BlackBerry will never be an internet device in the visual sense. Apple is always going to be far better at that. What I'm saying is there is a category of users, and I think a rather large one for whom internet is not all that important. Take all the dumb phone users and feature phone users and think about how much they would like a better texting / IM / news experience for the low price (unlocked BBes are in line with low end feature phones in terms of cost).
We're long past the point where any smartphone vendor spends any resources trying to convince people that smartphones are preferable to feature phones.
I'm describing a device for people who don't want visual but want information. If you are reading wsj.com or nytimes.com a good text mode is likely preferable. This is the same reason people like e-ink devices for reading.
Heck I'd love a good text mode browser for / rather than having to put up with the slow performance.
Take RIM-MVS. You can tie your corporate PBX with your entire corporate Universal Communication Suite directly into your Blackberry. That means your dial the office extension and if they are on the road their phone rings. You dial the cell and they are at the office their deskphone rings.
The company can even directly connect to the carrier and route calls via their own MPLS. So for example if they want all calls recorded (like brokers or medical personel) a cell to call will go through their recording system with neither party having to do anything other than dial a phone number. That call is then available to attach to an electronic medical record. Blackberry also has built in security hardware so you can order drugs from major commercial pharmacies directly via apps with security information recorded.
Youngsters who most text / email / twitter.... They live in countries where they can get cheap smallish data plan and unlimited texting / messaging plans with a BlackBerry and they love them. RIM should be pushing those plans in the USA.
Siri. AI based full language engine that is practical. Apple is moving towards a phone that can be perform complex tasks and can be operated safely while driving.
That's not the problem. The problem is that companies are oriented towards servicing their existing clients and likely prospects. These new technologies often develop from groups of customers with needs that are opposite of those of your existing clients and then improve more rapidly to take over your customers.
That's not true. RIM wasn't doing nothing. RIM was doing all sorts of truly innovative stuff for the large enterprise market that Android and Apple are nowhere near close to having. But RIM did not develop the client connections nor the large consulting group required to get these server products actually implemented. So RIM had really cool technology that didn't get implemented.
If businesses were using the full RIM solution RIM phones would have fully integrated universal communication suites while Apple and Android have cool browsers and games and terrible UC clients. Businesses wouldn't be moving towards using consumer phones.
Because of the way data plans are sold. No one is making much money selling tablets with data. That's something that RIM got right from the start. The problem of course is the carriers want to sell two plans and RIM isn't in a position to dictate to carriers anymore.
The reason it is hard is because you basically have to build a new OS, then build an interface that is familiar and then build transition products to help the software migrate. Think about Microsoft's journey in moving people from DOS to Windows XP.
I will say this though. RIM still has wonderful corporate features no one else has. As I see it that is the core of their offering. Heck if they can't make the phone with QNX buy the phones from Samsung and run a modified Android that supports BES, RIM-MVS...
Or use a text mode browser with a viewer and text controls (http://www.visualize.uk.com/images/lynxlarge.gif ) Which might have worked better on phones with slow or no data. And then offer all sorts of channel features, autolookup, archiving....
In other words play to RIM's strengths not Apple's strengths.
QNX is a really interesting product for cell phones. Because of the design of the kernel it has all sorts of real time features and power features that in theory would make it better than the XNU or the Linux kernel. But... that's essentially a new product. To this day RIM never really came to internal consensus on direction.
Also lets not forget RIM has an entire supporting infrastructure of server based products to support their phones in the field. No one else is remotely close to that, since they are starting from consumer and working their way up. RIM should have been meeting with every fortune 1000 company in the US helping them implement advanced features that Android / Apple don't have and won't have for years.
And IT administrators are going to have a hell of a time with Apple for similar reasons. IT has one of 3 choices that really haven't changed:
a) An expensive feature rich hard to administer environment. b) A low power cheap to administer environment. c) A feature rich east to administer environment with high incidental costs due to security and lost data.
Or people who primarily text / email. Blackberry is popular with teenagers in countries where you can get a low priced phone / texting / email plan. Honestly I think they would make a great feature phone with unlimited texting plus push email and a low data plan (200mb or less) for the US market. Pity no one is positioning this product there.
