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Flatlining User Base May Spell End of RIM
Meshach writes "There is an article in the Globe and Mail that says that the user base for Blackberry has stopped growing for the first time in the company's history, and speculates that this is the beginning of the end of RIM. The main problem seems to be that RIM's new Blackberry models like the Bold and Torch are selling poorly, and their production costs are much higher than other products manufactured in China. A recent research report says that after BB10 the company will need to sell or drastically change its business model."
they are just not needed anymore...
People don't want to carry around several smart phones and are much more eager to choose either iPhone or WP7 phones.
WP7? [citation needed]
I think it's safe to say he's a troll. The combination of the user name "AndroidLover" with the actual post pretending that Android doesn't exist and that WP7, of all things, is a major force in the market is... implausible.
I'd speculate there are a lot more iPhone (work users) than Windows Phone...
THIS is the beginning of the end of RIM?
It began a long time ago...
Don't forget that Android devices are ridiculously easy to lock down and set up with full encryption. There are actually companies out there whose entire business is doing just that for the corporate use scenario.
Its so stupidly easy to integrate Android with all of their existing email and even internal messaging apps(most of which are written in Java and trivially ported to native) that it beggars belief that they would consider much of anything else.
iPhone doesn't allow the kind of direct control that Corporate security demands, and WP7 has such a low penetration that no one is asking for it anyways. Android, even though there could definitely be better solutions, is currently the only real choice for corporate america. The worker drones get something that does everything an iPhone does(in some cases does it better, in some cases worse, but the important things are roughly the same, except for the GPS nav on android is much better) and they get their security.
1. Use Android
2. Enhance security; add exclusive BB apps.
3. Profit
No, no ??? needed. Just go straight to profit.
The Internet King? I wonder if he could provide faster nudity.
Why certain companies don't just die quickly, instead of going through long pains.
Is there any doubt still, that RIM is dead?
Heck, it was dead 5 years ago.
I was just contacted by a RIM recruiter through a certain job site. (Of course it involves moving to Canada.)
"AndroidLover" really needed to insert that Microsoft compliment on an RIM article.. and on your first post ever.. and your the first to reply. nicely done troll.
1. Buy RIM for $10B
2. Sit on technologies for 3 years
3. ???
4. Sell what's left for 75 million
5. Profit!
RIM's main problem is that enterprise companies have started moving away from the platform. People don't want to carry around several smart phones and are much more eager to choose either iPhone or WP7 phones. Microsoft is known for being the office centric company and therefore has fantastic support for Exchange server and office apps. RIM lost the audience it had when Windows Phones were introduced (while Windows Mobile also had many work users, WP was a major improvement)..
While you present an interesting theory, reality is that noone is using Windows Phone. They had a market share of 3% of smartphones shipped. iPhone in particular and Android are the ones eating Blackberry's lunch. To make this even worse, this quarter Windows Phone is currently only sold on known obsolete phones. I'm glad I didn't get suckered into buying a phone that obsolete immediately, unlike Nexus Phones and iPhones.
Alternatively RIM has all but stopped creating new legacy phones, and anyone who *is* interested (at least in the north american market) is pretty much waiting for BB10 devices at this point.
Financials are out this week; it'll be interesting to see if global growth did actually stop.
Don't knock the iPhones, my grandma has one and says it's the cats ass.
RIM has needed a bit of restructuring for some time. I remember reading an open letter a while back from one of the upper middle unit managers a while back -you may recall it as well. It seems like the corporate culture is directionless and myopic, as well as a bit disorganized. I think RIM and Blackberry can survive but they have to shake the "that's so 2004" shadow. Apple did it after a long slump, but they did it by really innovating, not merely copying too many years too late.
since when is stagnation the beginning of the end? We have saturation and the mobile market become more and more an upgrade game.
That doesn't even make sense!
Hire Carly?
..don't panic
Atari computers, back in the early 1980s, showed us the problem of rolling your own hardware, operating system, and software.
