4 ms·

RIM BlackBerry Desperately Working on a Plan to Fend Off the iPhone

6 points by vlad 19y ago

martythemaniak 19y ago
I worked for RIM in 2005/2006 and the entire time every company under the sun was coming out with a "BlackBerry Killer". It was supposed to be the Treo, Good Technology, Moto's Q9, WinMo with active sync, Nokia E60 etc etc. During the entire time sales kept growing steadily at around 25% a quarter. So the iPhone is just the latest one of these and things will turn out as before. For example, sales of the BB have been very strong since the iPhone launched and even exceeded analyst expectations in Q4 and that's unlikely to change. Look at it this way - when the BlackBerry came out in 99, RIM had around 100 poeple and sold 25000 devices. Now they're one of Canada's largest companies by market cap, have thousands of employees and sell millions of devices per quarter. So what I'm really saying is: no worries. They've got plenty of good people working there, the CxOs are competent and they'll do well.
mattmaroon 19y ago
That article confused me. On one hand, Blackberries aren't going to be replaced among core users by anything that doesn't have a keypad. On the other hand, RIM is threatened by the iPhone. Which is it?
- tl 19y ago
  RIM is threatened by the iPhone. In spite of statistics showing the iPhone keyboard to have a much higher error rate, a significant portion of users don't seem to mind. Besides, the iPhone is the brand new "hey, I'm important" status symbol replacing the old status symbol (the loving named "crackberry") of the corporate golfer-businessman.
  - vlad 19y ago
    I got some VP's hooked onto the iPhone by making them and the Exchange Team aware of, and sign up for, the iPhone Enterprise Beta program shortly after I was accepted as an Individual under my own accord. In January, I presented some slides with a manager to a bunch of smart people beforehand to bring attention to the iPhone as a potential platform and a reduced cost option than the $80-$120/mo crackberries. The point was to get some development for the platform, but VP's took the iPhones for themselves when the test units came in, so that's a good sign. One big deal with the iPhones is that several VP's and Architects I've talked to have large collections of music from way back when they were younger and listen to them on their iPods, so the iPhone has a good quality of reminiscence to it. In fact, at a corporate gathering, two of them were comparing which albums they had standing by a jukebox with tons of choices. They could be doing the same with the iPhone. One could say that showing your albums to a friend could be a killer social feature for two people standing next to each other who are in their forties or fifties. The BlackBerry keyboard was judged to be better, but I told them to wait a bit as it learns from the way the user uses it. There are probably great reasons to present the use of the mac as an option or to have an Ajax web site for the company's target audience, but I have better things to do at home. I'm already initiating other crazy things, like teaching the web content team in IT how to use basic HTML, and how to create simple banners in Photoshop (don't ask) in the beginning of May. Somebody yell at me.
  - mattmaroon 19y ago
    Yeah, I'm not buying the argument that the iPhone poses a threat in the enterprise space. I email from my phone a lot and it's the main reason I haven't switched an iPhone. Typing on that thing is just too brutal for someone used to a keypad. In the consumer space though, it will prevent RIM from gaining any ground.

6 points by vlad 19y ago

I worked for RIM in 2005/2006 and the entire time every company under the sun was coming out with a "BlackBerry Killer". It was supposed to be the Treo, Good Technology, Moto's Q9, WinMo with active sync, Nokia E60 etc etc. During the entire time sales kept growing steadily at around 25% a quarter. So the iPhone is just the latest one of these and things will turn out as before. For example, sales of the BB have been very strong since the iPhone launched and even exceeded analyst expectations in Q4 and that's unlikely to change. Look at it this way - when the BlackBerry came out in 99, RIM had around 100 poeple and sold 25000 devices. Now they're one of Canada's largest companies by market cap, have thousands of employees and sell millions of devices per quarter. So what I'm really saying is: no worries. They've got plenty of good people working there, the CxOs are competent and they'll do well.

mattmaroon 19y ago

That article confused me. On one hand, Blackberries aren't going to be replaced among core users by anything that doesn't have a keypad. On the other hand, RIM is threatened by the iPhone. Which is it?

tl 19y ago
RIM is threatened by the iPhone. In spite of statistics showing the iPhone keyboard to have a much higher error rate, a significant portion of users don't seem to mind. Besides, the iPhone is the brand new "hey, I'm important" status symbol replacing the old status symbol (the loving named "crackberry") of the corporate golfer-businessman.
- vlad 19y ago
  I got some VP's hooked onto the iPhone by making them and the Exchange Team aware of, and sign up for, the iPhone Enterprise Beta program shortly after I was accepted as an Individual under my own accord. In January, I presented some slides with a manager to a bunch of smart people beforehand to bring attention to the iPhone as a potential platform and a reduced cost option than the $80-$120/mo crackberries. The point was to get some development for the platform, but VP's took the iPhones for themselves when the test units came in, so that's a good sign. One big deal with the iPhones is that several VP's and Architects I've talked to have large collections of music from way back when they were younger and listen to them on their iPods, so the iPhone has a good quality of reminiscence to it. In fact, at a corporate gathering, two of them were comparing which albums they had standing by a jukebox with tons of choices. They could be doing the same with the iPhone. One could say that showing your albums to a friend could be a killer social feature for two people standing next to each other who are in their forties or fifties. The BlackBerry keyboard was judged to be better, but I told them to wait a bit as it learns from the way the user uses it. There are probably great reasons to present the use of the mac as an option or to have an Ajax web site for the company's target audience, but I have better things to do at home. I'm already initiating other crazy things, like teaching the web content team in IT how to use basic HTML, and how to create simple banners in Photoshop (don't ask) in the beginning of May. Somebody yell at me.
- mattmaroon 19y ago
  Yeah, I'm not buying the argument that the iPhone poses a threat in the enterprise space. I email from my phone a lot and it's the main reason I haven't switched an iPhone. Typing on that thing is just too brutal for someone used to a keypad. In the consumer space though, it will prevent RIM from gaining any ground.