[dreamt]

Right. It made sense to buy the Touchpad at fire-sale prices because it was good hardware, had a good web browser, good email and some decent apps. On the other hand, the Playbook doesn't even have a built-in email application that doesn't require tethering to a Blackberry, meaning its pretty much useless as a couch device, and the apps just plain suck.

Here are the problems with RIM

[bogaboga]

1) Perception: With RIM failing to release a touch screen device at most a few months after the iPhone, they were perceived as a dinosaur in making, especially by the young folks. Google did it with HTC and nobody can say it's been a liability to them.

2) Pride: Whenever one would ask them about the looming competition from iOS & Android, they would quickly dismiss those concerns with statements pointing to their 'solid' financial positions at the time. Little did they acknowledge that it would be a matter of time before iOS and Android started to 'eat their lunch', after-all these platforms were not static when it came to development.

3) Strategic vision, or the lack of it: A competent CEO would have [quietly] used the available Android code at the time to develop a 'mock device' for defensive purposes using internal resources. RIM did not. During times like these, they would simply 'out' a mock Android device and the market would probably play along.

4) Being Canadian: This characteristic is proving to be disadvantageous. The same thing happened to NORTEL, a once successful company in its field. Ever wondered why Canada is the only industrialized company without a car synonymous with it? Heck, even once communist Russia still has Lada.

Re:Here are the problems with RIM

[ivoras]

In short, RIM was a one trick pony and refused to change, just like Nokia. They did it to themselves.

Re:Here are the problems with RIM

[Anonymous Coward]

4) Being Canadian: This characteristic is proving to be disadvantageous. The same thing happened to NORTEL, a once successful company in its field. Ever wondered why Canada is the only industrialized company without a car synonymous with it? Heck, even once communist Russia still has Lada.

I agree with your other points, but I think having a automotive industry associated with a country isn't always a good idea. And it is not true that all industrialized countries have a car associated with them. Australia had Holden, but that got gobbled up by GM.

In Canada's case, there is simply no strategic advantage to having a home-grown car industry. It's right next to the U.S. It doesn't have a large enough domestic market to support a car industry without heavy tariffs on car imports from the U.S. and other market distortions. It doesn't have the economies of scale to compete the U.S. prices. So we've gone with the practical alternative: we make U.S. cars instead. Ontario's auto manufacturing sector is huge. We make many models of GM, Ford, and some Honda and Toyota cars/trucks.

That said, Canada has one of the largest auto parts manufacturer in the world, Magna. Very few people outside the country have even heard of them, but their parts end up in many cars.

Canadian companies often have to pick and choose their battlefields -- they have to be careful to strategically move in areas where a U.S. company can't just wipe them out owing to their size advantage. It's happened so many times in the past.

In RIM's case though, it wasn't a problem with economies of scale. I think RIM really did screw up.

Re:Here are the problems with RIM

[dreamt]

Not only that, but when they released a touchscreen device, it was terrible. I'm a software developer and I couldn't figure out how to use the Storm. I hit a button and a the camera appeared in the middle of the (awful) web browser. It was atrocious. I picked up an iPhone and had everything working in like 5 minutes.

Re:Here are the problems with RIM

[Anonymous Coward]

4) Being Canadian: This characteristic is proving to be disadvantageous. The same thing happened to NORTEL, a once successful company in its field. Ever wondered why Canada is the only industrialized company without a car synonymous with it? Heck, even once communist Russia still has Lada.

Corporate Canada is terrible. They are inherently incapable of competing. Sure, they can screw the customer (and are very good at it!), but once at a certain size, they simply can't deliver the right product to the right people for the right price. They *are* fairly skilled at whining to government, whether Conservative or Liberal. For example, in a survey of Canadian CEOs, the majority of them wanted the federal gov to reduce their corporate taxes, and at the same time increase investment in R&D. Hey morons! If you're getting a tax break, YOU should be the ones investing in R&D instead of just pocketing it. It's compete or die, and you losers choose to die and let the scraps be bought up by foreign entities. (and personally receive golden parachutes?)

Some of Canada's major incumbent ISPs started getting serious competition from smaller competitors. Did they improve their service? Did they improve their price? No! They went whining and crying to the CRTC, the telecommunications regulator (who is *supposed* to be on the side of the Canadian citizen) and lobbied for new regulations that would effectively kill the competition. Meanwhile they started throttling and capping everyone using their lines whether they were a direct customer or not, and provided conflicting arguments depending on if they were talking to their shareholders, or to the regulator (and depending on the precise topic, even shifting arguments here).

Re:Here are the problems with RIM

[perryizgr8]

nokia just switched ALL their future devices to fucking windows, and they didn't change. i say they changed TOO MUCH!

Re:Here are the problems with RIM

[bogaboga]

Some of Canada's major incumbent ISPs started getting serious competition from smaller competitors.

That's why I always avoided those big 3 telcos in Canada, though the reason had more to do with inflated bills and sneaky fees. One wonders whether it's some kind of cartel. Is it, do you think?

Re:Here are the problems with RIM

[fermion]

RIM let users do things that no one else could do. RIM gave corporate the control necessary for due diligence and CYA. There is always money to be made in providing products that no one else really makes.

When one thinks of RIM on thinks of efficient email and the best keyboard in the industry. This was the strengths. Yet Playbook was released without a direct email client and without a keyboard. In other words RIM left the playing field in which they had and began to compete using other peoples rules.

I know people who bought RIM phone just to look corporate. This was a good market. RIM could have expanded on this with a phone the was a hybrid consumer/corporate and then a tablet that expanded on this. No one though a phone with a keyboard would compete against apple, yet some Android has models with keyboards.

RIM had the market, but simply did not innovate, like so many other companies. Claiming that this is some unique problem, or that it is a Candadian thing is like saying Compaq failed becasue it was based in Texas, which also has almost no auto manufacturing.

Re:Here are the problems with RIM

[roman_mir]

Ever wondered why Canada is the only industrialized company without a car synonymous with it? Heck, even once communist Russia still has Lada.

- Lada? I thought you said a car.

Re:Here are the problems with RIM

[Anonymous Coward]

Canadian domestic invented cars:

  - Gray-Dort
  - McLaughlin
  - Manic
  - Bricklin
  - Amectran
  - Bombardier NEV

And yes, they're all either old and not made anymore, or experimental, and forgotten. Is that a surprise from a country with population of only 30 million (and that's today, back then the population was much lower, even in proportion to how much lower world population was). How many cars do you know of from Morocco or Algeria?

Lada is about as useful as the brands I listed as well, considering you've not been able to buy or even import any in Canada (Probably all of North America) for over a decade.

BTW: There are plenty of cars which ARE synonymous with Canada, but you'd have to live here to know why. Here's some:

  - Corolla
  - Civic
  - Impala
  - Crown Vic
  - Camaro
  - Caravan

There's others, I just didn't want to make the list several times that size.

Let's also not forget that most of Canada doesn't have roads, and until the 40's what existed often wasn't regularly . That's why Canada invented the snowmobile.

Re:Here are the problems with RIM

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI - NORTEL did not go down from lack of innovation like Rim is about to. NORTEL went down from upper management corruption.

Re:Here are the problems with RIM

[Anonymous Coward]

...
Being Canadian: This characteristic is proving to be disadvantageous. The same thing happened to NORTEL, a once successful company in its field. Ever wondered why Canada is the only industrialized company without a car synonymous with it? Heck, even once communist Russia still has Lada.

Nortel was a victim of shady/fraudulent accounting. It may have never been that successful except on paper.
I do wonder why we don't have a complete car design as we do so well in many areas from aerospace to trains and probably car systems too. I think the Mitsubishi MiEV is heavily based on work done in Canada but I am not 100% positive and too lazy too search on this.

Re:Here are the problems with RIM

[Anonymous Coward]

.... 4) Being Canadian: This characteristic is proving to be disadvantageous. The same thing happened to NORTEL, a once successful company in its field. Ever wondered why Canada is the only industrialized company without a car synonymous with it? ....

