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BlackBerry users's iPhone-hating obsession = inferiority complex?
- Thread starter ghettochild
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I had the 8310, and the 8800. Gave them both away. Can't really sell them since AT&T basically gives them away with a sign up. Guess BlackBerry doesn't command much of a price at retail.
Alex
Well, I wrote big long posts why BlackBerry would lose to the iPhone, but people don't want to read. So I wrote a much shorter post which just cuts to the chase. They're dead. It's simple, and anyone can read it quickly.
I could go into all the reasons why again, but BlackBerry owners will gloss over them. So why bother? My 8310 with 64 MBs of memory against a 16 GB iPhone. Hmmm... Out classed right there. A text based system with a option key which is really a right mouse click paradigm, against a system designed from the ground up to allow simple choices without having to loom for them in menus. Sounds like a winner to me.
BlackBerry email with a ton of text links all over the email make it nere impossible to read email which was meant to be read as HTML. 3rd party software to the rescue mostly solves it, but between those HTML parse engines, and 3rd party software to help you read attachments, it's a whole lot of added on help and it's clunky and any BB user who says it isn't is not being truthful with themselves.
Attachment viewing, and email in general on the iPhone is far better and easier to read.
Show me a single BB app that even remotely compares to the SalesForce.com app we saw on the March 6th show. Show me one BB game that is as good as Spore or Monkey Ball. Show me one media player as good as the iPod in the iPhone. Show me a single photo manager as good as that which is built into the iPhone. It's like comparing DOS to a Mac.
So, I could go on and on, but at the end of the day it's simple. BB is yesterday's technology. iPhone is today's technology. They can't even install software beyond the built in base memory. They have like 22 MBs of total free mem, and if you don't leave between 6 to 12 MBs free, you'll be pulling the battery. All the apps are little tiny aps that are lighter than lite. Compare to any iPhone app which feels almost comparable to a desktop class app. You see that the BlackBerry was great in it's day. Which was yesterday. Time for the "has been" device to step aside and let progress take its natural course. Sure there are nah sayers. I am sure they drive a horse and wagon too. But it's today, and I am looking for to tomorrow. I don't look backwards for the future. I look forward.
Alex
I think you missed the point that I was talking about it as a corporate device, not a personal one. A nice mobile web browser isn't exactly at the top of the list for corporate requirements.
Oh we did, but since you made a lot of rather dubious assumptions they were largely ignored
And there you have it. A post that doesn't back up a single claim. Typical. Which is why it is far easier to simply post the end result. iPhone will begin to take the market away from the BB. Slowly at first, but eventual non the less.
Alex
Sounds interesting. Of course it still all sounds similar to Apple killing Microsoft. I look forward to revisiting this post at a later date to see how much has changed.
Alex you are a little dramatic there, maybe in 15-20 years but certainly not anytime soon.
You honestly think RIM has 15 to 20 years left? Apple itself is the oldest personal computer company in the world, and they have lasted 25 years and growing. Let me give you some perspective on how things change in 15 to 20 years.
Compaq... DEAD Bought by HP
IBMs personal computer business, DEAD -- Sold to Levano.
Gateway.... DEAD Sold
Packard Bell... Dead in the US, almost dead.
Osborne.....DEAD
DataGeneral one....Dead
Leading Edge....DEAD
Commodore......DEAD, though PC clones are out there.
Amiga......DEAD
Atari......DEAD
shall I go on? All were great companies. All of which had a future. All of which are dead. 15 to 20 years, seriously I am not being dramatic. History backs up my claim. Palm is almost dead. See any Nino's around any more? I had one of those. The CE units tech guys loved so much... I don't see those being hardly sold anymore. 15 years ago, they were not even invented. They rose, got popular, and died in 15 years.
In 15 years Motorola's processors went from 44% of the market to less than 2%. Alive in embedded devices now is what even keeps them in existence at all.
I give RIM 3 to 5 years tops.
Alex
Wow a company the is posting record profits, record sales is dead AND you are comparing it to devices that came out BEFORE the iPhone.
You think RIM has nothing left and they are just going to stop innovating altogether? Apple is not the only company to push an industry forward. People need to be a little less bias and little more open to realize no one device is perfect. you talk like the iPhone will have monopoly in 3-5 years wow, a bit of a stretch don't you think?
Come talk to me when you can record video on your precious phone.
You think RIM has nothing left and they are just going to stop innovating altogether? Apple is not the only company to push an industry forward. People need to be a little less bias and little more open to realize no one device is perfect. you talk like the iPhone will have monopoly in 3-5 years wow, a bit of a stretch don't you think?
Come talk to me when you can record video on your precious phone.
LOL. Record Video is what is holding back the iphone then huh. Good luck with that statement holding any water at all. And yes, RIM is doing record sales, and this is exactly why I think it will fall very hard.