I get that they are done doing stuff. I guess the question is whether a company that really did the work and for whom the patents are likely legitimate innovations is a "patent troll" or is a company using the patent system the way it was designed.
Agree with this. As for globally reachable addresses and printers. The way it is done now is using something like dynamic dns and port forwarding. For example the home computer might "check in" with its addresses every hour to a remote server. Now that is going to be the address of the router, but the router port forwards to the printer. So even though the addresses are dynamic the printer is reachable.
The only case you are missing.
Home router is on a v6 network but printer is on a v4 subnet. So the external address is v6.
Good point about floating graphics. SGI was in the early 1980s one of first companies to make use of hardware floating point acceleration as a standard. Up until the 80486 math coprocessors were rare on PCs (and I believe the 80486sx which was the most common 486 didn't have one) and I don't even know when they had multiple floating point units.
I think it is getting more clear this is a quite likely legit patent claim. And then it comes down to what people think about patents in general.
first use of integrated frame buffering for graphics first use of multibus which brought the price of workstations down to the $5k-10k level capable of doing work like real time audio first use of floating point accelerator technology for graphics first use of multiple hardware graphics accelerators first system capable of handling 3 video streams simultaneously, essentially inventing video mixing. most of the ideas from ACE are used in today's supercomputers.
Now the rest of your post is that invention is mostly a matter of being at the right place at the right time. I'd agree SGI fits the bill. They were the workstation manufacturer working closely with visualization and sound. But the innovations you see on your computer today were quite often first created by them.
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BlackBerry will never be an internet device in the visual sense. Apple is always going to be far better at that. What I'm saying is there is a category of users, and I think a rather large one for whom internet is not all that important. Take all the dumb phone users and feature phone users and think about how much they would like a better texting / IM / news experience for the low price (unlocked BBes are in line with low end feature phones in terms of cost).
I use:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id431523208
for writing longer messages.
I agree that Blackberry is better for long messages but this app helps quite a bit.
We're long past the point where any smartphone vendor spends any resources trying to convince people that smartphones are preferable to feature phones.
No actually we aren't. For example in the USA:
http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Smartphone-Penetration.gif
I'm describing a device for people who don't want visual but want information. If you are reading wsj.com or nytimes.com a good text mode is likely preferable. This is the same reason people like e-ink devices for reading.
Heck I'd love a good text mode browser for / rather than having to put up with the slow performance.
Hate to solicit business on /. but we are working with companies that are trying to migrate to BES and MVS features for iPhone.
If you are serious and would like to talk: http://bluelotussidc.com/
People have given you phone advantages.
Take RIM-MVS. You can tie your corporate PBX with your entire corporate Universal Communication Suite directly into your Blackberry. That means your dial the office extension and if they are on the road their phone rings. You dial the cell and they are at the office their deskphone rings.
The company can even directly connect to the carrier and route calls via their own MPLS. So for example if they want all calls recorded (like brokers or medical personel) a cell to call will go through their recording system with neither party having to do anything other than dial a phone number. That call is then available to attach to an electronic medical record. Blackberry also has built in security hardware so you can order drugs from major commercial pharmacies directly via apps with security information recorded.
what young consumer wants to be a part of that?
Youngsters who most text / email / twitter.... They live in countries where they can get cheap smallish data plan and unlimited texting / messaging plans with a BlackBerry and they love them. RIM should be pushing those plans in the USA.
Oh and another one.
Siri. AI based full language engine that is practical. Apple is moving towards a phone that can be perform complex tasks and can be operated safely while driving.
iCloud... An inexpensive way of bringing a fully IT supported server integrated infrastructure across multiple devices to the masses.
I'd say that's rather new.
That's not the problem. The problem is that companies are oriented towards servicing their existing clients and likely prospects. These new technologies often develop from groups of customers with needs that are opposite of those of your existing clients and then improve more rapidly to take over your customers.
That's called disruption. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_innovation
That's not true. RIM wasn't doing nothing. RIM was doing all sorts of truly innovative stuff for the large enterprise market that Android and Apple are nowhere near close to having. But RIM did not develop the client connections nor the large consulting group required to get these server products actually implemented. So RIM had really cool technology that didn't get implemented.
