Not enough, it seems.
Apple has strong loyalty amongst its customers too. But over the long run customers will migrate to the products that serve them best, loyalty or no loyalty.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
RIM's BlackBerry Loses Top Spot to iPhone in its Home Canadian Market
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Apple has strong loyalty amongst its customers too. But over the long run customers will migrate to the products that serve them best, loyalty or no loyalty.
Why did this get downvoted? The only loss Blackberry has been having is market share.
So many people on this forum are taking pleasure in what will eventually amount to a lot of job losses
I live in Waterloo, a lot of my friends work at RIM. The company employs over 10,000 people. I'd like to see the iPhone fanboys laugh at and mock RIM if they only had a clue about reality.
RIM still has a shot at being a viable company. Clearly, they are going through very tough times right now and haven't been responsive or flexible enough in a changing market but they are still profitable and have cash on hand. They are not filing for bankruptcy though you'd think that based upon all the exaggerated posts.
As Apple has proven, all it takes is a single innovate product to turn things around. For Apple, that was the iPod. If they can get BB10 out the door on time-WITHOUT significant bugs or omissions (hopefully they learned from the Playbook debacle) that may attract a lot of customers back.
Let's be honest, people get tired of their phones when a contract expires. iOS and Android are very competitive but many people look for a change when its time to get a new phone. BB10 has the potential to be a hit if it runs smoothly and is accompanied with attractive hardware. Everyone has an iPhone or an Android phone at this point and its simply not that edgy anymore -- as nicely made as those devices are. Plus, I feel like Android and iOS are locked in an embrace and just keep copying each other.
As Apple has proven, all it takes is a single innovate product to turn things around. For Apple, that was the iPod. If they can get BB10 out the door on time-WITHOUT significant bugs or omissions (hopefully they learned from the Playbook debacle) that may attract a lot of customers back.
Let's be honest, people get tired of their phones when a contract expires. iOS and Android are very competitive but many people look for a change when its time to get a new phone. BB10 has the potential to be a hit if it runs smoothly and is accompanied with attractive hardware. Everyone has an iPhone or an Android phone at this point and its simply not that edgy anymore -- as nicely made as those devices are. Plus, I feel like Android and iOS are locked in an embrace and just keep copying each other.
Hey, I almost forgot all of the outages that they've had - even with national pride involved, there's going to be a point where rational people will say "enough is enough" and switch to a product that doesn't have a single point of failure.
I'd add the working with oppressive governments to censor/monitor people but I think that's a lot more widespread than we would like to know.
I'd add the working with oppressive governments to censor/monitor people but I think that's a lot more widespread than we would like to know.
Are you suggesting that a pseudo on screen keyboard is superior to a real tactile one?
Remember when 'choice' was greatly praised as opposed to having everyone use the same phone? This isn't 1984... or maybe it is;
Sounds like RIM may not be long for this world if they can't sell well in their own country.
Of course, we all know that those Canadians really want to be Americans!!
(Oh boy...here it comes.
Well as Canadians, we love american music, tv and movies... oh wait... that's right we send all our best actors, musicians and comedians down to the States, THAT's we we like it.
Back on topic... RIM is not truly a handset company. Don't forget that RIM's technology supports end to end encryption and secure data relay anywhere they provide service. They also provide server-based management of all devices deployed within a company. They still offer some amazing strengths for high security wireless communications needs. It is more likely that they may get bought out at some point. You wanna talk about a patent portfolio. RIM holds some fantastic IP. Granted, their OS is suffering from old age and their devices are long in the tooth.
Their last round of advertising with the musicians as promoters is kind of amusing... I'm a musician and I don;t know many musicians that use Blackberry's as a creative tool.
So many people on this forum are taking pleasure in what will eventually amount to a lot of job losses
It is because most of these people are teenagers living with their parents. As they don't work and receive everything form daddy, they don't care about that kind of stuff.
I used to be the biggest blackberry advocate... I feel ashamed that they let that company get into such bad shape.
Still love and miss when I had their touch screen bold and their torch (had them both along side the iPhone). eventually solely started using the iPhone.
I have a playbook (with a iPad of course) which I still use quite a bit. Looked promising,
R.I.P RIM
Still love and miss when I had their touch screen bold and their torch (had them both along side the iPhone). eventually solely started using the iPhone.