Any change you need to make will be (a) huge (b) require 400 internal departments to agree and (c) baffle users.
My suggestion for RIM: just go ahead and fire 2/3 of management and consolidate 2/3 of your internal teams. Then focus on using as much open source hardware and software as you can to reduce costs.
If they start doing this today, they might be able to save themselves from Chapter 11 by Christmas.
Well I for one recently bought my very first Blackberry device (a 64-Gb Playbook, when the prices fell) for a very simple and clear reason: I want to stay out of Apple/Google duopoly.
I have been waiting for a linux tablet for a couple of years; now I feared to really turn too old before they come (I swear, I'll buy one anyhow).
While I am a bit pissed off by the ultraserious security and obviously definitive user-won't-ever-be-root feature, I find it has some positive side effects (you can lose the machine: nobody will access your data, and just buy another, all your bought applications are back).
Above all, I discover something I just didn't expect: concerning software availability, it indeed has reached, for me, the minimum level of 'floatability': various browsers of which one features adblocking, honest offline RSS viewers, a port of the Android Eye-fi receiver that does backup all my DSLR photos in the minutes I take them, young but reasonable file managers handling ftp and all your cloudy private equivalents, offline wikipedias...
So, yes, last year's Blackberry tablet is indeed bearable, for me. And does not belong to a monopoly.
I fully understand, to devs it's obviously more interesting financially to work for Apple or Android.
It's just I'm really concerned about monopolies, I suffered from some personally, and it's something I still cannot describe easily, and wouldn't wish to my worst enemy.
Herve S.
If sales of blackberries are really flat lining due to market saturation does this mean next week we will be seeing headlines claiming we live in a post-mobile world?
Your troll was too subtle, to be funny.
"RIM's main problem is that enterprise companies have started moving away from the platform." While obvious, usually on par with the average Slashdot informative moderation.
"People don't want to carry around several smart phones and are much more eager to choose either iPhone or WP7 phones." This statement begins as true (insightful moderation) and if you changed WP7 or added Android. It would complete it. Your troll is based on skipping Android phones which are actually far more popular then WP7.
"Microsoft is known for being the office centric company and therefore has fantastic support for Exchange server and office apps." Being that Apple Purchased the license from Microsoft to support exchange is one reason why RIM is in trouble on the enterprise market, as a lot of companies do use Exchange (Rightly or Wrongly).
"RIM lost the audience it had when Windows Phones were introduced (while Windows Mobile also had many work users, WP was a major improvement)." This is pointing out a correlation, however you don't see the numbers showing that Windows Phone is taking over their market, it is more likely due to Microsoft jumping onto to Smart Phone Band Wagon.
"RIM basically lost all of its advantages to iPhone (home users) and Windows Phone's (work users). The only place I still see some Blackberries is the university students in Bangkok, Thailand (crazy adventures there, let me tell you)."
I haven't seen that much effort in Microsoft trying to take over the business market with Windows Phone, but trying to attract the consumer market. Apple and Android had already gotten the consumer market and are now working on making it more business friendly.
While saying anything nice about Microsoft on Slashdot can get some troll moderation, also adding Apple and ignoring Android as a competitive product helps. You just didn't get it right. You had the pieces to make a good troll, but you didn't put it together correctly, It is like a white nerd trying to talk street to look cool. You say all the right words but you end up looking even more out of place.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Have stuck it out long enough. I don't even mind the lack of apps, it's the lack of even halfway decent web access that is the killer for me. Contract ends in December, time to move on
1) Meet Deadlines!
2) Make good software!
3) Follow trends and don't attempt to set them!
If Rim just got there act together and started running like a mature company and not a cutting edge start up then they might be able to turn around.
...it's purely down to being that everyone who *wants* a Blackberry *has* a Blackberry.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
He may or may not be a troll, but I work for a HUGE company, and they dumped all the Crack-Berrys and went all-in on windows phones. I was not surprised that they did that, as we are microsoft to the core (with all the benefits that entails, like blue screens galore). Before the giant black-berry purge, I had not actually seen a windows phone in the wild.
