The real problem is people who can't appreciate quality.
I'm with you here. People in general do not appreciate quality. But this has almost always been the case.
I can and have built bookcases out of solid oak and hand rubbed finish, which end up costing quite a bit and look beautiful. However the average joe just wants the $19 saggy walmart bookcase. Sort of like McDonalds "food" vs real restaurant.
If by average joe you mean people who live on a budget and can't always afford quality.
I don't know many people who would choose Wal Mart particle board over solid wood if the costs were the same. Most people need their furniture to perform a function. If it performs the function and looks nice that's a bonus. If it is also durable that's incredible.
It's not unreasonable to expect a premium for premium goods. What is unreasonable is to expect everyone to pay those premiums if they don't have to.
Because as with all good pushers the first patch is free. Subsequent patches cost $40K to recertify. At least that's what the voices in my heard said they overhead someone else tell another person.
I think the REAL correlation is people who were polled tended to BELIEVE the stance of the political party they ascribe on climate but having not been swayed by their party on drought/flooding one way or the other simply answered according to their observations.
RIM's immediate problem is BlackBerry faithful holding out for BB 10 devices. Up until this last quarter RIM hadn't had a sizable reduction in sales. Their stock has taken a beating because they hadn't grown at the same pace as the smartphone market leading to sensationalist headlines decrying their impending doom because they were losing market share. While technically true it is like saying the baker on the corner is going bankrupt because 500 people moved into the neighborhood and the baker is still selling the 100 cakes a week he had for the last decade while 2 other bakers opened up shop and are selling 200 cakes a week each. The iPhone opened the smart phone market up to a new demographic. RIM was created to serve a completely different demographic and their culture has struggled to reach the new market. That market has started to erode their core market so they are indeed in dire straights if they don't do a course correction and they are well aware of that. They are doing what needs to be done just slower than the market would like. There are a lot of factors that will determine if RIM remains relevant but to count them out would be foolish at this point. Did you bet against Apple in the 90's? I bet you did...
It was already tried with Mass Effect 3. Of course since EA is actively trying to replace Steam with Origin it probably isn't the best example. I'm guessing Valve gets inundated with indie developers wanting to get on Steam. This would crowdsource the selection process instead of leaving it to a handful of people who's taste in games may or may not be similar to yours. That way Valve devotes its resources to titles which already have interest instead of the "lets toss this against the wall and see if if it sticks" model.
This pretty much answers your question. If you want to control the manufacturing then buy your own facility. Barring that you simply tell them how many widgets you want and when they complete that many widgets they can do whatever they want. When company apl, cpq, xyz, etc. want to sell a widget they many times will just send a spec sheet to Foxconn,Quanta,Jabil, etc. and the manufacturing co. will design the widget to meet those specs. Kinda hard to tell a company the size and scope of Quanta how to do their job. You'd have to be their majority widget customer and even Apple doesn't have that kind of clout.
More to the point. The company in question many times manufactures product for said US competitor and simply continue to manufacture them off hours sans the logo.
Honest answer...no I don't now nor have I ever worked for RIM. I do like their phones and truly hope they can survive and thrive but I am not naive enough to dismiss the problems they are facing. What I find frustrating is the media acting like they have been on this downward spiral for the last couple of years when in fact this is the first quarter in years their sales are down. If you take a look at their 5 year financials you would assume they are very healthy and they actually are but investors are nervous. The sound bite I hear over and over is BlackBerry is losing market share. The truth is the market has grown almost exponentially and RIM's portion of the market hasn't grown in proportion. They have been selling as many handsets as they ever have until this past quarter. The reason sales are down this quarter has less to do with the iPhone or Samsung Galaxy III or the HTC One X and everything to do with BB OS 10. BlackBerry had fanboys long before there was an iPhone and they are a loyal bunch. They are also saving their upgrade subsidy for the next great BlackBerry. I should know I have been holding off upgrading my BB Torch 9800 for six months and I was crushed to hear the release date slip again. For the record I have a 4S and several Android devices but keep going back to my BB for everyday work. Unfortunately for them and RIM the launch of BB OS 10 has slid several times. RIM very much wants to avoid the criticism they received at the launch of the PlayBook but despite the great foundation of QNX creating the next great thing is hard. Their R&D budget has gone through the roof to get this done and done right. Unlike hp they don't have a printer or PC or server or services business to fall back on so they are not going to fold like hp did with WebOS. RIM is all in.