You might have mentioned the company that sold the 2nd computer to sell a million units (Vic 20) & the biggest selling computer model ever (Commodore 64) http://www.commodore.ca/

Perspective of Carl who went from Commodore to Apple but doesn't seem to realize C= sold various business computers well before the Vic 20 ;- http://obligement.free.fr/articles_traduction/itwsassenrath_en.php (More readable if you DON'T let GODgle translate it ;-) )

the heavyweights in mobile

[Anonymous Coward]

It's clear Apple and Google are the two heavyweights in mobile operating systems. The market doesn't really have room for a lot of other choices: too much fragmentation leads to not having the apps that consumers want.

In the pre-smartphone pre-tablet days, this wasn't as big a deal. A dumbphone doesn't really depend on that software ecosystem, so there was room for many players. But as the transition to smartphones and tablets accelerates, the pain on companies like RIM and Nokia is cranked up increasingly high. They are unable to compete with the heavyweight American operating system companies, and their former market is shrinking year over year, squeezing them from both directions.

The only viable option for RIM is probably to adopt Android to get the software ecosystem that comes with it, since you can't adopt iOS, it's the only real choice they have.

Nokia adopted WP, but that's a pretty poor choiice and it remains to be seen if they can survive there.

Interesting times

Re:the heavyweights in mobile

[narcc]

The only viable option for RIM is probably to adopt Android

This is the quickest way for them to become irrelevant. What a stupid idea.

Name

[pingbat]

Surely the biggest problem is the name! Red Dwarf, corporate brown-nosing etc...

i have to admit

[brezel]

that i never understood their business model in the first place. what does RIM aside from undesirable vendor lock-in provide, that cannot be achieved with normal means such as imaps and smtp with ssl/tls? i (like many other people) have been using encrypted email services for decades.

Re:i have to admit

[jimicus]

I didn't understand this myself for ages, it's only in the last couple of years I've figured it out.

The selling point (not just with RIM but with any smartphone/sync combination) is a lot more than just email. There's a whole lot of little things which on their own sound utterly inconsequential - but in actual fact add up to enough that for many people they represent real value:

1. Push email. I know about the IMAP IDLE command. Few smartphones implements this; those that implement IMAP in any form frequently do such a ham-fisted job of it you wonder why they bother.
2. Calendar sync. What exactly do you carry around with you that can vibrate or make noises on schedule to remind you of an appointment and can keep your appointments in sync with a central server so others looking to schedule meetings can ensure they choose a convenient time? You and I have maybe a couple of meetings a week, usually at fixed times and they're often not terribly consequential. Missing one is fairly unlikely (because they're at fixed times) and usually of little consequence. The sales manager (whose job basically consists of "Go to meeting, talk about our product and try to sell it, lather rinse and repeat up to several times a day every day for months on end") doesn't have that luxury.
3. Contacts sync. You and I lose our contacts list on our phone, it's mildly annoying but we're probably organised enough to remember to sync it with out computer occasionally so we can always reload it. Worst case, we lose a handful of contacts - but we're probably not using the phone enough to care about a handful of ultimately inconsequential numbers. The people who are buying these phones: A. aren't that organised and B. depend so heavily on their contacts list that without it they are in serious trouble. Salesmen are again the most obvious example of this.

Arguments 2 and 3 also go some way to explaining the continued popularity of Outlook/Exchange. You care to explain to the sales director that as his laptop has been stolen, the information about upcoming meetings and his contact list has gone with it? Bearing in mind that as soon as you've left the room, that sales director is going to have a very difficult meeting with his manager. I guarantee you the second thing out of his mouth (straight after "Oh dear, it looks like the meetings at which I was hoping to secure £several million worth of sales are scuppered, because I can only remember details of one or two of them. We're going to look pretty bad when I don't even show up.") will be "This never happened at my last company where we had Exchange. If I lost a phone or laptop there, it would be replaced and the replacement would get all this information."

Re:i have to admit

[lucmove]

Ah, yes. Android does all that through GMail. Email, calendar and contacts. Excellent! And all your business data is belong to Google. Cos you know, privacy is dead. Schmidt said so. Thanks, but no, thanks.

Re:i have to admit

[Anonymous Coward]

You're both talking different scenarios. If this is a personal phone and you choose to go with gmail, then, yes, you can get all that functionality from Android. But if you're working in a corporate environment where you *must* use Exchange/Outlook, then, no, you can't get all that functionality from Android and BB is still the best option (although I wonder for how much longer...).

Re:i have to admit

[roblarky]

I'm confused, I have an Android phone and tablet and I'm able to do all of these things, we use Exchange (not via GMail).

Re:i have to admit

[jonbryce]

And you should read the post before getting out the flamethrower.

"The selling point (not just with RIM but with any smartphone/sync combination)"

Re:i have to admit

[vux984]

The GMail app does this perfectly.

Did it occur to you that not having to put your data in RIMs hands was PRECISELY the thing that made RIM successful and desirable in enterprises.

Functionality wise they are the same. Security wise they aren't even in the same LEAGUE.

Comparing gmail to BES from a security standpoint is like asking why the president drives around in a motorcade run by the secret service... doesn't he know yellow cab can get him from point-A to point-B too?

Re:i have to admit

[Anonymous Coward]

This is exactly why I chose BB. I do not want to rely on a cloud service to get a central location for email, contacts and calendar. In addition, I can safely close the firewall port to Exchange from the outside world and still get my email while mobile.

Re:i have to admit

[Anonymous Coward]

Keyboards...
Easier centralized management:
The phone never actually connect to the Exchange server, they go thru RIM's system, so this gives administrators a layer of abstraction that phones using OMA don't have. For example, i can upgrade or move the Exchange infrastructure (new host name or add hosts, for example) w/o having to touch a BB. Everyone with an iPhone or Andriod or WinMo will have to toch their phones.
The ability to *truly* brick/wipe a phone and completely delete all information off it without ever having to touch it.
Policies on phone for software, usage, and many other options.
Super-easy configuration of said phones including one minute provisioning where all policies and capabilities are pushed out the phone easily. All the user has to do is enter a password.
Ability to backup the phones easily.
Ability to push out software and firmware updates over the air.
Other corporate buying programs.
Cheaper data plans than iPhones.
More secure email that with just OMA.
A lot of us are still using BB's and they work quite well. They work nicely along side iPhones. For some reason Andriods seem to be the most problematic across our heterogeneous Exchange networks (about 100 of them)

Re:i have to admit

[badkarmadayaccount]

Sounds like a job for a single android app.

Re:i have to admit

[jimicus]

You don't even need an app; recent versions of Android integrate just fine using Exchange ActiveSync (which gives you all of this without the need for RIM's product) as does the iPhone.

This is why RIM are watching their business jump off a cliff - they only had one major selling point which was the Exchange integration, by all accounts their phones were nothing special beyond this. Now everyone and his dog has Exchange integration, suddenly it's like "Well big deal. I've can have that with Android, I can have that on an iPhone and with them I don't need to buy anything else; why should I buy the very expensive Blackberry Enterprise Server to plug into Exchange?". RIM haven't really thought of an answer to that one, nor have they come up with some other product I might like to buy instead.

That in itself isn't the joke. Life moves on, technology moves on and if your product doesn't move with it, you're screwed. That should be fairly obvious to anyone who's been in IT for more than 20 minutes. What the big joke is that Microsoft were fairly obviously heading in this direction with ActiveSync two full years before anybody released a phone with ActiveSync support. RIM should have noticed that and said "hang on... if anyone buys into this, where does it leave us?" and it doesn't look like they did.

No apps? RIM's fault.

[nloop]

For years RIM charged $200 to register as a developer before you could make any apps. Just a few months ago they announced they are "waiving" the fee.

You spent years "waiving" potential developers to other platforms. No one wants to spend $200 on a weekend hobby, and that's what most apps are.

Re:No apps? RIM's fault.

[bogaboga]

For years RIM charged $200 to register as a developer before you could make any apps. Just a few months ago they announced they are "waiving" the fee.