Apparently our IT folks examined the smart-phone landscape and something (hopefully) smart pushed them to WP7. so the GP may have a point.
BTW, I hate the cut-off text of WP7, and would not buy one with my money.
Sheldon
I've never seen so many Playbooks sold as we have recently. Why? Because the price is rock bottom. This IS the end of RIM in its current guise.
Do you see what I did there?
There aren't any WP8 phones with full keyboards. None. It's one of the things that Nokia watchers shake their heads at and go "WTF?"
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Oh look, it's another first post at exactly the same time the article went up, and it's another user with no other posts, and it's another post talking about how Windows Phone shill post.
Man, Microsoft's PR department really gives us no credit at all.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
That's 3% shipped, not sold. They'll often talk about shipped units to make the numbers bigger, but actual sold units is an even smaller number. It's a phone no one wants.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
If I go to verizon's web site there are 4 android phones with slide out physical keyboards, and 4 blackerry phones with physcial keyboards.
If they went to WP7 it must be because it doesn't support full device encryption (it only allows apps to encrypt their own data). And the encryption isn't available on their own built in mail client; you have to go with a third party like Good in order to get encryption. Apparently your IT people don't like encryption since everyone else (RIM, Apple, Android) offer it. Now, it is supposedly in WP8, but the comment was about WP7 which doesn't have it.
It's actually a very robust device and barring some annoyances (some of which are very annoying) the OS is attractive, intuitive and the hardware is great. But it's not Android and lack of apps kills it.
I personally think RIM's future should be on Android. Dump QNX and Playbook OS. Produce a Playbook / BB 10 OS runtime for Android and then move house over to it. Make money by selling security hardened Android devices and value added apps that sit on top.
Well hello there, Mr. Ballmer! Glad to meet your acquaintence. That was the most blatant shill I've seen in a long time, the shills are really getting thick lately. How fucking stupid do you think we nerds are, anyway?
iPhone and Win7 when Win7's market share is tiny and Android has three times the sales as iPhones, and you omit Android? Again, Redmond, why do you think we're so damned stupid? Thank you for reminding me how evil MS is and to avoid their poorly designed, user-unfriendly software and OSes.
Now go tell your boss the slashdot nerds outed you, dumbass.
Free Martian Whores!
I personally think RIM's future should be on Android. Dump QNX and Playbook OS. Produce a Playbook / BB 10 OS runtime for Android and then move house over to it. Make money by selling security hardened Android devices and value added apps that sit on top.
And they should offer phones with hardware keyboards. I bet there is a market for it. Keep offering services like ping - kids here love it. All kids in high school here (Netherlands) have blackberries. Once they have money or go to university, they buy an iphone or android phone. BB should find a way to keep them instead.
QNX/BB10 has the potential to be the best ever mobile phone OS. Of course that means close to naught in regards market-share in the tech world.
iPhones can be locked down and controlled to some degree. Enough for some corporations to allow confidential email and contact info on personal iPhones. What I'd like to see on the iPhone is a completely separate "work" sandbox. Doesn't BB offer this already?
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
While Android is an excellent OS, it really sucks in some ways too. In particular it sucks with mouse and keyboard support. The experience of my Asus TF300 wouldn't hold a candle against a $200 netbook. Stuff like tabbing and cursor navigation / selection is horribly inconsistent and sometimes even missing from some apps (e.g. Polaris Office). I can easily imagine that Windows 8/RT is going to take off in offices because it won't suck with mouse and keyboard. Managers like these things because they're portable but they can be dropped into a cradle / dock / whatever and they act like traditional PCs. On top of that they'll have a proper office suite instead of the crappy offerings seen on Android and iOS at present.
Windows Phone 8 will get a bounce from that if nothing else.
RIM is doing a terrible job of marketing the bold and torch, which are both really good phones. They don't have them particularly widely available - and perhaps even worse, well advertised - in the US. Ask an average US consumer if they've heard of an iPhone, they'll answer yes. Heard of an android smart phone, they'll answer yes as well. Heard of a blackberry torch, they'll likely say no.
