4 ms·

Thanks for your response. If HTC, Palm, Sony, Nokia, or anybody else releases a great Google Android or Microsoft Windows Mobile phone for business use that co

by vlad 18y ago

Thanks for your response. If HTC, Palm, Sony, Nokia, or anybody else releases a great Google Android or Microsoft Windows Mobile phone for business use that comes with a great keyboard and is equivalent in functionality to a Blackberry, with easy-to-use developer-focused SDK's that Google and Microsoft have, while Blackberry sticks with their (from what I hear) poor platform and continues to charge a big extra monthly fee for their data plans, I can imagine RIM will be stuck in an unfortunate situation two years from now, as Palm is today. In my opinion of how quickly things can turn around, Palm used to be the darling of the Apple world, having roots in Apple's Newton project, and the PalmOS operating system supported Macs while Windows devices did not. As soon as the iPhone came out, Mac users of Palm Treos were probably the first in line to buy the real thing (an Apple phone). Also, Palm themselves put Windows on their phones even before the announcement of the iPhone (turned out to be a good decision for them, since they weren't doing much with the PalmOS, because they couldn't really modify it after all--they chose to have backwards compatibility in order to state that they have over 60,000 applications.) There's also the issue that RIM, a Canadian company, is the only company that forces every message to go their country before it reaches its destination, which means state and federal government officials, and the military, will have an easy choice to use one of the other platforms, as many departments have done already in the United States. The governments in France and India have also voiced such concerns to ban the Blackberry. Note that I am not referring to stock prices here, but the general status of the platforms at that time.

DenisM 18y ago
"If HTC, Palm, Sony, Nokia, or anybody else releases a great Google Android or Microsoft Windows Mobile phone for business use that comes with a great keyboard and is equivalent in functionality to a Blackberry," Well, they kind of did. There are many phones that run Windows Mobile and do all the email/calendar quite well. This is my phone for example: http://tinyurl.com/64jtkq http://tinyurl.com/64jtkq T-Mobile dash. It has keyboard, does all the push-email with Exchange thingy and runs the software that I write for it. My biggest problem with it is outdated UI programming model (Windows Forms), but judging by posts here it is a nice problem to have compared to what RIM offers.
- vlad 18y ago
  Exactly. But I wasn't touting Windows Mobile, which I have never used. I am touting the proven track record Microsoft, Apple, and Google have of serving developers more than any other company (Amazon might be another one because of AWS, and they too have a mobile/cellular product, the Kindle). They have designed lots of great software and Software Developer Kits. RIM does a terrible job and has no such experience. After some research (I didn't before because this was supposed to be just a fun prediction thread we can look back on after one year), I found experts agree: http://www.appletell.com/apple/comment/rim-switching-to-iphone-development/ http://www.appletell.com/apple/comment/rim-switching-to-ipho... http://www.berryreview.com/2008/03/12/rim-is-nurturing-the-development-community/ http://www.berryreview.com/2008/03/12/rim-is-nurturing-the-d...
  - mattmaroon 18y ago
    I don't think I disagree with you, I just don't think that is relevant to the corporate world. Corporations don't want their workers installing third party apps on their phones, that's jut more IT headache for them. They want a device that enables their employees to communicate effectively. Nothing does that like a Berry. And even if it did, the cost of switching would keep everyone using Berries.
    - vlad 18y ago
      Thanks for the response. That's very true today. But I am assuming that among Microsoft/Google/Apple, 3rd parties will use their SDKs Android's open source to create business applications and integrations that will make the Blackberry look lame and expensive in two years, so much so that PalmOS and RIM's OS and SDKs will look lame not just to developers, but users as well. There are currently many problems right now. Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync is free per device, but flaky. As well, IT has to install iTunes on user machines to allow business users to activate and sync the devices. Finally, Apple does not allow IT to disable iPod functionality on their business iPhones. I am betting that these huge problems will be addressed before two years from now. My point is that there will be a noticeable dent in Blackberry use (as long as good keyboards accommodate the phones running these new OS); I'm sure RIM will still have a good stock price and profits two years from now.
mattmaroon 18y ago
I don't know. There are lots of great WinMo phones out there that do everything a BlackBerry does but without needing a BlackBerry Enterprise Server. But everybody has BESes and BlackBerries, and all of their employees are used to BlackBerries, so the momentum is enormous and nobody is switching. The costs for a Fortune 1000 company to do so are prohibitive, and the incentive minimal since the Berries work so well. Also, BlackBerries still have keypads superior to all hardware alternatives. I've owned Treos and a Moto Q, and I picked up a newish Berry and could tell the difference immediately. That's far and away the most important feature to a frequent emailer. It's entirely possible that an Android phone will match that, but lots of people have tried over the last decade and none have come anywhere close. But even if they do, they have to make inroads against the massive numbers of installed BESes. That's going to take a long time in the corporate world.