I have a playbook (with a iPad of course) which I still use quite a bit. Looked promising,
R.I.P RIM
What did Rim think would happen producing the same handset over and over and over again giving it minor hardware improvements and a somewhat different numbered name? No innovation on their part. When they did have something different, they became complacent. BB Storm anyone? BB Playbook?
Sorry Rim but you can't just wait for something to happen, you have to MAKE IT HAPPEN! Good bye
Because they had no reason to do major innovations. Up through 2006 all phones pretty much sucked, but until the iPhone came out there was no alternative. Once the iPhone was released RIM couldn't adapt.
----------
You still have choice, there are still phones made with a physical keyboard.
I'm not saying that I like RIM's products, but my goodness the media hasn't helped the company with the non stop assault on their products. I mean who reports that Canon beat out Xerox with 500 government photocopiers? But they report when a department of 500 government workers switch to iPhones.
Does Nokia get this much bad press? Their phones totally suck!
Does Nokia get this much bad press? Their phones totally suck!
can you shed some light on 'reality'?
Firstly, I'm Canadian. I know RIM employs a pile of Canadians and I do wish them success. They were the leaders who lead the innovation (imho) of accessing email while on the go. I also believe competition is important.
BUT, a number of things with this company lead me to wonder whether or not it can actually come back.
1. it's leadership - obviously having Bassilie out of the mix is a good thing. His change of direction in wanting to be a hockey owner screwed some key decisions, I believe. ie. the playbook. why it didn't have email on it, which they were KNOWN for, absolutely blows me away. idiotic to be honest.
2. it's products - yes, at once the industry leaders, but they really haven't innovated much lately. The 'Storm' was supposed to be an iphone killer, but it didn't really amount to much. Reportedly had its issues as well. I guess we'll see later this year when their new devices are set for release.
3. the Apple hype right now is just so strong - can any company catch up? 3 million iPads in 4 days....probably more than all other tablet purchases in the last 3 months, combined.
4. Related to the above few points = it's been awhile since RIM showcased anything new. Could this be a case of waiting far too long and now that boat has sailed? I liken it to Corel Corporation. Sure, they got screwed over by MS's dictatorship in having computer manufacturers pre-install Windows and office products, but Corel never even came close to recovering. They're still a software company, but last I heard, they were up for private sale.
Be it marketing, be it hype, be it strong products..whatever...they are selling an insane amount of devices for solid market saturation. The iPhone has been making roads into the corporate world where the BB's held strong.
I was at the Apple store this morning. Ironically, the camera died on my iPhone 4S. Last night, I took 2 mins, made an appt for this morning online, went into the store, 20 mins later, new camera kit replaced on the phone.
That experience alone was fantastic.
But sitting there for 20 minutes, made me realize how strong Apple is right now.
Customers of all ages, shapes and sizes were in that store. I overheard one senior saying he wanted an iPad to facetime with his grandkids and he was buying a macbook to go with it. I saw a colleague of whom I haven't seen in about a half year who was buying an iPad and a new AppleTV. Why? Well he does customer audio / video system installations and everyone, he says, seems to be using iPhones and iPads to control their TV systems and he installs plenty of AppleTVs.
Not only that, but the entire fleet of employees (seriously there had to be 25-40 employees....I just couldn't count them all), were either helping customers or fielding questions for people just walking into the store. It was like a beehive of action. Each employee seemed to have their role defined - be it a greeter, or someone to check a customer into the genius bar, or the genius staff or the employees setting up new macs or iPads for clients. Then there was the retail staff.
It was really was fascinating to watch.
As I left, I had this thought: "Has there ever been a computer/technology company with retail stores selling products like that?"
I couldn't think of any. Heck, I don't know of any regular retail company having that type of shopping experience.
MS is trying. Could RIM? There's too many Android flavours out there so maybe Google?
I doubt it.
As I said, I hope RIM does well. It's good for competition and they employ fellow Canadians. My wife's BB contract is up soon. She might get an iPhone and might want another BB b/c she does prefer the tactile keyboard, but I told here, there aren't many options left with physical keyboards. Add in the voice capabilities of Siri and typing can sometimes be eliminated.