If they want to expand their user base, they should try selling phones directly to users. It works well for Apple, there is no reason why it couldn't work well for RIM as well. They don't even need to open their own stores, they could sell them through best buy, target, walmart, radio shack, etc. Sell unlocked phones with manufacturer warranties, there is a market for that if they can hit a reasonable price point and free consumers from having to sign 2-year contracts to buy a new phone.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
He may or may not be a troll, but I work for a HUGE company, and they dumped all the Crack-Berrys and went all-in on windows phones. I was not surprised that they did that, as we are microsoft to the core
The problem is that Windows Phones actually aren't any better at integrating with real Windows infrastructure than iPhones, Android devices, or BlackBerries are. If Microsoft had added real domain/GPO features to Windows Phones, they could have made a good business case. But as things are, everyone has ActiveSync (support for Exchange servers) so this is no advantage for WP.
Here you go. Hope you're capable of reading.
http://www.apple.com/iphone/business/integration/
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Wasn't there a story not so long back about how India is one of the few markets RIM is still thriving? In India, while people pick up quickly Western technology trends, they are not so fast in leaving it. Right now, Blackberries are one of the leading phones there, and that market's not going away. So if RIM disappears elsewhere, they may end up becoming a purely Indian mobile company, similar to Karbonn or Micromaxx.
Don't forget that Android devices are ridiculously easy to lock down and set up with full encryption. There are actually companies out there whose entire business is doing just that for the corporate use scenario.
Its so stupidly easy to integrate Android with all of their existing email and even internal messaging apps(most of which are written in Java and trivially ported to native) that it beggars belief that they would consider much of anything else.
iPhone doesn't allow the kind of direct control that Corporate security demands, and WP7 has such a low penetration that no one is asking for it anyways. Android, even though there could definitely be better solutions, is currently the only real choice for corporate america. The worker drones get something that does everything an iPhone does(in some cases does it better, in some cases worse, but the important things are roughly the same, except for the GPS nav on android is much better) and they get their security.
The iPhone Configurator allows corporations to manage iPhones. But even with that, the iPhone's data-at-rest encryption and Activesync compliance hisorically gave them a heads-up over other BYODs. In addition, third party apps for iOS / Android have provided more granular and non-managed security features. For Android it filled in encryption feature gaps which is no longer an issue on the latest devices. On the iPhone the biggest benefit of these apps was to sandbox corporate data from personal, including a remote wipe.
Apparently they dont like a 30 minute server setup process, followed by no-hassle user adds (user needs to enter their email and the activation password) and device wipes.
Yes, Im sure something smart pushed them to WP7, but darned if I can figure out what it is. Oh wait, Im gonna go with "someone higher up doesnt care about email as much as he cares about 'slick' and 'can watch netflix'".
Don't forget that Android devices are ridiculously easy to lock down and set up with full encryption....
is currently the only real choice for corporate america.
Correct me if I am wrong, but you need to get a third party product to manage that centrally (would be interested to hear how youre doing it if not). Blackberries are STILL a good choice for corp america, if you really care about security.
You really cant compare Android's email security to BES's; Android can be tricked into disclosing email with ANY legit-signed SSL cert with the proper FQDN-- even if it was issued by the DOD or one of China's authorities. You CANNOT fool BES devices in the same way-- you must either crack the AES encryption on a per-device basis, or grab all the per-device keys from the server.
I get the whole "Oh noes BES is dying" thing, but they still have superior management, and they still have superior security. Perhaps thats not what is in vogue, and failing to adapt will kill BES, but lets not go overboard by comparing Android security to Blackberry.
Only the recent crop of premium Android devices support these features. I have a shiny new 2.x Android device which only supports application-level encryption through third-party apps. I'm pretty new to Android, but it's important not to mislead people on this.