If businesses were using the full RIM solution RIM phones would have fully integrated universal communication suites while Apple and Android have cool browsers and games and terrible UC clients. Businesses wouldn't be moving towards using consumer phones.
Because of the way data plans are sold. No one is making much money selling tablets with data. That's something that RIM got right from the start. The problem of course is the carriers want to sell two plans and RIM isn't in a position to dictate to carriers anymore.
The reason it is hard is because you basically have to build a new OS, then build an interface that is familiar and then build transition products to help the software migrate. Think about Microsoft's journey in moving people from DOS to Windows XP.
You are already moded to +5 but. Good comment.
I will say this though. RIM still has wonderful corporate features no one else has. As I see it that is the core of their offering. Heck if they can't make the phone with QNX buy the phones from Samsung and run a modified Android that supports BES, RIM-MVS...
Or use a text mode browser with a viewer and text controls (http://www.visualize.uk.com/images/lynxlarge.gif ) Which might have worked better on phones with slow or no data. And then offer all sorts of channel features, autolookup, archiving....
In other words play to RIM's strengths not Apple's strengths.
QNX is a really interesting product for cell phones. Because of the design of the kernel it has all sorts of real time features and power features that in theory would make it better than the XNU or the Linux kernel. But... that's essentially a new product. To this day RIM never really came to internal consensus on direction.
Also lets not forget RIM has an entire supporting infrastructure of server based products to support their phones in the field. No one else is remotely close to that, since they are starting from consumer and working their way up. RIM should have been meeting with every fortune 1000 company in the US helping them implement advanced features that Android / Apple don't have and won't have for years.
And IT administrators are going to have a hell of a time with Apple for similar reasons. IT has one of 3 choices that really haven't changed:
a) An expensive feature rich hard to administer environment.
b) A low power cheap to administer environment.
c) A feature rich east to administer environment with high incidental costs due to security and lost data.
Smartphones haven't really been competing against traditional cell phones since around 2005.
Huh? Where do you think the surge of recent smart phone switchers, is coming from non cell phone users?
Or people who primarily text / email. Blackberry is popular with teenagers in countries where you can get a low priced phone / texting / email plan. Honestly I think they would make a great feature phone with unlimited texting plus push email and a low data plan (200mb or less) for the US market. Pity no one is positioning this product there.
Good point. If they no longer are willing to consult on their patents then they are just a patent troll.
I get that they are done doing stuff. I guess the question is whether a company that really did the work and for whom the patents are likely legitimate innovations is a "patent troll" or is a company using the patent system the way it was designed.
Agree with this. As for globally reachable addresses and printers. The way it is done now is using something like dynamic dns and port forwarding. For example the home computer might "check in" with its addresses every hour to a remote server. Now that is going to be the address of the router, but the router port forwards to the printer. So even though the addresses are dynamic the printer is reachable.
The only case you are missing.
Home router is on a v6 network but printer is on a v4 subnet. So the external address is v6.
Good point about floating graphics. SGI was in the early 1980s one of first companies to make use of hardware floating point acceleration as a standard. Up until the 80486 math coprocessors were rare on PCs (and I believe the 80486sx which was the most common 486 didn't have one) and I don't even know when they had multiple floating point units.
I think it is getting more clear this is a quite likely legit patent claim. And then it comes down to what people think about patents in general.
Oh I see. I buy that.
OK lets list some innovations of theirs:
first use of integrated frame buffering for graphics
first use of multibus which brought the price of workstations down to the $5k-10k level capable of doing work like real time audio
first use of floating point accelerator technology for graphics
first use of multiple hardware graphics accelerators
first system capable of handling 3 video streams simultaneously, essentially inventing video mixing.
most of the ideas from ACE are used in today's supercomputers.
Now the rest of your post is that invention is mostly a matter of being at the right place at the right time. I'd agree SGI fits the bill. They were the workstation manufacturer working closely with visualization and sound. But the innovations you see on your computer today were quite often first created by them.