Because at the time, they were the 'only game in town', simple as that.

good riddance

[mapkinase]

Stop competing for the same market demographics. Do something for niches, people like me, for example, who hate touch screens, who like real, 3D, buttons, who don't want to pay for $30/mon data plans (ok, that's not about manufactures, but I am in a rant mode).

Smartphone is the phone that does not have to go online for every simple thing, that's the opposite of "smart".

Re:good riddance

[TheRaven64]

You realise Nokia sells about 300 different models of phone that meet your listed requirements, right? Your complaint is like objecting to a sports care manufacturer, on the grounds that they don't make anything for off-road use.

Re:good riddance

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop competing for the same market demographics. Do something for niches, people like me, for example, who hate touch screens, who like real, 3D, buttons, who don't want to pay for $30/mon data plans (ok, that's not about manufactures, but I am in a rant mode).

Smartphone is the phone that does not have to go online for every simple thing, that's the opposite of "smart".

You forgot to tell us to get off your lawn.

Or perhaps that part of your post got garbled when your wife picked up the landline and interrupted your dialup connection?

Encryption Keys Started this

[Anonymous Coward]

When RIM folded and provided keys to governments so the traffic could be monitored, that's when I stopped working on anything related to RIM.

It didn't matter than those governments were unlikely to have a chance to see my data, the fact that RIM management would fold so quickly is the issue.

RIM had the best, secure, platform and still does, but since they give the keys to governments - FORGET IT. Not interested anymore. Secure communications are demanded by my users, not sometimes secure, when conditionA, conditionB, conditionC are met. - ALWAYS.

The other platforms provide that level of security already + lots of apps.

Re:Encryption Keys Started this

[sarhjinian]

Just a point: if you use BES, you have the keys, not RIM and not the government. BIS is a crapshoot, but no worse than what many people do with non-BB devices.

But RIM did handle the whole thing terribly.

Re:Encryption Keys Started this

[johanw]

And the other platforms can use standard protocols. I use my own secure mailserver, and my Nokia and Android phone can easily connect to it.

The real problem with RIM

[nurb432]

Is management. And their inability to adapt to changing markets.

Its often a sign you got too large for your britches and/or became complacent, but either way in the IT market you adapt or die out to make room for someone who does.

Lack of apps?

[Ant P.]

Gee, I wonder if the >$100 "developer license" with its 40-volume EULA and triplicate forms had anything to do with that...

Re:Lack of apps?

[X10]

and the lack of support one you filled out the forms. Most apis, even the basic ones, are only available to RIM, not to developers. How can they expect people to develop apps for BB if the tools are kept from the developers?

Re:Lack of apps?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

You mean like it was three years ago? The dev tools have been free for even longer than that - though signing your app did carry a one time fee - first 200, then 100, then 20, now nothing. As of last year they no longer charge for submitting to app world which makes them cheaper than iOS's 99$ annual.fee and required OSX license.

Seems to me what they need to fix is the erroneous perceptions people have around the entire process.

Re:Lack of apps?

[fizzup]

Seems to me what they need to fix is the erroneous perceptions people have around the entire process.

This should be an object lesson for any device manufacturer. Developers look once when it's new, and never look again. I honestly assumed that RIM was an expensive platform for development until I read your post. I still think that it probably sucks, though. It is hard to shake the kind of hate-on that RIM had for developers in the early days. The white-knuckle, cold-dead-hands reductions in cost that you list for code signing says to me that RIM really thinks I should pay for access to their market.

Re:Lack of apps?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

They probably did, until they had some serious competition. They've actually been making some significant strides in developer relations - but there is plenty of room for improvement (the biggest gripe I have is lack of detailed developer-level release notes for new/updated SDKs...). The various SDKs are all free for download, and are all well-documented.

HTML5 developers actually have it pretty good - easier testing, simpler (but capable) open source API, lots of examples.

It's not as bad as most people tend to make out. If you're a Java developer, the biggest problems are:
- the phone platform is still tied to J2ME (though with the new QNX phones on the horizon that will no longer be true)
- the lack of UI tools. (You've got to be comfortable making a UI programmatically, which a lot of folks aren't. I tend to like it better, but I understand that I'm not the norm these days).
- the biggest challenge is knowing how to find the information - there is a TON of free, RIM-provided documentation for the BB platform; but it's not discoverable.
- required to use eclipse - which is a personal preference, but I liked netbeans better...

On the other hand, you have APIs that let you do almost anything you can imagine on the phone. iPhone doesn't come close; and Android does provide most of the same capability but it's also not as straightforward to implement the same capabilities.

Re:No apps? RIM's fault.

[Anonymous Coward]

Was that a one time fee or is it yearly? Early Apple apps devs have paid more then 200 USD since.

Not a standalone device

[msobkow]

My understanding is that you have to have both a Playbook AND a Blackberry to use the Playbook online. Forcing people to buy two devices instead of one was a very, very stupid approach.

Re:Not a standalone device

[Anonymous Coward]

My understanding is that you have to have both a Playbook AND a Blackberry to use the Playbook online. Forcing people to buy two devices instead of one was a very, very stupid approach.

False. You don't understand much. Playbook runs on wifi.

IF you have a blackberry, you can pair your blackberry to the playbook with encrypted bluetooth and easily allow your playbook to use your blackberry's data plan.

Unlike Apple which prevents you from sharing your iphone data plan with an ipad. (If you jailbreak your iphone, it is possible to do that, but Apple will probably stop you with the next firmware release)

Re:Not a standalone device

[Anonymous Coward]

Your understanding is wrong.
Playbook works just fine without a BlackBerry over WiFi. It has access to any web-based email system, just no on-device support for Email/Calendar at this point.
Currently I believe that currently the PlayBook can use the WiFi hotspot features of an Android phone/iPhone for Internet access while you are away from a WiFi network.
During the setup of a playbook, one of the first things you do is set up a WiFi network for it to pull in updates; after that it allows you to set up a bridge to a BlackBerry phone for email/calendar/bbm functionality.

For what it's worth; I do have a Playbook connected to a BlackBerry, and it does continue to work without the phone in range, I just don't have access to my corporate email/calendar/network resources.

Re:Not a standalone device

[msobkow]

WiFi does not cut it. I'm talking about direct access to the Telco wireless, not piggybacking on someone's WiFi station.

Re:Not a standalone device

[goose-incarnated]

Forcing people to buy two devices instead of one was a very, very stupid approach

Your understanding is wrong. Playbook works just fine without a BlackBerry over WiFi. It has access to any web-based email system, just no on-device support for Email/Calendar at this point. Currently I believe that currently the PlayBook can use the WiFi hotspot features of an Android phone/iPhone for Internet access while you are away from a WiFi network. During the setup of a playbook, one of the first things you do is set up a WiFi network for it to pull in updates; after that it allows you to set up a bridge to a BlackBerry phone for email/calendar/bbm functionality.

For what it's worth; I do have a Playbook connected to a BlackBerry, and it does continue to work without the phone in range, I just don't have access to my corporate email/calendar/network resources.

How exactly is the GP wrong? PB has no way to go online without some other device to piggyback on. You still need to get another device to actually get online!.

Re:Not a standalone device

[Anonymous Coward]

Untrue. It can use any device which exposes the bluetooth DUN profile to piggy back on its internet connection. Basically this is every phone except the iPhone, but that has wifi hotspot anyway..

I don't understand why people are so willing to pay for an extra data contract and give even more of their money to carriers...

Re:Not a standalone device

[jjetson]

The PlayBook doesn't need another device to get online. It just needs WiFi, you can connect to home WiFi no problem. Now if you're talking about it not having a 3G/4G connection I'd argue that no one really cares and the sales figures of iPad and other tablets 3G/4G versions would back up my argument 100%.

Re:Not a standalone device

[goose-incarnated]

The PlayBook doesn't need another device to get online. It just needs WiFi, you can connect to home WiFi no problem.

Well, that kind of attitude is why RIM is spiralling the drain. It can't use internet unless you already *have* internet? Your home WiFi is useless to a portable computer that would get used on a train, while travelling, or even at the supermarket. Very Smart Indeed.