The same is true of iOS. You need the new stuff to have these features. I would argue that features like remote wipe, manditory encryption and whitelisting apps is much easier in iOS 5 than on Android, although I haven't looked at iOS 6 yet though.
It's not hard to find this information: http://www.apple.com/iphone/business/integration/
iOS and iPhone hardware have supported the features you mentioned for a long time. However, only in iOS 4.x have all the features been accurately reported.
Android simply isnt designed for hardware keyboard use the way Blackberries were. RIM could try to do something with android, and it would still be a touch device first. It would also lose all of the benefits of BES that make RIM different and desirable.
Im really not clear why anyone would get a RIMdroid.
It's not hugely difficult to port apps to the Playbook [...] but not many devs bother
A developer can't very well port an application to a device that he doesn't have.
and those that do stick a premium on to cover their efforts.
How much of that premium is to cover the cost of buying a PlayBook on which to test?
Why would you think the IT people had any real input into this decision?
Last time Microsoft made an aggressive push to counter Apple et. al. in the workplace, they didn't target us lowly peons - they wined and dined presidents and CEOs. I recall several Microsoft-centric directives, a few years ago, coming from the office of our university's president regarding things like setting up a campus-wide Exchange service; they came roughly six months after our central IT department announced we were moving campus mail to Google Apps.
#DeleteChrome
Stuff like tabbing and cursor navigation / selection is horribly inconsistent and sometimes even missing from some apps (e.g. Polaris Office).
Did you try reporting the inconsistency to the developers of those applications?
Or rather, "someone higher up got some favours from a Microsoft rep".
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Android simply isnt designed for hardware keyboard use the way Blackberries were.
It isn't? My old HTC Dream had excellent hard keyboard support, as does my current Samsung Captivate Glide. Now, it is quite hard to find a decent hard keyboarded Android phone (I had to import mine from the US), but the software itself supports it fine.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
Lets see...an account just made and the ONLY post they have is a FP plugging a product...sigh this is just sad.
For those that scream "You must be teh shill!" because i find faults in the product you love? See THIS FP by "androidlover" which to their credit they tried choosing a UID that would make them sound like they were NOT shilling...only they forgot to even name android, even though its one of the fastest growing market segments and as we saw here recently MSFT pays $500 to get people to sign a $50 contract for a Nokia Lumia and STILL can't get rid of the damned things.
Sorry folks but I'm not a shill, I have just found your product lacking while THIS^^^^ This right here is a shill.
As for TFA the problem with RIM is NOT the iPhone and Android, WinPhone isn't even on the radar as Ballmer fucked up and didn't give it good AD and GPO support, its the fact they sat on ass and didn't bother to make any exciting new products or try to grow their product towards other demographics. You see if they would have had exciting new product lines? Wouldn't NEED to grow their product lines into other demographics as their business userbase was a pretty loyal bunch. RIM had decent exchange support, good security features, heck they could brag the POTUS was hooked on their products.
But instead of using that money to come out with exciting new products and features for that userbase, thus giving them a reason to stick with their product, they basically sat on ass for years just producing the same phone over and over and over. Now if they had a good enough design they might have been able to do that if they would have reached out to new users but again all they did was sat on ass and produced the same design for the same demographic so naturally they got bored and tired of waiting so they went somewhere else. I would argue BYOD is nothing but users getting tired of decent solutions for their problems not being made so they said "fuck it" and try to come up with their own.
So sorry RIM, you deserve to join Palm, Nokia, and even MSFT mobile in the pile of failed products because like them you sat on ass, didn't listen to the customers or give them exciting products they would want to buy, and now its too late because your potential customers have moved on.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
He said it the best two years ago.
http://mobileopportunity.blogspot.com/2010/10/whats-really-wrong-with-blackberry-and.html
Your troll is based on skipping Android phones which are actually far more popular then WP7.
Android phones won't stay popular in the home country of Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Slashdot if Apple keeps winning in patent court.
For most IT departments, the security needs aren't sufficient to warrant a source code audit.
Precious few though, do require source code audits, and do run their own firmware. Doing so is a lot easier if you actually can do so.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Blue screens? Seriously? WTF are you running, some 7 year old plus XP installs? Its called let go of the fricking decade old patched all to hell creaky as fuck ancient history and get Windows 7 already! I have YET to see a Win 7 BSOD, I'm sure that they can happen, but its so rare that if I ever did see one I'd be checking for hardware failures, and I work on Windows machines 6 days a week. Hell even Vista for all its pains in the ass was extremely hard to BSOD unless you ran some alpha quality graphics driver and now even that doesn't crash Win 7, it simply restarts the graphics driver, doesn't even make you close any programs.
As for WP7? Unless the PHBs that do the buying were getting nice lunches with a MS marketer i don't see the selling point. The WP phones that are out don't have either the nicer displays of iPhone nor the nicer features of the Droid phones, has less apps than both of those, and from what I've been reading doesn't even have steller AD and group management which you think if nothing else MSFT would have gotten right, seeing how WinServer is their product and all.
Of course WinPhone suffers from the same myopic focus that MSFT has had of late, their insane consumer only focus that has them pushing brain dead ideas like Metro on Win 8 Pro, like business users want their workers with a tweeting, twitting, FB shitting social page for a start screen. Yep that will get them working, have constant FB updates and other crap distracting them...sigh. Ballmer makes the Pepsi guy's rein at Apple look like the work of a fricking genius. And if the past is any indication I hope they'll be ready to toss those phones when the next WinPhone version comes out because it probably won't get an update.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Riiight, all corporate cares about is source code, because they got that with their BB phones and Windows desktops...oh wait. Nobody cares dude, nobody but the programmers that view having source as a mantra give a rat's ass, all they care about is "does it do the jobs I have" and Android answers that with a big YES by having the same Exchange support as the other guys but having better encryption that can be centrally managed.
Because if you think fortune 500 companies are paying coders to sit on ass all day reading source code I have an invisible unicorn you might be interested in. Show me ONE, just one mind you, article from a fortune 500 company talking about how they chose Android phones because they could audit source. You won't be able to because like Unicorns and the Easter Bunny they simply don't exist. Again if the corps gave a rat's ass about that then Windows desktops wouldn't be the de facto standard in the corporate world because MSFT sure isn't handing out the source code to Windows.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
They do, but the only ones that actually need that level of security generally only need it at either the highest echelons or is someone like the DoD. Sure RIM can survive on those customers but its margins are going to have to go way up and its going to have to restructure its whole business model to target ONLY the enterprise.
I was also saying this based on RIM going kaput. BES is very obviously the best choice at the moment, but in a world without BES Android becomes your only real remaining option.
They do, and I was saying this in regards to a world without RIM.
Without RIM you could pretty easily see a company that just does security springing up to make a sandbox/remote control suite for Android. I cant see Apple allowing the same.
The other side of the coin is that you *have* to customize your Android install because what you get out of the box is so laughably bad. The email and calendar clients are mediocre. And Android itself doesn't even support caldav or carddav, which completely blows my mind. And heaven forbid you need to keep a lot of apps or a few large apps, because the system partition on most phones is so small that even if you move your apps to SD card (which doesn't actually move the entire app) , it's still all too easy to run out of room.
The growth of the user base is flattening, not flatlining. It's RIM itself that is flatlining.
I fail to see any significant difference between IOS and Android from an IT perspective. Both support activesync, both support encryption, both support SSL, and both can be centrally managed to a degree (doesnt IOS have security profiles that can be deployed?)
Theyre also inferior to BES, but if BES goes kaput I dont see why Android becomes the only option.
Theres no way AFAIK to do swipes or many of the commands with the keyboard. There are a LOT of things that simply require taps and jabs. And I havent found the keyboard shortcuts to be terribly good.
Because of the reasons companies are not mass deploying iOS already. Apple won't let them at the nuts and bolts to do their own security audits and never will unless they change course drastically.
Android on the other hand is very easy to audit. At present its not the best, but Apple won't let you at the nuts and bolts enough to essentially replicate what BES is now like they would be able to on Android.
RIM gets around this by allowing companies to have their own IT staff participate in penetration testing etc, and RIM will actually train your own staff members to do all of the admin and hardening. While being essentially a closed system the BES is very open.
Sorry, but I don't believe the only ones who need that level of security are the highest echelons and the DoD. No serious business can afford the cost of lack of security and secure its data.
Given that, you scenario where RIM is going kaput is unlikely, they still have a niche market and if they care about it, they can still keep this precious customer base.
The point being, why should RIM target the mass market and the next door guy who need a smartphone to play some game while commuting and never use his phone for business purpose?
It may be wiser for RIM to secure its enterprise customer base rather than being after a market that has no recognition for the capabilities of their products and just want some flashy device.
It is not the first time a hightech company seems to die and at the end rebirth from its ashes. It even happened to Apple.
Achille Talon
Hop!
Oh I definitely think RIM should abandon the consumer market altogether. Its not their game, and never was.
Going after it has cost the company big time and they need to get back to ensuring they keep their core market.
You can't run a company when every year someone successfully sues you for hundreds of millions of dollars over and over and over. I'm kind of hoping Apple does that no only to Samsung but to everyone everywhere and the whole cell phone market including all the carriers go under and we go back 30 or 40 years in terms of technology.
Yes, Windows 7 still bluescreens, and sometimes there are bugs that you can do nothing with other than reimage. It is still has that Win 95 codebase in there.
they just need to make a 5 inch quad-core android phone and it will take them back to where they need to be
Really guys-RIM is not supporting the current users. OSX with Desktop Manager. Updated to 2.4. Suddenly, the machine hangs, won't synch, needs forced restarts. The Desktop MisManager is the only bit of software that has ever hung my Mac, running 10.6. Oh, and the Bluetooth in the Bold 9930 kept dropping out in the car. Are we pissed yet ? Go to Verizon. They replace the Bold, even though I am out of warranty. New Bold still won't synch calendar or contacts. Useless. Search forums. All have this issue. RIM knows. "No Projected Resolution" Are you kidding me ? Business user can't synch, forget music or media.....and you aren't on it...? Forums full of this...OSX can't synch, and prior versions of OSX software are not on the RIM website. I finally found 2.1 from August 2011. A downgrade, along with unchecking every upgrade notifier, fixed the problem. Every person I asked, said the same thing, and had the same suggestion...."Get an iPhone". I prefer the keyboard on the BB, but my Palm under XP had no problems synching, so I don't expect you to, either. Will I care about system 10 when it comes out ? Maybe I'll read about it on my iPhone-and I don't really want one.
As others have pointed out, users waiting for BB10 have nothing to do with lack of growth: those users are part of the current userbase, and wouldn't result in growth.
The best thing about a boolean is even if you are wrong, you are only off by a bit.
Yeah, in real life Android integrates far better with Exchange than either an iPhone or a BlackBerry. I dunno about windows phones, we haven't got any.
Blackberry needs BES if you are federally regulated (like any public corporation or HIPAA entity) which is a whole nuther server, for crying out loud.
And of course the iPhone has the stupid timezone calendaring bug which has been known to cause epic mail loops.
Take it back. Isn't there something wrong with the hardware if a new computer is kernel panicking/BSODs?
Liar.
Required reading for internet skeptics
All RIM has to do is come out with a smart phone to compete with the iPhone and the Samsung S3... Stop trying to just be a blackberry, it is not as "nifty" as it used to be ...
Wes Beckwith
Good Mail has full Exchange integration with the added bonus of not locking the user out from installing apps on their phone because security is freaking out. Plus it has the added bonus of allowing access to the company's internal website. We had a party when we turned off our Blackberry Enterprise server.
This is the begininng of the end for RIM? Yeah, that might've been poignant what, 4? 5? Years ago. They were like a dinosaur standing on a big block of wood...on top of a tar pit. It was just a matter of time without a miracle, and from the looks of it, they haven't even been praying.
Only BSOD's I ever got on my Windows 7 laptop were being caused by some bad RAM. It's been so long since I've see a BSOD, I can hardly remember what color they were :-).
I got a free WP7.5 device (my Treo "lost" the Smoked by Windows Phone challenge), which held some promise, but I've switched to Android for now. If Microsoft decides to give away WP8 phones via a Smoked by Windows Phone type challenge again, I may try one, but I'm not going to spend my money on one anytime soon.
I don't know if it's fair to say BB is done but I'm sure seeing a lot fewer of them these days. At a place I used to work at I got issued a BB and I've got to say that I really liked it. The battery would last forever it seemed. The phone calls came in loud and clear. It was great for texting and email. It was secure. I really liked the physical keyboard. But they were slow to adopt the touch screen interface and now seem dated compared to the iPhone and Android phones.
:-(
No more rim jobs.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Since when did the fact that a company's user base stopped growing mean it was the beginning of the end for them?
In any normal (non-tech) business, as long as you are making decent profits your company is successful. You don't suddenly panic and close down if one year your sales figures don't increase. I've worked for engineering firms that have been going for fifty or more years; they may be smaller than when they were at their peak and outsource a lot of manufacturing to China, but they're still happily profitable.
The myth that someone like Apple can keep on growing for ever is...a myth.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Wanting to save some money, I got a Blackberry, instead of an iPhone or Android. It was a stupid mistake. The phone's quality is sub-par (I had to send it off to be repaired after the screen snapped under the pressure of my thumb, from picking it up). The menus are complicated and convoluted; nothing is where you'd think it should be and somethings need to be adjusted from several different locations (and I'm good with menus. I work with computers all day). On top of all of that, the audio, on my phone model anyway, is terrible. It's muffled and hard to hear. As soon as my commitment on this phone runs out, I am ditching this thing and never looking back.
If you're going to succeed in the "being a stupid shill" industry, you need to remember to plug the product you're being paid to shill. Knocking the competition is only half the job.
I can only score you "5/10 must try harder". Remember, next time, the final clause should be something along the lines of "I am ditching this thing for an iPhone, with its vastly superior build quality, wide selection of Angry Birds games and easy-to-use virtual keyboard, and never looking back."
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Android has keyboard and mouse events, it's just that some apps are very slapdash in their support for them and what the OS provides isn't very refined. E.g. a mouse is treated more like a virtual finger than a mouse which means the pointer doesn't change shape over links, doesn't select text like a mouse, doesn't have context menus etc. Keyboard support is better and a number of devices with hardware keyboards attest to that. I suspect keyboard is adequate for phones with keyboards although I know from experience it's not good enough to emulate a PC keyboard.
All RIM needs to do is release the BB10 devices already. I'll buy one. I know many people who'll buy one. But there isn't one to buy, and the fact that it's "coming" is the main reason why existing (read - obsolete) models aren't being purchased. Why would I spend $500 on the 9900, if I know there will be a new one in under 6 months? If I wanted to spend $500 on a new phone every 6 months, I would switch to iPhones long time ago.
Bow before me, for I am root.
I know you are being facetious, but just to defend my statement, the OS on the phone I have (a 9300) is crap. Not sure how the new "touch screen" models are. Maybe they are better? I wanted to turn off all programs that access data, through the network (I don't have a data plan and the constant warnings that I was trying to use data, were getting annoying), and had to not only delete a bunch of programs but also disable the connectivity in several different places. I have programed several pieces of my own software, done a TON of beta testing and know most OSes, inside and out. Lets just say that I am not new to software environments. There are certain expectations about where things should be and how you should be able to access them. The OS on my device is terrible and nothing is where it should be. After a steep learning curve, I was able to find most stuff but even the things that I want to do require far more steps than they really should. It's just a poorly made system. In no way am I promoting any other device or system. Just voicing my hatred toward Blackberry. If you fail to see that, I can't do anything for you...