by vlad 18y ago

DenisM 18y ago

"If HTC, Palm, Sony, Nokia, or anybody else releases a great Google Android or Microsoft Windows Mobile phone for business use that comes with a great keyboard and is equivalent in functionality to a Blackberry," Well, they kind of did. There are many phones that run Windows Mobile and do all the email/calendar quite well. This is my phone for example: http://tinyurl.com/64jtkq http://tinyurl.com/64jtkq T-Mobile dash. It has keyboard, does all the push-email with Exchange thingy and runs the software that I write for it. My biggest problem with it is outdated UI programming model (Windows Forms), but judging by posts here it is a nice problem to have compared to what RIM offers.

vlad 18y ago
Exactly. But I wasn't touting Windows Mobile, which I have never used. I am touting the proven track record Microsoft, Apple, and Google have of serving developers more than any other company (Amazon might be another one because of AWS, and they too have a mobile/cellular product, the Kindle). They have designed lots of great software and Software Developer Kits. RIM does a terrible job and has no such experience. After some research (I didn't before because this was supposed to be just a fun prediction thread we can look back on after one year), I found experts agree: http://www.appletell.com/apple/comment/rim-switching-to-iphone-development/ http://www.appletell.com/apple/comment/rim-switching-to-ipho... http://www.berryreview.com/2008/03/12/rim-is-nurturing-the-development-community/ http://www.berryreview.com/2008/03/12/rim-is-nurturing-the-d...
- mattmaroon 18y ago
  I don't think I disagree with you, I just don't think that is relevant to the corporate world. Corporations don't want their workers installing third party apps on their phones, that's jut more IT headache for them. They want a device that enables their employees to communicate effectively. Nothing does that like a Berry. And even if it did, the cost of switching would keep everyone using Berries.
  - vlad 18y ago
    Thanks for the response. That's very true today. But I am assuming that among Microsoft/Google/Apple, 3rd parties will use their SDKs Android's open source to create business applications and integrations that will make the Blackberry look lame and expensive in two years, so much so that PalmOS and RIM's OS and SDKs will look lame not just to developers, but users as well. There are currently many problems right now. Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync is free per device, but flaky. As well, IT has to install iTunes on user machines to allow business users to activate and sync the devices. Finally, Apple does not allow IT to disable iPod functionality on their business iPhones. I am betting that these huge problems will be addressed before two years from now. My point is that there will be a noticeable dent in Blackberry use (as long as good keyboards accommodate the phones running these new OS); I'm sure RIM will still have a good stock price and profits two years from now.

mattmaroon 18y ago

I don't know. There are lots of great WinMo phones out there that do everything a BlackBerry does but without needing a BlackBerry Enterprise Server. But everybody has BESes and BlackBerries, and all of their employees are used to BlackBerries, so the momentum is enormous and nobody is switching. The costs for a Fortune 1000 company to do so are prohibitive, and the incentive minimal since the Berries work so well. Also, BlackBerries still have keypads superior to all hardware alternatives. I've owned Treos and a Moto Q, and I picked up a newish Berry and could tell the difference immediately. That's far and away the most important feature to a frequent emailer. It's entirely possible that an Android phone will match that, but lots of people have tried over the last decade and none have come anywhere close. But even if they do, they have to make inroads against the massive numbers of installed BESes. That's going to take a long time in the corporate world.