Now if you're talking about it not having a 3G/4G connection I'd argue that no one really cares and the sales figures of iPad and other tablets 3G/4G versions would back up my argument 100%.

Really? The WiFi-only iPad was available for less than a month before the 3G tablet was released. Have you the sales figures for both versions?

Re:Not a standalone device

[Anonymous Coward]

WiFi does not cut it.

That is an interesting point of view. It hasn't stopped many millions of ipad users from buying wifi-only ipads.

Look, there is a market for wifi tablets and a market for cellular tablets.

But Apple tries hard to block you from sharing your iphone data connection with an ipad.

RIM tries hard to make it easy for you to share your blackberry data connection with a playbook.

Re:Not a standalone device

[oPless]

Odd, I bought a 3G iPad for the GPS :)

Apple allows you to tether to your iPhone via wifi these days too http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3574

Alas it *doesn't* allow your iPad to do the same thing, frustratingly.

Re:Not a standalone device

[msobkow]

RIM's big selling point for the Blackberry was that business users could access their email anywhere they had a cell signal. But with the WiFi-only Playbook, that market is not served.

Sales reps, technicians, and other people need access no matter where they are, not just when they're in the office. When they're in the office or at home, they can use their computer. Sure I can understand the appeal of curling up on the couch with a WiFi device, but it doesn't server the business need that was RIM's strongest market.

Re:Not a standalone device

[shutdown -p now]

Given that both major phone platforms today support 3G sharing via WiFi, I don't see why it's a problem for a tablet to be WiFi-only. Heck, I don't even bother with 3G tablets these days because they're more expensive for absolutely no reason - why would I want yet another plan and yet another SIM card when my phone is always in my pocket, anyway?

Re:Not a standalone device

[Anonymous Coward]

My understanding is that you have to have both a Playbook AND a Blackberry to use the Playbook online.

My understanding is you only need both to use RIMs secure email service & messaging.

  Forcing people to buy two devices instead of one was a very, very stupid approach.

I'd actually rather not pay much extra for 3G capability in a tablet. For me that is forcing me to buy 2 WAN devices because I don't want to carry a pad all the time I want mobile internet access. I would rather squash the internet in a smaller box I can tether to various devices, & perhaps buy 1 new small box to use a different service eg 4G. But so far RIM's Temple Of Doom bridge apparently can't carry fast traffic or vehicles trailing attachments etc.

Re:No apps? RIM's fault.

[nloop]

At the time? We're talking through the end of 2010. A little slow to react!

Lack of security

[Anonymous Coward]

RIM used to have a secure system, but governments forced them to reveal their data, so now they are just an alsoran with nothing to distinguish them anymore.

Re:Lack of security

[narcc]

This is total Bullshit. Go check your facts, troll.

Development Environmemt

[Anonymous Coward]

I develop for BB, and it's a bloody nightmare compared to Android and others. Just check out what you have to do to connect with a HttpConnection.. Is it wifi? Apn? BES? BIS? And there is nothing in the framework to abstract such a simple thing away.. And if you read their forums it's full of developers basically giving up or complaining.

Now I know the development environmemt isn't everything, but I think it has a big impact on the crappy app worls for bb.

Re:Development Environmemt

[jjetson]

I develop for BB and Android as well and I completely disagree. BB is far easier to develop for if you know what you're doing. BB has excellent APIs that you can do almost anything with. Android still lacks basic stuff like Calender integration. While you can still acheive what you want there's nothing to say it will work in future versions of the OS and directly dealing with the databases is ridiculous. I'd have to say that there's as much complaining in Android related development threads as I've seen in BB ones.

There are a lot of issues

[iONiUM]

I own a PlayBook. The first thing I wanted to do with it was connect to my work computer (Windows) and remote desktop. Well, PB doesn't support PPTP or L2TP/IPSec, so that won't work. Furthermore, it doesn't have a remote desktop app, further making this impossible. I then tried to connect it to a BlackBerry (I don't own one, but a co-workers does), and it failed. The only way to make it work was to re-flash the device with the same ROM (not a new one.. I don't know why). So, then I could read e-mail, right? Yes, but you can't open attachments... wtf?

I think the above is a good summary of the overall impression people get from BlackBerry. Have you ever tried to use their desktop software for syncing music/etc to their phones? It's ridiculously awful. I actually laughed out loud when I saw it, as it took about 5 minutes just to detect the device and communicate with it. It just leaves a really bad taste in the mouth.

Which brings me to my last point, which is the development environment. For PB, it's not existent.. it's command line. Sorry, but that's not acceptable. I mean, sure, when you first release the device, but now there's still nothing? At least make an eclipse plug-in. For BlackBerry.. well, I've made a few apps for 4.6.0 and above, and it was tragic at best. There are many simple things that are just not available (some graphical markup language anyone?) - the fact that I have to write my GUI in code just reeks of outdated. And then something like connecting to the internet requires re-implementation of connection detection every time.. there's nothing built into the framework to just abstract dealing with the connection away.

I've read quite a few BB developer forums, and they are all fairly negative, or very frustrated. How can they expect a great app eco-system, when they obviously have absolutely no care in the world for their developers?

Re:There are a lot of issues

[transporter_ii]

I was given a Blackberry a few years back when working as a subcontractor for a company that required them.

I wanted to set up a couple of alarms on it. It could set exactly *one* alarm. Want more, tough crap. The only way I could get multiple alarms was by downloading an app. The alarm app I picked stated it was free, but after I got it installed, stated that it would work for 30 days and then I had to register it...for something like $30.00. So much for being free.

During the same time, I got the cheapest prepaid phone I could find for personal use. I think it was a Nokia. You could set five (or ten) different alarms on it.

A 30.00 phone vs. a 200.00 phone...and it did what you wanted. The Blackberry was usable, but I can't for the life of me understand what all the love was about. They just weren't all that.

Re:There are a lot of issues

[Anonymous Coward]

I was given a Blackberry a few years back when working as a subcontractor for a company that required them.

I wanted to set up a couple of alarms on it. It could set exactly *one* alarm. Want more, tough crap.

Or, you could read a bit. Why don't you try www.justfuckinggoogleit.com?

You can have millions of events on your blackberry calendar. Those events can be recurring or non-recurring. Every one of those events can have an alarm.

Re:There are a lot of issues

[transporter_ii]

You can have millions of events on your blackberry calendar.

Why yes you can. But this sure the hell isn't obvious if someone sticks a blackberry in your hand. Thus all the alarm clock apps for 25.00 and 30.00 a pop? I mean, why just give people functionality, when you can sell more apps and make more money?

From crackberry.com discussing this issue:

For those of you who have overlooked this functionality, don't worry, you are far from the only one who has done this.

Really, I think every single cell phone I have ever had except for the Blackberry, you could set multiple alarms...and it was easy and obvious how to do it...with no need to justfuckinggoogleit.

http://crackberry.com/quick-tip-setting-multiple-alarms-your-blackberry-smartphone

Re:There are a lot of issues

[Anonymous Coward]

> PB doesn't support PPTP or L2TP/IPSec

Is this a company policy? If not, why do you think you need that? Just run RDP directly. Buy a lottery ticket every time you remote in, and you can rest assured you will win the lotto several times before you get MITM'ed from 'naked' RDP, if ever.

I see this a "we only run RDP through a VPN" stance lot, and it always puzzles me (except when VPN is already there for other reasons).

RDP, since at least protocol 5.1 (2003 R2), has had built-in support for FIPS-140 and more recently, TLS. Why run a tunnel within a tunnel? Because one weak (requiring unrealistic attack circumstances against a stock configuration RDP setup) exploit was posted one time on some security blog 5 years ago?

Re:There are a lot of issues

[Anonymous Coward]

The native SDK for playbook is QNX Momentics, which is Eclipse. Not sure why all the talk of it being command-line?

Their real problem?

[goose-incarnated]

The smartphone market was (until Android appeared) one of status - people boasted their BB's 'cos it made them look and feel important. Enter iPhone, which did achieved the same functionality for people, only better. Android entered to clean up the bottom end of the smartphone market (those who want the functionality but can't afford the exclusivity) and even make tiny inroads into the upper end.