I took issue with your assessment of RIM's offerings and hoped to change your mind. If I haven't so be it.
corporate IT doesn't get to make purchasing decisions, the end users get to make those decisions,
Actually corporate IT makes the purchasing decisions BASED on the criteria set forth by the business. In most mid to large size business that criteria is vetted through some type of security/legal department to mitigate problems before they can happen. If the business says we want iPhones then by the time IT gets involved the request is more like We must identify any and all possible attack vectors that might be exploited on the iOS platform and shore them up either through third party software or hardware. IT will consult vendors to identify the cheapest path since the business isn't willing to pay for the optimum solution to meet the requirements and then will bitch and moan about how cumbersome and glitchy it is. They will then spend an order of magnitude more money trying to fix the problem then they would have had they just purchased the right solution in the first place but it's OK because that money came out of the IT budget and not the capital budget.
Any dumb ass in IT who tries to tell me I have to have a BB (whether the company pays for it or not), is going to find him/herself at the back of the unemployment line.
If I am telling the VP of anything he has to have a BlackBerry (and I have) it is because the SVP/EVP told me that is what the VP had to have. You got a problem with that take it up with your boss. I simply deliver the solution I am told to.
Corporate needs are simple for phones. Just needs to get a decent cell signal on company property, needs to support my corporate e-mail. That's it. It does not need any other fancy software. It doesn't need any kind of access control.
I'm confused. Your saying you don't own a smart phone since all you need is to make/receive calls and get email but yet are lambasting RIM for not having a state of the art smart phone available for you who does not need one? RIM makes phones especially for you. Cheap, reliable, and sturdy. You don't have to have a BES for your email to work. For companies a little more paranoid than you though the BES is a nice option.
The idea that someone is going to glean valuable corporate secrets from our e-mail correspondence is bizarre at best, and patently absurd at worst. We don't email R+D materials. We don't use the devices to transmit anything of any espionage value,
It's clear from this statement you do not, in fact, know anything about what is valuable to businesses. That's not surprising as most employees, even executives, don't either. contacts list, potential deals, embarrassing ANYTHING can be used by your rivals and I've seen it happen on more than one occasion.
I was going to mod AC up but I'll educate you instead.
It is possible for a business to come back from the brink, but RIM has shown absolutely no sign that they'll be a business that does so. All they really have coming up is BlackBerryOS 10
You're obviously unaware of what RIM is doing except for what the doomsayers are trumpeting. RIM understands the work/life balance issue and the paradigm shift away from a work provided device to the BYOD model. Despite this companies still have to be able to keep their data secure. RIM has introduced two new technologies recently to address these issues. BlckBerry Mobile Fusion is RIM's replacement for the BES/BIS. Mobile Fusion allows an enterprise to manage thousands of devices running anything from BB OS to Android to iOS all from one web console. In case you were wondering RIM has indeed incorporated ActiveSync connectivity into their repertoire. The second thing RIM has introduced is called BlackBerry Balance which let's you keep your pictures of your family vacation and the slides of your upcoming presentation on the same device while being secured separately. With this technology you can walk into a new job with your own device and get it activated on their BES/BIS/Mobile Fusion server and it will create a secure work related partition on the device separate from your personal data. When you leave the company they simply wipe the work partition remotely leaving your personal data intact.
I'm sure you're probably saying that won't be enough to save them and you are right it won't which is why they are making the switch to BB OS 10. A lot of people are asking...even demanding that RIM just adopt Android and move on but as is evidenced in the market today none of the players in the Android space are making any money except for Samsung and they are making money on the handsets they sell as well as the chips they sell to their competitors.And despite the death knells being sounded by every industry "expert" developers are still lining up every day to develop for the PlayBook/ BB OS 10 because the few people using the PlayBook are actually paying to get the apps they want unlike the majority of Android users who want their apps to be free.Do they have a tough road ahead? Hell yes but considering they still sold more handsets in 1Q 2012 then they did in 1Q 2009 despite the RIM faithful all holding out for a BB 10 device I'd say they are far from toast. Most government agencies can't even consider another device because there aren't any that are FIPS 140-2 validated. There are a few here and there and there are third party solutions to make devices secure but they are far from optimal. We have a program where I work where they bolt on a security layer to iOS to meet the security standards and it is the biggest PITA I have ever experienced. Not to mention cumbersome and intrusive. Even people here who love their Apple device can't stand using it to access the network because of the hoops they have to jump through.
And they probably (correctly) identify Wine as being not genuine Windows. It's an emulation.
You should be receiving a barrage of W.I.N.E. Is Not an Emulator hate mail any moment. It doesn't invalidate your point but I thought you should be forewarned.
Slashdot Mirror
As long as you have a license to carry...yes
That's why you use a camera with an Eye-Fi card to send the pictures to your phone in your pocket.
Try SugarSync
How many high performant apps have you seen written in Java
I haven't seen many but the one I have seen is pretty darned impressive.
You said it was unbelievable...I agreed with you...
I don't believe you.
The real problem is people who can't appreciate quality.
I'm with you here. People in general do not appreciate quality. But this has almost always been the case.
I can and have built bookcases out of solid oak and hand rubbed finish, which end up costing quite a bit and look beautiful. However the average joe just wants the $19 saggy walmart bookcase. Sort of like McDonalds "food" vs real restaurant.
If by average joe you mean people who live on a budget and can't always afford quality.
I don't know many people who would choose Wal Mart particle board over solid wood if the costs were the same. Most people need their furniture to perform a function. If it performs the function and looks nice that's a bonus. If it is also durable that's incredible.
It's not unreasonable to expect a premium for premium goods. What is unreasonable is to expect everyone to pay those premiums if they don't have to.
I agree with what you are saying but would add that had HTML not been released gratis the internet may have remained a niche itself.
You probably won't get many recommendations for BlackBerry but a BlackBerry combined with a PlayBook may just be what you are looking for.
Don't know if serious or seriously doesn't get the reference
Because as with all good pushers the first patch is free. Subsequent patches cost $40K to recertify. At least that's what the voices in my heard said they overhead someone else tell another person.
I think the REAL correlation is people who were polled tended to BELIEVE the stance of the political party they ascribe on climate but having not been swayed by their party on drought/flooding one way or the other simply answered according to their observations.
or not..
So basically an XR3 but with an SUV shell?
Actually demand in the US is so low right now the big oil companies are making more money exporting from the US.
RIM's immediate problem is BlackBerry faithful holding out for BB 10 devices. Up until this last quarter RIM hadn't had a sizable reduction in sales. Their stock has taken a beating because they hadn't grown at the same pace as the smartphone market leading to sensationalist headlines decrying their impending doom because they were losing market share. While technically true it is like saying the baker on the corner is going bankrupt because 500 people moved into the neighborhood and the baker is still selling the 100 cakes a week he had for the last decade while 2 other bakers opened up shop and are selling 200 cakes a week each. The iPhone opened the smart phone market up to a new demographic. RIM was created to serve a completely different demographic and their culture has struggled to reach the new market. That market has started to erode their core market so they are indeed in dire straights if they don't do a course correction and they are well aware of that. They are doing what needs to be done just slower than the market would like. There are a lot of factors that will determine if RIM remains relevant but to count them out would be foolish at this point. Did you bet against Apple in the 90's? I bet you did...
It was already tried with Mass Effect 3. Of course since EA is actively trying to replace Steam with Origin it probably isn't the best example. I'm guessing Valve gets inundated with indie developers wanting to get on Steam. This would crowdsource the selection process instead of leaving it to a handful of people who's taste in games may or may not be similar to yours. That way Valve devotes its resources to titles which already have interest instead of the "lets toss this against the wall and see if if it sticks" model.
His mom Mrs. Ballmer told him.
Actually Samsung is in the equally dubious position.
Yay we can keep selling our product because the competing product is cooler than ours is O_o
Or they can object to the wording and possibly get banned because it IS as cool.
This pretty much answers your question. If you want to control the manufacturing then buy your own facility. Barring that you simply tell them how many widgets you want and when they complete that many widgets they can do whatever they want. When company apl, cpq, xyz, etc. want to sell a widget they many times will just send a spec sheet to Foxconn, Quanta, Jabil, etc. and the manufacturing co. will design the widget to meet those specs. Kinda hard to tell a company the size and scope of Quanta how to do their job. You'd have to be their majority widget customer and even Apple doesn't have that kind of clout.
More to the point. The company in question many times manufactures product for said US competitor and simply continue to manufacture them off hours sans the logo.
Honest answer...no I don't now nor have I ever worked for RIM. I do like their phones and truly hope they can survive and thrive but I am not naive enough to dismiss the problems they are facing. What I find frustrating is the media acting like they have been on this downward spiral for the last couple of years when in fact this is the first quarter in years their sales are down. If you take a look at their 5 year financials you would assume they are very healthy and they actually are but investors are nervous. The sound bite I hear over and over is BlackBerry is losing market share. The truth is the market has grown almost exponentially and RIM's portion of the market hasn't grown in proportion. They have been selling as many handsets as they ever have until this past quarter. The reason sales are down this quarter has less to do with the iPhone or Samsung Galaxy III or the HTC One X and everything to do with BB OS 10. BlackBerry had fanboys long before there was an iPhone and they are a loyal bunch. They are also saving their upgrade subsidy for the next great BlackBerry. I should know I have been holding off upgrading my BB Torch 9800 for six months and I was crushed to hear the release date slip again. For the record I have a 4S and several Android devices but keep going back to my BB for everyday work. Unfortunately for them and RIM the launch of BB OS 10 has slid several times. RIM very much wants to avoid the criticism they received at the launch of the PlayBook but despite the great foundation of QNX creating the next great thing is hard. Their R&D budget has gone through the roof to get this done and done right. Unlike hp they don't have a printer or PC or server or services business to fall back on so they are not going to fold like hp did with WebOS. RIM is all in.