RIM has a P/E of 63 intraday today. You might not be into stocks the way I am, so let me explain a few fundamentals. P/E means Price to Earnings Ratio. Right now, RIM is trading at a value 63 times greater than its earnings support.
If you wanted to buy a business, they'd not sell it for what the company makes in a year or even two years. Perhaps not even 5 years. So imagine you want to buy the corner store that sells sodas and candy to kids. The sale price of the store is likely 5 to 10 times its earnings potential. You as a buyer are investing. It's long term. So the store would perhaps sell at a P/E of 10 to 1. Some 5:1 some even less. It depends on the market.
Let's go back to RIM. RIM is 72% owned by large institutions. This is because of it is considered to be a stable company. It doesn't make big changes either way. Kind of like how IBM is now. Or even Microsoft. They pretty much stay the course. But these investments companies make in other companies can shift. They can easily say, gosh, RIM is trading very high right now, and they kind of have all their eggs in one single basket. All they do is this phone thing. So if that one market dips for RIM, the entire company dips accordingly. And so these institutions might decide it would be best if they put their funds into companies that can weather a SmartPhone change in the industry. If Android and iPhone start to pull interest away from RIM, they will be in trouble, and in a very quick way. I'll explain.
When you have a P/E this high, it means that the investment community believes you are growing. And as you rightly pointed out, RIM is growing. They have record profits. I'm not saying they don't. What I am saying is that they are volatile. What I mean by that is this. The P/E suggests growth is the norm. RIM is "Expected" to grow. So if they flatten, or stop, guess what happens to the trade valuation of RIM? Seriously, take a real honest guess. The answer is, they will go through what is called a "correction". They will drop in stock value, thus valuation because they will adjust to the reality that RIM is not growing at the rate they once were, if at all.
Now, what I am about to write is a leap.
When you flatten, or go through a correction, it's darn near impossible to rise up again. And I submit to you that RIM will go through a correction. I believe interest is in trouble. I believe the iPhone will hit them a little in the beginning, and then gain momentum. I believe Google's Android platform will hit them a little and then gain momentum. And I think even Windows Mobile will step up and hit them a little and then a lot.
The reason is, BlackBerry has an dated foundation compared to what we see going on today. They are in the same boat Palm was in when Windows Mobile first released. Palm was the unstoppable force. Look at them today. What the heck happened? Simple. They were dated and refused to believe it. Palm splintered its business. Tried to adapt by offering Windows Mobile on some of their hardware. RIM will need to do the same. If they don't, they will go through what Palm is going through. It's not that much of a leap. We see this all the time.
What about Wall Street?
Wall Street is good at one thing. They look at yesterday, and today, and the forecast for tomorrow. They don't look at much else. And that's why we have a correction. If you look at any stock chart since the beginning, you will see what I am saying. The stock will have a jagged line going up or down, and then, BAMM. You see a sharp drop. A cliff. This is the correction. They all go through it. Why? Because Wall Street doesn't exactly look at what I am talking about. They don't really factor in the competitor until it becomes a reality on paper. And so you see a sharp course change, which is the correction.
The more RIM rises in my opinion, the harder it will fall. I write that because I believe in my bones that Android, iPhone, and Windows Mobile are about to take center stage. And I believe RIM is heading for a correction. And when it does hit that correction, mark my words, they will drop half their value almost over night. And that will have a domino affect on RIM, and your warm happy thoughts of their company and business model.
RIM in my opinion is merely Palm 2.0.
Alex
The only reason why RIM is successful is because they have a pretty reliable way of getting Exchange services to a mobile device. Sure they have had outages (who hasn't, bet their uptime is still 99% overall). MS saw this and increased efforts to have a service that does what RIM is doing. Apple is using Microsoft's method. That is fine. But until someone else ursups Exchange, RIM will have a place in the corporate/government world.
Sorry, I don't know what the made up work "ursups" means. But I am guessing from context you mean "does a better job". To which I would say, there are two ways to look at "better". Technically or perception. I think Microsoft's method using ActiveSync is fine. In a way perhaps better because you don't have the 3rd party NOC to deal with.
The more parts the engine has, the more failure is likely to occur. Simple things tend to be better things.
Alex
I am not going to venture into this discussion any farther than to say this. If you really think RIM has been innovating, you need to take a closer look. RIM has not innovated a thing in years. They have used the same core architecture for a very long time and have merely slapped minimal software upgrade on it time and time again. After doing so, they increase the OS revision number and toss it out the door where their faithful following eats it up like it is the next best thing.
Outside of the original implementation of push email and the BES environment, I want you to name one time that RIM innovated anything in their product line. Trying to release hardware that is at least somewhat up to date does not count as innovation mind you.