There is no space for RIM in this world, unless they focus on taking on *either* iPhone or Android in their respective markets. WP7 hasn't a chance either, but at least they're focused - they're going after the Android space, not the "status and exclusivity" space. RIM doesn't know what to focus on, and they're (unsurprisingly) doing a bad job of going anywhere.

Re:Their real problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you have a full BINGO card there. RIM used to be a status symbol, one that executives troddled around with, and then it trickled down to the people who needed it for technical reasons, to tether them to the office. Then it became the 'must have' for everyone wanting to look important. Apple came along and created a niche for the early adopters and status seekers in the consumer space.
Soon the iPhone became the necessary status symbol for everyone, from the executive space to the consumer space. Those who can't afford, or don't want to be in the Apple camp buy Android. RIM touts their 'security' card, but in reality we all know that there is no inherant security in anything and the biggest flaw in any security model is adding human beings into it. Just as we would all love to buy one appliance that bakes bread, makes toast and coffee, washes the dog and cleans our toothbrushs, all while displaying HDTV, it just doesn't exist so we buy the best appliance we can afford that fits our needs, or we splurge and go for the status symbol.

Since the BB is no longer a status symbol, and NOBODY wants to see your 'new blackberry'(except for someone else who owns a blackberry and is stuck with it due to corporate policy) it is going away in a big hurry. five or ten years ago if someone owned a blackberry for business use they likely wouldn't buy a personal PDA type device, why bother. If they did they'd likely buy themselves a BB because they are used to using it.
Today most people who use a BB for their work lives will go out and buy an iPhone or an Android device for personal use, to get themselves away from the archaic BB product.

There is no attractiveness left in the BB from the USER point of view. The devices are difficult to use because their interfaces are antiquated, screens are small, and the supporting software is garbage. The only attractiveness left is in the back end, and you can't drive acceptance of a platform that doesn't work for the end user.

Problems with RIM and the Playbook from an owner

[quetwo]

I ended up with a Playbook from winning a contest just about a year ago. I was super excited to get one -- all the specs were great and it seemed like a winning device. The conference I was at had only one, and they kept it behiend a glass case. They wouldn't let any of the devs touch it, but they handed out Playbook Emulators (software) that you could build apps against. Over the course of the next 4 months, the API changed soo many times, and the Emulator was so buggy that it was almost pointless to develop against it.

From that point, it was 6 months before I got the real device in the mail.

A lot of promises that made the device a best-seller still haven't materilized.

  - It was said it was going to ship with the ability to run Android and old BBx Apps.
  - It was said that devlopers could develop apps in native QNX. Such an SDK has still not been released, except for a few select partners (I've been a BB developer for YEARS, and thought I could make this list... I guess not).
  - There were BB phones that were supposed to be released immediatly after the Playbook that ran QNX. This would allow devs to target one SDK / App development model for both phones and tablets. We have not seen anything about a new QNX phone yet.
  - It was said that there would be a version that had GSM/CDMA capabilities coming... It's been bumped off their road map. You can either use WiFi, or tether to an existing BB phone.
  - There is no 'smartphone' stuff in there. No Calendar, no Mail, nothing. You can tether to an existing BB phone and emulate some of those things, but if your phone is off, or out of range you loose those apps. Who pays hundreds of dollars and can't check your mail on a device!
  - There has been a real lack of business apps. Still no SSH app, still no RDP app. No email, no word processor, etc. These are the things people will notice when they check out the devices in the store. If the developer eco-system wasn't supporting these types of apps, RIM should have whipped them up to fill in the gaps. They didn't, and they still don't exist.
  - They've scared off most developers because of the way they run their program. You have to register your device with your program and download a developer 'token' that is only good for 30 days. Every 30 days you need to re-register your device to be able to deploy apps to it. Additionally, you have to bake those tokens into your app, which means that your apps can really only be tested for 30 day windows. To get your tokens approved it can take DAYS. Submitting stuff to the App World is a similar process as Apple, except you get more feedback when your apps get rejected.

Now, all that being said, hardware wise I think the device is REAL nice.. One of the best tablet screens I've ever encountered. I love the gestures (the borders of the device are touch sensitive, and most of the gestures you use with the device orgionate from there). The web browser is really solid, and the multi-tasking works very well. Because of the screen, it's one of the few devices I can read a full newspaper on without having a lot of strain on my eyes. The OS is also beautiful too -- and much better laid out than iOS or Android. The battery lasts about 8 hours of continious use, which is great for a device like that.

That being said -- I don't use it every day. I don't even use it every week because the lack of apps to do my work. At this point, it is a glorified web browser and that's about it. Give me the ability to do my day-to-day job (like I can on the iPad or Samsung tab), and it would be the device to carry around. But not until then.

Re:No apps? RIM's fault.

[Anonymous Coward]

For years RIM charged $200 to register as a developer before you could make any apps. Just a few months ago they announced they are "waiving" the fee.

False. RIM has always made full documentation and SDKs available for free. They even give away software emulators for different blackberry models.

Unlike Apple, RIM never tried to restrict what applications your run on your phone, or how you sell/distribute your application.

Once you write an blackberry application, you can sell it any way you choose.

Now, RIM may have been charging to register & sell apps through blackberry app world, but that is completely different.

Blackberry applications have been around for many years, long before apple. What apple did well was to get your credit card information FIRST, so that it's easy to sell you more applications.

Re:No apps? RIM's fault.

[TerminaMorte]

Because at the time, they were the 'only game in town', simple as that.

And we see how well that has worked out for them.

Companies need to realize that they need the developers and not the other way around. If you treat them like shit, they will jump ship as soon as a competitor comes out (instead of, say, developing for both platforms).

The playbook screeen is appaling

[xaccrocheur]

Wow, this tablet's design suck in a way I would not have though possible. The useless black surrounding space seem bigger than the actual viewing area, what is this ? Joe People wants flush "full screen" screens, and if you have to put the HW *behind* the screen, making the tablet a tad bigger, so be it ! Nobody minds having a thickish tablet, it makes it somehow sturdier (you *will* sit on it at some point) but everybody, when asked "what do you think about this empty area around the screen of your laptop / phone / tablet / TV / GPS / Gizmo" ? reply "it sucks". 100%. E-ve-ry-bo-dy. Well not everybody, 5% actually say "oh I didn't notice, I don't mind" but they are morons who don't know how to spell "ergonomics" and add "bars" to their Internet Explorer 6. Put stickers on windowpanes. Take 2.5 parking spaces. Morons. Apparently some work as HW designers. (oh and that handing the encryption keys to every cop who asks nicely? Way to go RIM, it's not like your loyal customer base actually trusted you with their data confidentiality)

Re:The playbook screeen is appaling

[Anonymous Coward]

The bezel is touch sensitive, and used for gestures.

And as has been pointed out many times, they didn't hand over keys. They couldn't. Rumour is they assisted in brokering trade deals with the Canadian Gov't.

A bad quarter

[Linegod]

RIM has a bad quarter, and the glee at which people post its demise is amusing. Look at the actual financials, their assets, and the market share. Adjust for an expanded market and you get less of a 'doom and gloom' picture.

And the Playbook is a fine piece of kit - and will only get better when the NDK is released. Could it have more apps? Yes. Is there anything wrong with the device itself. No.

Re:A bad quarter

[DJCouchyCouch]

When was the last time an abandoned platform suddenly resurged into success through a series of late-arriving updates?

Re:A bad quarter

[Linegod]

Abandoned is a bit melodramatic. But how about Apple? Or Unix? Or Nintendo?

Re:A bad quarter

[jon3k]

It may be one bad quarter of financials, but they've been hemorrhaging market share since the introduction of the iPhone. The death of a platform isn't something that happens overnight.

Re:A bad quarter

[Linegod]

The market has grown. Subscribers are actually up, as well phone sales.

Re:A bad quarter

[Anonymous Coward]

Does "Ajdust for an expanded market" mean "squint, go cross-eyed, and tilt your head so you can see someone else's fantasy?"