I took issue with your assessment of RIM's offerings and hoped to change your mind. If I haven't so be it.
corporate IT doesn't get to make purchasing decisions, the end users get to make those decisions,
Actually corporate IT makes the purchasing decisions BASED on the criteria set forth by the business. In most mid to large size business that criteria is vetted through some type of security/legal department to mitigate problems before they can happen. If the business says we want iPhones then by the time IT gets involved the request is more like We must identify any and all possible attack vectors that might be exploited on the iOS platform and shore them up either through third party software or hardware. IT will consult vendors to identify the cheapest path since the business isn't willing to pay for the optimum solution to meet the requirements and then will bitch and moan about how cumbersome and glitchy it is. They will then spend an order of magnitude more money trying to fix the problem then they would have had they just purchased the right solution in the first place but it's OK because that money came out of the IT budget and not the capital budget.
Any dumb ass in IT who tries to tell me I have to have a BB (whether the company pays for it or not), is going to find him/herself at the back of the unemployment line.
If I am telling the VP of anything he has to have a BlackBerry (and I have) it is because the SVP/EVP told me that is what the VP had to have. You got a problem with that take it up with your boss. I simply deliver the solution I am told to.
Corporate needs are simple for phones. Just needs to get a decent cell signal on company property, needs to support my corporate e-mail. That's it. It does not need any other fancy software. It doesn't need any kind of access control.
I'm confused. Your saying you don't own a smart phone since all you need is to make/receive calls and get email but yet are lambasting RIM for not having a state of the art smart phone available for you who does not need one? RIM makes phones especially for you. Cheap, reliable, and sturdy. You don't have to have a BES for your email to work. For companies a little more paranoid than you though the BES is a nice option.
The idea that someone is going to glean valuable corporate secrets from our e-mail correspondence is bizarre at best, and patently absurd at worst. We don't email R+D materials. We don't use the devices to transmit anything of any espionage value,
It's clear from this statement you do not, in fact, know anything about what is valuable to businesses. That's not surprising as most employees, even executives, don't either. contacts list, potential deals, embarrassing ANYTHING can be used by your rivals and I've seen it happen on more than one occasion.
No need for that. All they need to do is update the SETI@Home client (BOINC) to also mine for Bitcoins.
It is possible for a business to come back from the brink, but RIM has shown absolutely no sign that they'll be a business that does so. All they really have coming up is BlackBerryOS 10
You're obviously unaware of what RIM is doing except for what the doomsayers are trumpeting. RIM understands the work/life balance issue and the paradigm shift away from a work provided device to the BYOD model. Despite this companies still have to be able to keep their data secure. RIM has introduced two new technologies recently to address these issues. BlckBerry Mobile Fusion is RIM's replacement for the BES/BIS. Mobile Fusion allows an enterprise to manage thousands of devices running anything from BB OS to Android to iOS all from one web console. In case you were wondering RIM has indeed incorporated ActiveSync connectivity into their repertoire. The second thing RIM has introduced is called BlackBerry Balance which let's you keep your pictures of your family vacation and the slides of your upcoming presentation on the same device while being secured separately. With this technology you can walk into a new job with your own device and get it activated on their BES/BIS/Mobile Fusion server and it will create a secure work related partition on the device separate from your personal data. When you leave the company they simply wipe the work partition remotely leaving your personal data intact.
I'm sure you're probably saying that won't be enough to save them and you are right it won't which is why they are making the switch to BB OS 10. A lot of people are asking...even demanding that RIM just adopt Android and move on but as is evidenced in the market today none of the players in the Android space are making any money except for Samsung and they are making money on the handsets they sell as well as the chips they sell to their competitors.And despite the death knells being sounded by every industry "expert" developers are still lining up every day to develop for the PlayBook/ BB OS 10 because the few people using the PlayBook are actually paying to get the apps they want unlike the majority of Android users who want their apps to be free.Do they have a tough road ahead? Hell yes but considering they still sold more handsets in 1Q 2012 then they did in 1Q 2009 despite the RIM faithful all holding out for a BB 10 device I'd say they are far from toast. Most government agencies can't even consider another device because there aren't any that are FIPS 140-2 validated. There are a few here and there and there are third party solutions to make devices secure but they are far from optimal. We have a program where I work where they bolt on a security layer to iOS to meet the security standards and it is the biggest PITA I have ever experienced. Not to mention cumbersome and intrusive. Even people here who love their Apple device can't stand using it to access the network because of the hoops they have to jump through.
And they probably (correctly) identify Wine as being not genuine Windows. It's an emulation.
You should be receiving a barrage of W.I.N.E. Is Not an Emulator hate mail any moment. It doesn't invalidate your point but I thought you should be forewarned.