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BlackBerry 10 Unveiled
arcite writes "Research in Motion Ltd's new CEO, Thorsten Heins, unveiled BlackBerry 10 in Florida today. Will new features such as a virtual keyboard that learns from typing behavior and a camera that easily focuses on faces be enough to scrape back precious market share (which could possibly fall to 5%) from the likes of Apple and Android? With no physical device yet revealed and a release date ranging anywhere from August to October, it will be an uphill battle."
Engadget had some brief hands-on time with a dev Alpha. It seems RIM is trying to jumpstart app development through its App Generator and financial incentives.
and the all-new 2013 Tucker will run on air.
RIM is out in the garden at this point with all the other vegetables, and you can write your investment off.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
...and wind down of the company while it is still somewhat profitable? i.e., before management does all those desperate things they like to do at the end, like pay themselves huge retention bonuses and blow metric assloads of money on hail-mary projects metaphysically certain to fail, all of which buries the company in debt that will cause shareholders to receive nothing from the bankruptcy certain to result.
BB is a business phone, I think any attempt to make it more of a toy can only make matters worse.
Apple and Android are very tough competitors, no point aiming at ousting them.
Business people (if they exist, of course) need a phone which performs the usual basic office tasks, can be used a whole day without the battery dying and easily ties in to the corporate communications suite.
As such, I'd /really/ like to see them succeed. I watched them grow from a little company on Shoemaker Dr in Kitchener to the conglomerate they are now. They employ many of my friends.
That said, I don't think they can. They've been waaaay behind the curve and resting on their laurels for a really long time now. And it's bit them in the ass.
The Playbook is still a disaster. Their current phone offerings suck. And this device has ditched hardware keyboard, which was one of the things RIM really did right.
Pass.
It's not unreasonable to say that at this point, most people who want smartphones and would be in their market have purchased one, and many are one or two years away from being able to by a Blackberry 10 device anyways.
Many people have already become involved in a non-RIM ecosystem (iOS, WM, or Android), and ecosystem inertia is a huge factor. The sunk cost in buying the compliment of apps one wants or needs is huge, and makes people very reluctant to "try something new" for a phone. At best, I think RIM is competing to keep the people who use Blackberries now, and haven't yet moved to another system. Which is good, but not ultimately sustainable, and is aiming for reduced shrinkage rather than actual growth.
They can lure developers, but all that that does it make it hurt less for users to switch to Blackberry (because they'll still never compete with Apple or Android in app variety). They could lure consumers with pricing, but for most people, any ecosystem switch has a $100+ app re-purchase penalty, not to mention the apps that simply can't be purchased at all and the time it would take to move over.
Simply put, the only thing (I think) that can save RIM would be something revolutionary. Some feature, certification, approach, or situation that makes people say "You know what, screw the apps, screw the extra time and money, I want THAT, and I'll do what it takes to get it."
I don't see that having happened here, sorry, RIM, but the writing's on the wall.
You could have said the same thing to the Apple shareholder when Mr. Pepsi ran it to the ground.
The PB is not a disaster; it is the most business-friendly tablet out. That might change if Samsung does a really good job on ICS for the Note, but at this point they are behind RIM, even though they are ahead on consumer tablets.
One key thing for Blackberry is that, if they go for a touchscreen keyboard, they must do it better than anybody else (or I will stay on my 9810 till it dies...) My belief, having seen the report, is that they get this. Six months ago I too had written them off. Now, I'm not nearly so sure.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
So, no debt. Billions of cash on the books. A rapidly growing equity position. $500 milion in free cash flow each quarter. Prem Watsa on the board of directors (a very famous value investor the likes of Warren Buffett).
So, you say that management is hoarding the cash to themselves. OK, show us hte SEC statments to prove this comment. Otherwise it is all misleading garbage.
1. Be the BEST and most integrated social networking tool.
2. Be a WALLET by leveraging their existing encryption infrastructure.
Humans are social creatures. Making a product directly targeted at these two areas will be a winner. Humans are fed up with carrying around a ton of credit cards, bank card, coins and bills.
RIM needs to get away from feature-itis and gimmicks. There are no legs to this approach. Leveraging the existing social and commercial ecosystem is the way to go.