Re:A bad quarter

[grub]

RIM has had a few bad quarters.

They still show profit but it's down almost 50% over last year and that's with a 40% increase in subscribers. They're slashing prices on everything to keep relevant, they can't keep cutting prices much more, it's an unsustainable situation they're in.

Also it's interesting to note that Apple sold almost as many iPads in the quarter as RIM sold actual smartphones. While Jim & Mike tout the "we shipped 200K Playbooks" mantra, they aren't telling how many are actually in the hands of consumers. 200K shipped in a quarter where Apple sold 9.2M iPads: ~102K per day.

I've never looked at RIM's development system (Xcode user) but from reading comments on people who use both, Xcode is light years ahead.

Sucks to see RIM dying like this, I like that they are a Canadian outfit. But I'm not going to dump my time and money into a platform on life support just because they're headquartered here.

Re:A bad quarter

[jon3k]

Yes the market exploded, while RIM's market (and mind) share percentage has shrank. Basically the other smartphone platforms are dramatically outpacing RIM's growth. Do you not see this as a problem?

Re:A bad quarter

[Linegod]

Of course it is a problem. But it is not the end of the world. They have laid out a transition to QNX-based phones, and in the middle of than transition right now. Did they make mistakes last year with the pre-7 phones (underpowered, stagnant interface)? Yes they did, and this is a major part of their drop in overall market share.

This does not seem unrecoverable to me though.

Re:A bad quarter

[MachineShedFred]

You just told us the same bullshit that RIM's executive team has been saying for years. Don't worry about how we're dropping like a stone in terms of market share, we've got piles of cash on hand!

I want you to think back to any game of Monopoly that you played. What happens to the player with a small amount of the shit cheap properties and a huge mountain of cash? It's only a matter of time.

Granted, this isn't a perfect analogy, because you can't add squares to the Monopoly board like you can in the tech world. I just don't see RIM even trying that hard right now. Cash is great, but expanding revenue wins, and they don't have it.

Re:A bad quarter

[jon3k]

I definitely agree with you, this isn't the end of RIM, at least not anytime soon. But, I really don't see exactly how their move to yet another platform is going to fix anything? The problem now is the lack of a thriving ecosystem like the ones you see in the Android and iOS worlds. Wouldn't a new platform further hurt their efforts in building an "app ecosystem" ? It's not like people are dying to write Playbook apps now.

Re:A bad quarter

[DJCouchyCouch]

True. "Abandoned" is too much. They'll obviously eventually migrate over to QNX for their entire product line.

How about "undercooked", "mishandled", and "developer unfriendly"?

Management

[whisper_jeff]

RIM's major problem is their management. Problems like a lack of apps and whatever other reason you want to put forth all come _after_ RIM's management failed the company. Specifically, their management's lack of vision and ego.

When Apple released the iPhone, the mobile market changed. You may love Apple or you may hate Apple but that doesn't matter - the fact that does matter is that Apple changed everything with the release of the iPhone. Simply look at the vast majority of mobile phones before the iPhone and then look at the vast majority of phones after the iPhone. Everything changed.

Most companies recognized what the iPhone meant to the mobile market and thus they changed. Whether it was to "be more like Apple" or simply because they recognized that Apple was on to something big, the design of phones radically shifted. Specifically, keyboards largely vanished and touch screens were in. Phone makers changed gears.

Except the RIM with the Blackberry.

While everyone else was scrambling to adjust to the new reality in the mobile market, RIM's management steadfastly refused to acknowledge and, more importantly, recognize that things had changed. While even the most casual observer could tell that everything had changed, RIM's management somehow seemed to miss the signs and thus they didn't shift gears. Not until very recently have they begrudgingly released phones that kinda, sorta look and function like a touchscreen phone but, by now, it's too late. Momentum is well and truly swung and, once you get a massive shift in momentum like that, it's virtually impossible to stop it.

RIM's management utterly failed their company. Their inability to adapt to a changing landscape; their inability to recognize that the landscape had changed or their unwillingness to admit that it had; their arrogance in believing that their established client base made them immune to changes in the market all has lead to this point. Their management is ill-equipped to run a mobile device maker because the market demands leadership that can recognize change when it happens and adapt to that change in a timely manner. And, to be clear, when I say "management" I'm largely look right at the very top.

Re:Management

[Anonymous Coward]

Exaclty. RIM has corporate market management. They have a problem dealing with the consumer market which is a completely different playing field. The mobile market has moved from a corporate market to a consumner market. There is no longer any room for RIM. It will be extinct within a few years.

Re:Management

[Alomex]

They are focused on the hardware at a time when the software (i.e. apps) are becoming more and more important. At recent events they had plenty of people talking about wireless and network technology and not a single one about software engineering, development platforms, algorithms, web 2.0, etc.

talent pool resources

[Anonymous Coward]

Nokia yesterday and Today RIM were just outclassed by apple and google in raw technical brainpower.
I believe they simple don't have the quality of designers and developers to compete with those two.
Apple, Google and to some extent microsoft have a huge talentpool in their R&D,
What symbian and rim os took years to perfect were simple outgunned within 1 -2 years of development. by apple then google.
And Microsoft is following with metro windows 8.

Mark my words, RIM simply doesn't have the technical prowess to compete with the tech giants.

RIM's problem is that its market segment is dying

[west]

The trouble for RIM is that it's really competing in a different market segment - low bandwidth, secure e-mail channel phones, which really *aren't* generalized smart phones. They're designed for that market, they own that market, and, unfortunately for RIM, that market is dying.

IBM had to completely re-invent itself not because the it ever lost its market (mainframes) - it's market became financially irrelevant. Microsoft is petrified that while it will own the PC forever, the PC itself will become irrelevant.

As for poor RIM, they are facing a situation of dropping bandwidth costs, better batteries, increasing processor bang per milliWatt, and the fact it looks like consumers will dictate what hardware businesses will use (after all, VPs are consumers too). In other words, their market is getting eaten by a completely different market.

This is the hardest situation for any company to be in - everything you do well is no longer relevant.

Most companies don't get one big idea, and RIM got that. Microsoft got two (Windows and Office), maybe three with XBox. Apple? Well, Apple's somehow been blessed with five. (Apple II, Mac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad).

Will RIM survive? It has some time, as its third world market will be relevant for quite a while yet. But if it wants to be anything more than a second string Android maker, it will require a second big idea, and not many companies manage that.

It's because of change

[jader3rd]

I think where RIM and Palm missed their oportunities is because leadership thinks that consumers are more averse to change than what they really are. I can see where they get these ideas; any time Microsoft realeases a new interface it's really easy to find comments rated 5 on slashdot with people bragging about how they're not going to use the new interface, set the UI settings back to Win 95 settings and kind of wish they could roll back to Win 3.1. The people who yell and scream "anything but change" can be really loud. So in the design meetings the rules are: make something new, but don't change it too much because it will scare away our customer base. That's where competitors come in. People can accept a paradigm change when buying a new product. The value add must be greater than the "pain" of the change though. Besides, sometimes changes really do drive away customers, so it's safer to not risk a big change for the next version; and promise yourself that make the big bet changes next version.

BBM

[Anonymous Coward]

There's one big asset that Blackberry still have over the rest: BBM. This is extremely popular among the teenagers/twenty-somethings (at least in Eastern Canada). They will grow up to be Blackberry-fans. Unfortunately it's not any of RIM's doing, it's their friends being on BBM so they have to be as well. This how ICQ started out, but look what happened to them.

Re:RIM's problem is that its market segment is dyi

[Dwedit]

Sounds like some scare tactics marketing could fix the problem of secure-channel email having no market.

RIM is the OS/2 of smartphones...

[Anonymous Coward]

Great platform, nobody is developng apps for it tho.

Re:RIM's problem is that its market segment is dyi

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that RIM has bent over in authoritarian countries to provide the government and its intelligence agencies access to the supposedly "secure" email on the BB Enterprise servers. And then they didn't have any spin ready to deal with that, and THEN they had a VP go to an interview in the UK where the interviewer asked about that, and the VP just got up and left the interview.