Oh, and for the record. Not all BlackBerrys can record video. Any BlackBerry running anything below OS 4.3 does not have the ability (obviously, any Berry without a camera lacks the ability as well). The video recording ability on the Curve, 'some' Pearls, and the upcoming Bold is a brand spanking new addition to the Berry feature set. OS 4.5 will give the ability to certain, already released, devices in the lineup, and OS 4.5 hasn't even been publicly released for all the devices yet (8310, 8320, 8120, 8300). The only BlackBerrys to presently have video recording are the 8330 and the 8130, and they haven't even been out for 2 months.
Before you get your underoos in a bunch, I am actually speaking from experience. I don't know the level of your experience, but I know that I have personally been using BlackBerrys for 2 years and change.
Ok, this thread is quite stereotypical. I'm a proud BlackBerry user and yet I still drool over the iPhone in some aspects.
The iPhone has it down pat in the UI/integration department, full web/HTML email, and the coolness factor. With 2.0 it's starting to get a foothold with it's MobileMe push mail and GPS, but I wouldn't use the push mail on the iPhone anyways because it's not Google Apps/Gmail which is push on the BlackBerry.
I'd love to get an iPhone as an additional device to my BlackBerry, but there is no AT&T service where I live so I'm "stuck" with a BlackBerry.
Perhaps people should consider that some BlackBerry users don't hate the iPhone... Shocker.
The iPhone has it down pat in the UI/integration department, full web/HTML email, and the coolness factor. With 2.0 it's starting to get a foothold with it's MobileMe push mail and GPS, but I wouldn't use the push mail on the iPhone anyways because it's not Google Apps/Gmail which is push on the BlackBerry.
I'd love to get an iPhone as an additional device to my BlackBerry, but there is no AT&T service where I live so I'm "stuck" with a BlackBerry.
Perhaps people should consider that some BlackBerry users don't hate the iPhone... Shocker.
Perhaps people should consider that some BlackBerry users don't hate the iPhone... Shocker.
I think it is widely accepted that not all BlackBerry users hate the iPhone. This thread was directed at the specific group that insists on starting iPhone-bash threads on their respective BlackBerry forums. That, to me anyway, shows a great deal of hate.
I meant usurp, lol can't spell.
I was sorta looking into active sync. If you are just using a BES server and don't actually have an OWA/ISA server set up already you are going to have to do that.
Well I take that partially back. Those that don't care about their security don't have to set an ISA/OWA server up. For the rest of us, that means more Exchange licenses (cause you are gonna want two or more OWA/ISA servers).
If you already have an ISA/OWA server then you are pretty much all set. Although, I still haven't been able to find out if the iPhone supports certificates for authentication. Otherwise you will be talking to the OWA server in clear text. Or at least MS claims you will be. That sure sounds like a winner...
Unlike the other companies listed RIM is fully entrenched in the US gvt. They will be going for years and years.
Did you watch the Keynote at all? One the people saying rather nice things about the iPhone was a military agency. One of the singe largest ones at that. But what concerns me most is the hubris of your statement. You seem pretty darn confident in your opinion that the government, once selecting the use of BlackBerry, is incapable of changing their minds or adopting newer and better technologies as they release to market. You could not have picked a worse target to lay that claim. The military is absolutely famous for constantly pushing newer and better technologies. Government will drop the blackberry like an incendiary if something rose up and proved to be a better fit for their needs. Still further, this obsession this discussion has with a direct compare to existing BlackBerry devices is completely null. The iPhone's strength is that it is a platform that is new. And as with any new platform, you shouldn't be comparing it to how well it copies old legacy technology. What a new platform means is a new way of addressing a problem, often a new problem, not the same old problem. Did SalesForce.com copy a tiny less than tiny mobile app on the blackberry for their new software on the iPhone, or did the work within the iPhone's platform to create something unique and new, but also something that utilized the strength of the platform?
Who cares about what the blackberry has today. We're not talking about making the same thing here. We're talking about brand spanking new opportunities. You're not going to see applications that are "like" the blackberry. You're going to see things you had not thought of. Government isn't thinking about replacing. They are thinking about solving some entirely new problem outside of the Blackberry opportunity. That's what new platforms are all about. We didn't invent Windows and Mac OS to run DOS apps in a window. We invented the GUI to completely change ALL software for the better. And with that, we opened up entirely new opportunities.
This is exactly why a fund of $100 million was started. And for RIM to simply think it's about money, and create a fund for developers to match Apple only shows you just how clueless they are. Getting rid of the input interface in favor of a touch screen in the Thunder product does not change the BB platform. Creating a fund does not change the platform.
I said it before and I'll say it again. RIM is CLUELESS as to how to combat what Apple has done. Google is NOT. Android represents real competition. BlackBerry is dead. They just don't know it yet.
Alex