*** Don't be dull.***
that was BIS traffic, BES goes through your corporate server, even RIM can't read it because they don't have the keys.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
The only reason they're selling a few million is because they used to be selling many millions. On their current course (which they seem to be accelerating on), they soon won't be a small player, they'll be non-existent. As the parent poster suggests, at that point the random shareholders lose everything and anything of value they've made will be lost. If they sell now, it means the random investors get something out, and the things of value they've created will be more likely to be preserved. It also means some executives have to swallow some pride and find a new job, so it won't happen.
For most of history, this was the case. Almost everything people used was made within a few mile radius (often by themselves). I don't think you want to live in "most of history". Tremendous specialization of labor and mass production are what created modern civilization, and neither of those ideas work without large distribution networks.
Distribution of wealth is a growing problem because individual humans are worth less and less to the economy. The economy used to need more people for all sorts of things. Now it needs less. Eventually it will need very few. People will cling to capitalism long after it has ceased to be an effective way to distribute wealth.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
That is nice when you are talking about produce at the grocery store, but the "gotta have it" gizmos everyone is enamored with wouldn't exist in such a system. What did exist would offer significantly reduced utility at a much higher price.
Exactly; the reason these electronic gizmos are so affordable is because they're made by a few players in enormous quantities for a global market. Smartphones made in small quantities and only sold in a certain region would cost millions, and simply wouldn't be made. The economies of scale that apply to hardware and software development don't apply to vegetables grown on a farm, so there's natural limits as to how cheaply you can grow and sell a cucumber, and larger agriculture companies end up cutting corners to get their prices down and yield up, by doing things like picking fruit way too early or spraying it with toxic chemicals so there's room for local growers to compete on quality (by accepting a lower yield and not spraying pesticides, or by leaving fruit on the plant longer since they don't have to ship it to another continent but only 100 miles).
"BIS", the service likely shoving email for consumer blackberries, is RIM-hosted, authenticated through a carrier-branded RIM system, and can be compromised with RIM's cooperation, since they run it. This is the one that various governments(India, UAE, probably a whole lot of others who are quieter about it) are leaning on RIM to have hosted domestically, so they can keep an eye on their little consumers and ensure that they aren't getting up to mischief.
"BES", the historically pricey and complex enterprise offering, is hosted by the customer and wraps its tentacles around the customer's mailserver. Communications between the BES and the company blackberries do rely on RIM's network(which is how their mistakes can cause outages); but are encrypted at the BES with a secret that is generated at the customer site and not known to RIM.
Newer blackberries, at least, can also manage at least rudimentary email connectivity on their own(POP/IMAP) which is yet a third distinct situation in security terms.
The people who emphasize blackberry security usually mean 'in a BES context', along with the relative absence of trojans and bugged apps and whatnot, rather than the consumer version, which is about as secure from RIM as your webmail is from whoever is providing it...
RIMM needs to decide it can compete as a hardware maker against samsung and HTC. If they can, then they should switch to android (for the apps and open platform) and implement their own enterprise technoogy over it. They should further do like the Amazon Fire and pre-process web fetches not just for speed but also for security (e.g. maintain ssl, filter out phishing attacks and viruses, restrict access to corporate approved functions, disable features like cameras or recoring in restricted corprorate areas). They will thus become the premier value added corprorate android phone.
If they can't compete against Samsung and HTC on hardware then they need to stay away from android. Windows 8 would be the logical choice and it is aligned with bussinesses. Their best route there would be to be the premier Intel based smart phone. Windows 8 is going to run better on intel and arm. Corporations will be able to port their proprietary windows platform codes to win8 on intel. And windows RT (arm) appears to be a disaster. So they could beat Nokia in the corporate smart phone area. Let nokia have the developing nations market. High margins for their enterprise system and a high barrier to entry for everyine else in that sector.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Is that the nickname for their user base?
People will cling to capitalism long after it has ceased to be an effective way to distribute wealth.
Thing is, capitalism wasn't "designed" to distribute wealth. It was designed to promote productivity. The basic deal of capitalism is: produce more, get more wealth. It's a decent concept. Where it falls down, though, is when you're at the upper end of the capital curve. Then you get more wealth, not by producing more, but by already owning lots of wealth. The trait of capital to self-perpetuating in large amounts, and the capacity for capital to be passed down to people who haven't had to work for it are two properties that (IMO) undermine the system.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face