So they'd be starting from behind from a scare tactics marketing point of view.

Re:RIM's problem is that its market segment is dyi

[sarhjinian]

They didnt give away BES keys They cant. They allowed a tap into BIS provided there was a BIS server inthat country. BES keys arent even in RIM's possession; its in the hands of the company with the BES server. Which, if its in the same nation as the thuggish government, works out the same.

Laziridks walked out because he has probably had to explain tbis a million times tojournalistswhicantbebothred to do research. Laziridis does have leadership and PR issues, I will grant you that.a

Re:No apps? RIM's fault.

[perryizgr8]

Because at the time, they were the 'only game in town', simple as that.

And we see how well that has worked out for them.

Companies that are not Apple need to realize that they need the developers and not the other way around. If you treat them like shit, they will jump ship as soon as a competitor comes out (instead of, say, developing for both platforms).

ftfy.

Re:No apps? RIM's fault.

[jo_ham]

Yes, but that's been offset by the collective 2.5 billion dollars Apple has paid out to developers on iOS. The $99 developer fee is a steal for the money iOS developers are making.

The Adobe kool-aid is not enough

[Anonymous Coward]

A device success is still largely established by the quantity of developers interest that it can generates and whether you like it or not, C/C++ are still very popular for development.

I really hope that companies start to realize that that just "providing" Adobe Flash and Air is just NOT enough to attract developers. Developers want native tools and the ability to talk somehow to the hardware; Apple by enabling mixing of Objective-C and C/C++, Google with the NDK got that, Rim, Microsoft and many others still don't.

University of Waterloo Grads work at RIM

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with RIM is that their main talent pool is the University of Waterloo. Their grads are the most uninspired, snobby, grands in the country. They come out of school thinking they are god's gift to development and engineering without ever having accomplished anything in their lives.

RIM needs closed-platform to exist.

[therealkevinkretz]

The reason businesses / "Enterprises" continue to go with the less-popular RIM phones is because none of the others have management software tied so closely with the device OS, such control remotely over the device - or such *finely-grained* control.

RIM, as a company to deal with, sucks. The BES Manager software is horrifying. Paying customers have to jump through hoops to actually talk to a support person, and even then they almost always (in my experience it's "always" but I'm sure there's an exception I haven't met) are completely clueless. Users don't want the devices.

Speaking of BlueTooth...

[madclicker]

Five years ago the first blackberry devices were introduces with blue-tooth technology. This was I believe the first smart phone device to have it built in on the market. Most laptops had different blue-tooth stacks and the BDM software was not able to interact with them unless it was modified through inf files on windows platforms. Now after three years of having an IPhone, I've been given by the new company a new torch RIM device. So i decided to sync or tether using my Asus laptop with a build-in Toshiba BT stack. To my surprise it still doesn't work. This and many other unpolished or dumb-ass reasons RIM will not stand a chance with its "We don't care attitude". Regards, A

Re:No apps? RIM's fault.

[Pseudonym Authority]

Anything more than a Hello World required their ``secure'' API, which required the applet to be signed, which required $100 for 10 signings. And the documentation is total garbage, the SDK is spread out in 100 different places on their shitty AJAX site, and the experience just sucks in general. Want to develop on Linux? NOPE. Want to run those emulators without installing shittonnes of useless shit? NOPE. Also, using the ``secure'' API is also incompatible with other phones, so if you want to do anything serious, it must be BB exclusive. It is a worthless platform to develop for. The only reason I still use them is because they are the only brand of smartphone that I know of that allows me to silently tether with just a few tricks with modem commands, all from the PC side.

Re:No apps? RIM's fault.

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell that to people wanting to release free software.

What about shitty products?

[scream at the sky]

I've had a high end BlackBerry on my hip, every day of my life since May of 2005.

I just returned my last RIM device, and exchanged it for a Samsung Galaxy S 2. Let me rephrase that. After exchanging 4 DOA units, I finally gave up on the new Bold 9900, and swapped it for Android.

The issues I have had with the 9900 (apparently, a flagship device)

• 1st one had a screen that flickered like a CRT @ 60hz. When I was exchanging this one in store, the RIM rep was there, and confirmed that he had seen the issue, in fact his own device did the same thing, he excused it as being "a preproduction issue"
• 2nd one, was swapped not even 15 minutes later, as it would not boot if there was a MicroSD card in the memory slot. We tested the 32GB card that I had in the first one, as well as the 8GB card from the store rep's phone.
• 3rd one asked me to reboot after installing a new version of BlackBerry App world. Went into what I can only call as a boot loop. It would show the BlackBerry boot screen, scroll all the way across and then reboot. Continuously.

• 4th one had a half dozen dead pixels on the screen, out of the box...

• 5th one, did the boot loop thing again. I reflashed the device using BlackBerry desktop manager, and started from scratch.

I've since reflashed it a half dozen times, because every time it reboots, it refuses to boot again, until I flash it completely. So, I took the bloody thing back. The sales rep that I spoke to mentioned that he was on his 4th device as well, citing the boot loop issues, as well as unknown JVM errors on boot.

I won't touch their garbage again, ever.

Re:What about shitty products?

[narcc]

Wait until you actually use that Android device.

If you're a serious user, you'll be back. The 9900 is absolutely amazing -- and nothing on the market now even comes close to it.

I'm sorry to hear you had a bad run with the hardware, but your experience is so far from typical as to be almost unbelievable.

A beautiful tablet

[Anonymous Coward]

I got a free 16gb Playbook for submitting a air program to the store. The hardware was sweet, with a real solid feel. The stereo speakers were way above par, making the PB a great boombox, (if you could stand the sucky music software). The QNX OS was fast, and the interface was better than honeycomb or iOS IMO.

But there was the crappy software to deal with. I can't think of a single pre-installed app that was worth a shit, except for the racing game, which was awesome, and maybe the browser. The platform is totally locked down, and curated, and the chances of a root seemed slim-to-none. I gave mine to my brother-in-law as a gift.

Re:No apps? RIM's fault.

[RedCard]

Apple's dev kit was free until v4, and is now priced at a whopping $4.99. With that, you get easy access to a huge amount of resources for learning, and a thriving community to boot. The eclipse dev kit and the android development plugin is free, and again you get a huge number of example, a community, and support.

What you don't get from either is jerked around for $200 before you can even poke your head in the door. With iOS and Android, you can develop to your heart's content for free, and if you decide you've got something that you want to publish, you can do it after paying the $99 (Apple) or $25 (Android).

If that's too expensive, shift your focus to Android development. You can release you APK for free, and anyone can install after downloading it from your own website.

Horrible development platform

[Anonymous Coward]

How does RIM expect to get a great app eco-system if they treat their developers as shit. I would love to make hundreds of apps for black berry if it was not so damn hard, and also, please make your full api free, and for god's sake make a good java interpreter.

Re:No apps? RIM's fault.

[narcc]

For years RIM charged $200 to register as a developer

What are talking about? The only "fee" was $20 for a certificate to sign your code.

You're thinking of Apple, with their absurd developer fees.

Re:No apps? RIM's fault.

[narcc]

Please, this a complete and total lie.

There was no such $200 fee. Where do you get your "facts"?

Re:No apps? RIM's fault.

[narcc]

Was that a one time fee or is it yearly?

It was a non-existant fee. nloop is just making stuff up.

Let me repeat that before this bullshit spreads any further: There was no $200 developer fee.

Re:No apps? RIM's fault.