Who knows what she'll do, but I do know that she's had multiple hard crashes with her BB so she's not too happy with it.
Cheers,
Keebler
Yeah... What ever happened to all those pricks who used to track me down at parties just so they could slam the apple? I did see one of them the other day carrying a MB Pro. Nice Mac, I said. he laughed.
So many people on this forum are taking pleasure in what will eventually amount to a lot of job losses
Thank you. I live and work in Waterloo (although not for RIM) and what this means in human terms can't be nice. It's one thing to like Apple products and buy them (I do), it's entirely another to giggle as you wave bye-bye. I know a lot of these people. They are friends and family.
Keep it classy, MacRumors.
Again, how is a company that is still growing in bad shape ?
Seem people really don't have a sense of perspective here... The media stories about RIM are not helping when they paint a doom and gloom picture of what is essentially a company that is selling more and more units...
You People who say jobs will be lost and rim still is profitable,etc
Give me a break. If you opened a restaurant and your food is sub par and service sucks and everyone on yelp complains, eventually u shut down your business due to lack of customers. Should I feel bad for this happening to you? Hell no. It's called running a business.
If RIM can't make a better phone that appeal to the masses and they can't compete with the iPhone, then they lose. So if thousands lose their job because of rim then that's no ones fault but RIM. Their business management needs to fix it. Not going to effect the customer at all unless you are stupid enough to buy a blackberry device now.
Who would bother with a RIM smartphone when even windows 7 phone can offer much more? There's just no reason to feel bad for a company that can't compete. It isn't like apple is using Microsoft tactics to bring them down. It's a free open market. The best company who can produce the best device will win.
RIM is outclassed, outdated, and needs to leave the market like Nokia. There's no room for RIM in this industry even though they lead it for years. Just like NOKIA called it quits, it's the smart thing to do.
Give me a break. If you opened a restaurant and your food is sub par and service sucks and everyone on yelp complains, eventually u shut down your business due to lack of customers. Should I feel bad for this happening to you? Hell no. It's called running a business.
If RIM can't make a better phone that appeal to the masses and they can't compete with the iPhone, then they lose. So if thousands lose their job because of rim then that's no ones fault but RIM. Their business management needs to fix it. Not going to effect the customer at all unless you are stupid enough to buy a blackberry device now.
Who would bother with a RIM smartphone when even windows 7 phone can offer much more? There's just no reason to feel bad for a company that can't compete. It isn't like apple is using Microsoft tactics to bring them down. It's a free open market. The best company who can produce the best device will win.
RIM is outclassed, outdated, and needs to leave the market like Nokia. There's no room for RIM in this industry even though they lead it for years. Just like NOKIA called it quits, it's the smart thing to do.
Apps! It seems that RIM should be leveraging it's position as having lots of large corporate customers more--you could probably create a whole bunch of compelling enterprise-centric applications. It would seem that having org charts, reporting hierarchies, a "find me an open meeting room" app. God, I'd love to have that one.
Of course this would be helped if they had a good SDK with a large 3rd party dev community, which it appears is lacking. Could they ever buy or partner with another company to provide a new OS which would help them get there?
I wanted a storm so bad. I didn't want to leave verizon for an iphone. I would read all the blogs on any new details about the storm. I even took the day off work to go down to verizon and get one the day it came out, but there was a line and it was raining out so I went home. The next day I finally tried it out at the mall. The day after that I bought an iphone.
The blackberry is an edible fruit produced by any of several species in the Rubus genus of the Rosaceae family.
As a blackberry user, this is sad.
but it's also unfortunately a reoccuring thing.
Losing the #1 position in Canada, it's home, hurts.
The continual delay in any new significant hardware releases has completely removed Blackberry from the relevance of the smartphone market.
I admit this. And i'm a RIM fan.
RIM has been not had a significant hardware upgrade in some time. Even with the new Torch's and Bolds last year, we still saw them shipped with a decade old OS with significant issues.
The 'light' at the end of the tunnel was always BBOS10 devices. They are supposed to be new and fresh and extremely powerful. QNX was supposed to drive them and completely change how we interact with our phones.
well, RIM has been developing QNX for 3+ years, and the only device that uses it, is the playbook. Which unfortunately, was released to both a marketing disaster, and incomplete software package.
