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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."
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.
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.
RIM was hardly dead 5 years ago. Android wasn't out 5 years ago, it didn't come out until 2008. 5 years ago the iPhone was just coming out and it was hardly a business ready device. Do you remember the state of Palm phones and Windows Phone 5 years ago? I doubt it.
I really enjoyed my BlackBerry 5 years ago, it was an impressive device. Heck I enjoyed my BlackBerry 10 years ago. RIM was on top of the world. Shame its basically the same thing they sell today. Arrogance, ignorance, whatever their failing was. They're done today. Had they done something good 2 years ago, maybe a different story, but 2 years is a long time in this market.
Hire Carly?
..don't panic
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