[JohnG]

Speaking as an iPhone, Android developer who looked into Blackberry, I can say that there was that fee. The $200 "bought" you 10 app reviews. After that you had to spend another $200 to get another 10 reviews. The same can be said of feature phone makers like Nokia that, until recently, required you to have 3rd party signing that costs quite a bit of money while Apple and Google where doing it for free. But in the end, Blackberry still relies heavily on J2ME. They extended the platform enough to be a smart phone years ago. In fact, to practically invent the term. But they have been surpassed and failed to keep up with the times. The days when cell phone software went for $4.99 have came and gone. It is sad for developers. But RIM and feature phone makers adapted very slowly to taking the initial investment out of creating apps. And in the process they were surpassed in profitability by app stores with a smaller barrier to entry. I'm not going to pay more to make less. You either roll with the punches or you get knocked out by them. Nokia offers free signing now, and Blackberry is now free as well. The difference is that J2ME is still fine for feature phone development. Blackberry needs to give developers closer access to the metal, and to provide a much higher level of development tools than they are currently offering if they want to remain a smart phone competitor. As it is now, they are sort of the bridge between feature phones and smart phones. QNX was a good start, forcing us to develop in Actionscript was a bad lead off to that good start.

Be the best and they will come.

[XB-70]

Firstly, they are going to incorporate the api's to run android apps. That solves the ecosystem problem. That said, they need to split the company into hardware and software vendors. The hardware company should focus on: 1. Outperforming in every aspect against other phones - They have the high-end market. They need to own it. I know so many sr. execs who don't what they are doing and their kids get them to move to an iPhone. 2. Provide phones with two (2) sim cards. Many corporate users and travellers want a second line on their phones. The Chinese and Indians already have such a product, why is RIM not leading in this? 3. Focus on a hands-free standard with the automobile car stereo manufacturers. Bluetooth should be easy as pie and mandatory in every vehicle. 4. Make the GPS as good as or better than Garmin. Right now, the GPS is dog-slow and almost useless. 5. More and better drop tests and waterproofing. 6. Equivalent functionality between the phone and the playbook. In other words, no tethering. Either the phone or the playbook should be able to be the full communications device. The software company needs to prioritize: 1. Social networking. RIM should have the best social netwroking phone on the market. Period. 2. Voice recognition - either drop it or make it work. 3. Create a feedback loop with their customers. Right now, you don't get any sense as a customer that you can have any input and/or feature requests. 4. A decent music player. 5. A decent file catagorization system. 6. Better document reading/editing (more formats) 7. An apps ecosystem that works (including the Android apps) 8. Biometric security

QNX "cooked up" by RIM?

[Weedhopper]

[blockquote](RIM) has been in the labs cooking up a new software platform dubbed QNX, a central piece of its efforts to restore the company.[/blockquote]

That's interesting and informative. And here I've been thinking for ten years that it's an underrated OS, maybe a little redundant for RIM.

RIM cooked up QNX?

[Weedhopper]

(RIM) has been in the labs cooking up a new software platform dubbed QNX, a central piece of its efforts to restore the company.

That's interesting and informative. And here I've been thinking for the past ten years that QNX was an underrated OS for some applications, overrated for others. Maybe a little redundant for RIM.

Re:No apps? RIM's fault.

[narcc]

That's still not a developer fee -- you ONLY paid that (and not that much for YEARS) if you needed to sign your app to make use of secure API features.

That was the point. There is, and has never been, a developer fee.

Re:No apps? RIM's fault.

[nloop]

http://www.bgr.com/2009/03/05/breakdown-of-blackberry-app-world-pricing-structure/

There's a link discussing the $200 fee to have your app listed in their ap store circa 2009.

I get my "facts" from developing apps in 2009. How about you?

Re:No apps? RIM's fault.

[nloop]

Didn't we already discuss this?

http://www.bgr.com/2009/03/05/breakdown-of-blackberry-app-world-pricing-structure/

To get into their ap store cost $200. Without that you are DOA.

Re:No apps? RIM's fault.

[nloop]

It's OK to be wrong.

Re:No apps? RIM's fault.

[narcc]

As I've repeatedly pointed out, there has never been a developer fee.

I did mention the code-signing fee in my first reply to you, but I guess that was too hard for you to understand. If you weren't using secure API's it was and still is completely free.

Re:No apps? RIM's fault.

[narcc]

Sorry, how is this a fee to register as a developer?

Oh, that's right -- it's not. I can, as I always have, download the SDK, write my app, and distribute it for free.

See, unlike Apple, I don't need RIMs blessing to write code for a device I own.

Re:No apps? RIM's fault.

[narcc]

Big Yawn

You wrote

For years RIM charged $200 to register as a developer before you could make any apps.

You're still 100% wrong. There IS NO FEE to register as a developer. Anyone can download the SDK and start developing applications at NO COST.

From your source "to submit an application to App World costs $200" (In case you're terminally incompetent, you don't need AppWorld to write or distribute your application. This isn't Apple.)

Get over yourself and STOP SPREADING MISINFORMATION.

Re:No apps? RIM's fault.

[jo_ham]

It was only $4.99 briefly to get around the sarbanes-oxley thing. Xcode is free again in Lion.

Re:No apps? RIM's fault.

[jo_ham]

There's plenty of free software on the App Store. That includes GPLv2 licensed stuff.

Why buy rim if?

[LostMyBeaver]

Because none of the other Windows 7 phone vendors have been able to display the ability to design a phone which is physically attractive to the consumer. When I walk into Best Buy, only a few telephones manage to stand out. All those phones are "flagship phones". Phones made by companies interested in releasing one or two phones a year and instead of spamming the market with dozens of mediocre designs in a year which will stop being supported by their vendors in 3 months after you buy them are items with long term support.

Companies produce cases, bumpers, accessories, etc... for the iPhone because it's not a short term investment. Sometimes it's as simple as seeing a full rack full of accessories for a phone which makes it attractive.

HTC, Nokia and others just don't get it. If you're going to invest in a phone (meaning buying a phone which is more than just a tosser, but actually invest in it, buy the phone, accessories, apps, music, movies etc...) then there has to be some sort of implied promise from the manufacturer that the phone won't be last months crap by the time they leave the store with it. They need to make you believe they'll provide software updates for it for the next year or three. They need to believe that if they need an accessory for it, they won't have to mail order it from some shady vendor like Expansys.

RIM can enter the market with "THE WINDOWS PHONE" or "THE ANDROID PHONE". They can design something that sparkles. Build 20 different prototypes and plant them in stores and watch which ones attract the customers away from the other vendors phones. Then standardize on that design. Standardize a connector for all features from power to HDMI that can withstand several generations. Build one a year and make it simply rock.

Nokia is still trying to spam the market with piles of crap phones. I can't even figure out on their website what it is they're selling anymore. RIM sells us a dream called QNX, but frankly, that's the lamest marketing scheme I ever heard. No one cares what OS kernel you're running. Otherwise Android phones would be sold as Linux phones instead. It's the platform that matters. If you google QNX, you find tons of information on a real-time operating system (which I have developed for many times over the past 15 years) and then some stuff about Blackberry. They screwed that up HUGE!

If I wanted to switch platforms from iOS to Windows, I would seriously look for a phone that gives me the security I find in an Apple phone. And frankly, RIM CAN do it... but they'll probably be bankrupt before they manage it.

If RIM wanted to have a Playbook firesale

[markdowling]

The smart move would be to ensure their corporate BES clients (i.e. me) get some form of dibs. After all, if it is perceived as a business-first device, why prioritise consumers? We have a small number of self-bought Playbooks in house now - with a large number we might consider getting some apps written (even given the SDK issues)

They should also be smarter than HP and sell cheap bundles, not cheap devices, to get some kudos from their manufacturer and channel partners. Their resellers will want to ensure all their Playbook shelves clear, including cases, chargers and other accessories. Something like a $199 16Gb with case and charger rather than a $99 or $149 bare device and trust the consumer not to cheap out.

RIM's Close Architecture Killed them.. so DIE RIM.

[Anonymous Coward]

Close up your API's ... ok.. i'll go somewhere else...
Have fun selling the furniture....

Re:RIM's problem is that its market segment is dyi

[Anonymous Coward]

Most companies don't get one big idea, and RIM got that. Microsoft got two (Windows and Office), maybe three with XBox. Apple? Well, Apple's somehow been blessed with five. (Apple II, Mac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad).

Microsoft BASIC and MsDOS were MUCH more lucrative than Apple II at the same points in time.

Re:No apps? RIM's fault.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, and I thought Apple had bad fanboys. You're really impressive pathetic.