Then, years of delay on the OS10 based phones have left both users and Developers looking elsewhere. It's harder and harder to justify staying on my BlackBerry, when, despite it only being 1 year old, i'm getting no new software updates, The app pool has been shrinking, and I will have to buy a new phone anyways obsoleting any app i buy now.
I am sure I am not the only BB user who is in this position. Suffice it to say, If RIM cannot get a BB OS10 device to market fast. They may just be too late.
They might have 70+ million users, profitable and have cash in the bank, but how long with that last when even current users are starting to look elsewhere?
I also do want to expand on what KnightWRX, as he is right.
we get confused with mixed forms of Data. And the media is one of the most guilty for it. They take certain areas of statistics and use that to extrapolate incorrect assumptions.
The biggest numbers we've seen lately is Market share. Media, and most users seem to think that Marketshare is the defining condition on the health of a vendor. However, it misses entirely important information. Yes, RIM's market share has dropped. Yes RIM is in a peculiar situation that doesn't look great and is perceived as "dying".
But Marketshare numbers do not actually indicate company health, nor company sales. These marketshare numbers are extremely misleading. RIM yes has technically lost huge percentages in Market share. But, they have done so by selling more than they had previously.
So that say, 10% marketshare loss isnn't actually selling 10% less phones. They sell more. What happened, especially in 2011, was the smartphone market exploded. it showed unprecedented growth, in which Apple and Chrome were the driving factors. These two stole the marketshare by absolutely shattering sales and selling insane amounts of new hardware, to people who never would have purchased smartphones in the first place. So while RIM still grew their business, These other two didnt just grow, but absolutely barrelled through setting new records.
this isn't to say that all is Rosey with RIM. it isn't. But rim is far from "dead"
but it's also unfortunately a reoccuring thing.
Losing the #1 position in Canada, it's home, hurts.
The continual delay in any new significant hardware releases has completely removed Blackberry from the relevance of the smartphone market.
I admit this. And i'm a RIM fan.
RIM has been not had a significant hardware upgrade in some time. Even with the new Torch's and Bolds last year, we still saw them shipped with a decade old OS with significant issues.
The 'light' at the end of the tunnel was always BBOS10 devices. They are supposed to be new and fresh and extremely powerful. QNX was supposed to drive them and completely change how we interact with our phones.
well, RIM has been developing QNX for 3+ years, and the only device that uses it, is the playbook. Which unfortunately, was released to both a marketing disaster, and incomplete software package.
Then, years of delay on the OS10 based phones have left both users and Developers looking elsewhere. It's harder and harder to justify staying on my BlackBerry, when, despite it only being 1 year old, i'm getting no new software updates, The app pool has been shrinking, and I will have to buy a new phone anyways obsoleting any app i buy now.
I am sure I am not the only BB user who is in this position. Suffice it to say, If RIM cannot get a BB OS10 device to market fast. They may just be too late.
They might have 70+ million users, profitable and have cash in the bank, but how long with that last when even current users are starting to look elsewhere?
I also do want to expand on what KnightWRX, as he is right.
we get confused with mixed forms of Data. And the media is one of the most guilty for it. They take certain areas of statistics and use that to extrapolate incorrect assumptions.
The biggest numbers we've seen lately is Market share. Media, and most users seem to think that Marketshare is the defining condition on the health of a vendor. However, it misses entirely important information. Yes, RIM's market share has dropped. Yes RIM is in a peculiar situation that doesn't look great and is perceived as "dying".
But Marketshare numbers do not actually indicate company health, nor company sales. These marketshare numbers are extremely misleading. RIM yes has technically lost huge percentages in Market share. But, they have done so by selling more than they had previously.
So that say, 10% marketshare loss isnn't actually selling 10% less phones. They sell more. What happened, especially in 2011, was the smartphone market exploded. it showed unprecedented growth, in which Apple and Chrome were the driving factors. These two stole the marketshare by absolutely shattering sales and selling insane amounts of new hardware, to people who never would have purchased smartphones in the first place. So while RIM still grew their business, These other two didnt just grow, but absolutely barrelled through setting new records.
this isn't to say that all is Rosey with RIM. it isn't. But rim is far from "dead"
Last edited: