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Research In Motion To Be Sold, Possibly To Samsung
New submitter ve6ay writes "The talk of the tech world over the past day is that RIM, struggling mightily in these last months, was in talks to be bought either partially or wholly by Samsung. Sources at the Boy Genius Report indicate that while RIM may be trying to sell, it is asking way too much for itself."
Old news is even denied by Samsung.
This rumor has already been dashed:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/top-business-stories/which-idiots-bought-rim-shares-on-one-shaky-rumour/article2306353/
RIM joins a long range of former tech prom queens and class presidents that did not make it:
Palm, altavista, NeXT, digg, motorola, SGI, Sun, Spice Girls.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
They failed at: reliability, uptime and ease of use
Real life example:
- Today i just missed a rescheduled meeting because my BlackBerry failed to ring the alarm (usually happens after too many days with no reboot);
- Had about 4 half-day to full-day outages in the last month;
- BES server upgrade caused ~15% of the Blackberry users in my department to lose access for around 3 days and then they had to reformat their devices to be able to receive mail again.
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(Posting AC because I'm at work)
I don't see at what point Blackberry failed?
What? Really? I can tell you the exact moment their downfall began. It's when the iPhone was announced and they decided they didn't have to adapt. Every other major phone maker quickly shifted gears, to one degree or another, except RIM. And RIM has been failing ever since. It's only recently that the downward fall has accelerated to this staggering degree but it all began the instant the iPhone was announced.
They were revolutionary in their day, but now everyone offers email on their phones...
They failed to move with the times, so now while they still offer the same features everyone else offers something more and RIM devices are now perceived as dated and boring.
Their products are tied to Microsoft (BES requires windows and is primarily tied to exchange), who released a competitor in the form of activesync and bundle it for free with exchange, rim cannot possibly be cheaper because if you have everything you need to run a blackberry server you also have activesync, and likely also have an MS sales rep in your ear.
They try to lock you in to their products (you need a blackberry server, a blackberry handset and a blackberry specific data plan), but aren't big enough to get away with this strategy... Even MS Activesync is more open, there are multiple implementations on both the client and server end, and they work with standard carrier data plans.
They route traffic through their servers, creating an additional single point of failure. With a standard data plan the traffic is routed by the telco to your server via the Internet... With RIM the data is routed by the telco to rim via the internet, who they route it back to you via the internet... If RIM has an outage (and they have had several recently) then you are dead in the water... If your internet connection or telco suffers an outage you have the ability to change provider with minimal fuss, if RIM has an outage you have to migrate away from blackberry to another manufacturer which means changing your server infrastructure and replacing handsets.
The non enterprise (ie consumer oriented) blackberry service is intentionally crippled.
It is becoming more common for employees to provide their own phones rather than using company supplied ones, not many people want to buy a blackberry for their own use (partly due to the crippled consumer level service).
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They just don't know it yet. I have their latest and greatest 9860 (because I don't have a choice - thanks corporate idiots), and it is a complete and utter piece of shit. The first phone bricked itself within the first week, common problem with this model. The screen is plastic, and feels like it. The touchscreen is horribly inaccurate, making typing on it something dreadful and to be avoided. The on/off button is the entire top of the phone, so when you slip it in a pocket, it is very likely to turn the screen on. It is so under-powered, I'm constantly playing the guessing game of "did I tap the dialog box or not". The "app store" looks like the bargain bin at Blockbuster. Every time I pick this phone up it pisses me off.
Casca
The EPIC FAIL that was the Storm. That's the moment of failure. That they COULD turn the ship mid-course. But they turned it TOWARDS the whirlpool, not towards the beach with bikini-clad volleyball players.
Sad.