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Apr 12, 2001
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Research in Motion (RIM), seeking to stabilize its enterprise business amid continued challenges from iOS and Android, today announced a new package of enterprise tools known as Mobile Fusion designed to support a broad range of devices at the corporate level.
"We are pleased to introduce BlackBerry Mobile Fusion - RIM's next generation enterprise mobility solution - to make it easier for our business and government customers to manage the diversity of devices in their operations today," said Alan Panezic, Vice President, Enterprise Product Management and Marketing at Research In Motion. "BlackBerry Mobile Fusion brings together our industry-leading BlackBerry Enterprise Server technology for BlackBerry devices with mobile device management capabilities for iOS and Android devices, all managed from one web-based console. It provides the necessary management capabilities to allow IT departments to confidently oversee the use of both company-owned and employee-owned mobile devices within their organizations."
Mobile Fusion will provide corporate customers with an array of device management tools, including centralized remote locking and/or wiping of lost devices and enforcement of password requirements.

Apple offers a number of enterprise tools and capabilities for iOS to help companies manage their device deployments, but cross-platform device management services such as RIM's Mobile Fusion target increasingly diverse mobile deployments as companies offer their employees new levels of flexibility in choosing their mobile platforms.

RIM has long been a leader in business mobile platforms, but has been losing ground to iOS and Android as those platforms have caught on with both consumers and enterprise customers. With Apple also gaining traction in enterprise markets with the iPad, RIM has tried to respond with new devices including its PlayBook tablet device, but has so far been unable to slow the momentum of iOS and Android. The company's new Mobile Fusion tools, which are in early beta testing now and scheduled for public launch in March, demonstrate that diversification in enterprise and highlight RIM's efforts to hold on to its relevancy in its key markets.

Article Link: RIM Branches Out with Enterprise Management Tools for iOS and Android Devices
 
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I think they'll be dead within 4 years
 
RIM should focus heavily on corporate services.

Only way i see them survive.
 
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I think they'll be dead within 4 years

Probably buyout bait before then.
 
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I think they'll be dead within 4 years

I give them 2yrs lol
 
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I think they'll be dead within 4 years

I honestly don't see RIM going bust, but their market share will continue to shrink until it barely registers and nobody notices. However, if they get their finger out and do something truly awesome for corporate users, then I see them remaining where they are.

They're never going to get bigger, it's too late for that. iOS, Andriod and even Windows Phone Seven, have overtaken them.
 
Probably gives you a hint about how they feel internally about the long term viability of their hardware business.
 
Not related to corporate management but...

Now they just need to release BBM for iOS and Android (so that it becomes cross-platform), even though I wouldn't use or wait for that.

And no, RIM shouldn't worry about doing that (their market share is shrinking anyway)
 
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What's RIM? Lol
 
So I assume this lets you remotely wipe a BlackBerry from an iPhone... but can you use it to remotely wipe an iPhone from an iPhone? How much does it really help "manage the diversity of devices”?
 
If the Android or Windows Phone 7 manufacturers brought out some phones with decent hard keyboards (none of that sideways slide out crap or bizarre key spacings) I'm pretty sure Blackberry would lose the users it has left.
 
Don't forget people were saying the same thing as Apple was working on the first iPod.

Apple had Steve Jobs.

RIM has two turkeys that saw the avalanche coming four years ago but went on clucking. All they actually did was deny, deny, deny, and verbally downplay Apple's direction as best they could. Are these two to be trusted at all?

Somehow they'll just "grow" vision miraculously years later? I'm afraid we've seen the best Ballsilie and Laziridis can do already. And there doesn't seem to be a Steve Jobs-type visionary in sight to help them.
 
This is a good move, I can't see RIM creating any device or OS that will slow down iOS or Android..... By starting to move in the direction of licensing out their enterprise infrastructure and possibly BBM, they will be prepared to still make money when their market share shrinks to a level where they cant make a profit.
 
Next step is they split the hardware and software divisions, calling them Blackberry Source and Blackberry One. We all know what happens next....
 
I give them 2yrs lol

They'll most likely still be there in four years, unless they screw up big time with their servers and security. Don't forget that RIM's market is (still) mainly big businesses like banks and law firms. The IT people from these businesses are usually quite slow in changing everything upside down (unless there is a security issue, of course).


If the Android or Windows Phone 7 manufacturers brought out some phones with decent hard keyboards (none of that sideways slide out crap or bizarre key spacings) I'm pretty sure Blackberry would lose the users it has left.

Well that's the thing. RIM tried to get a grasp of the non-business market and they probably failed at that because there got late in the game (iOS, Android and even Win7 were already far away).

A few years ago, people used to bring their BB home to work and to get access to their emails. Now, people want to bring their personal phone at work to work and to get access to their emails. Apple figured that out a long time ago.
 
I give them 2yrs lol

I really should just stop reading any RIM-related articles here. This sort of "Apple rocks, everyone else must die" attitude makes me sick. Do you think that the engineers that work at Apple are just naturally smarter or hard-working as those elsewhere? Do you really wish layoffs on thousands of people?

I know a bunch of guys who work at RIM and QNX, they are hard working, passionate people. When my job was threatened by layoffs at my company, I was reassured by the fact that RIM and QNX were hiring. A lot of my ex-coworkers ended up over there. They have families to feed and mortgages to pay off, just like everyone else.

I guess the best hope for my friends and the rest of the employees at RIM is that upper management will figure it out and put the company on track for some successes. I feel like they need it after some of the recent bad press.

A few years ago, people used to bring their BB home to work and to get access to their emails. Now, people want to bring their personal phone at work to work and to get access to their emails. Apple figured that out a long time ago.

Apple "figured that out" by being the one to make it happen. Before Apple, smartphones like Blackberries, Nokia N95, Palm Treo, etc. were for business people and power users only. Your average mom or teenager had no use for one.

You might say the two companies went at it from opposite approaches. Smartphones for consumers (with limited penetration into enterprise markets) and vice versa. The race is on to see which will reach the other side quicker.
 
...Apple "figured that out" by being the one to make it happen.

That's what I meant, basically.



...
You might say the two companies went at it from opposite approaches. Smartphones for consumers (with limited penetration into enterprise markets) and vice versa. The race is on to see which will reach the other side quicker.

Yep but it seems (so far) that the smartphone market was easier to get for Apple than for RIM. Maybe it's because "your average mom and teenager" thought that BB was essentially for business use. RIM did (and still do) a great job in the enterprise market.
 
I really should just stop reading any RIM-related articles here. This sort of "Apple rocks, everyone else must die" attitude makes me sick. Do you think that the engineers that work at Apple are just naturally smarter or hard-working as those elsewhere? Do you really wish layoffs on thousands of people?

I know a bunch of guys who work at RIM and QNX, they are hard working, passionate people. When my job was threatened by layoffs at my company, I was reassured by the fact that RIM and QNX were hiring. A lot of my ex-coworkers ended up over there. They have families to feed and mortgages to pay off, just like everyone else.

I guess the best hope for my friends and the rest of the employees at RIM is that upper management will figure it out and put the company on track for some successes. I feel like they need it after some of the recent bad press.

Apple "figured that out" by being the one to make it happen. Before Apple, smartphones like Blackberries, Nokia N95, Palm Treo, etc. were for business people and power users only. Your average mom or teenager had no use for one.

You might say the two companies went at it from opposite approaches. Smartphones for consumers (with limited penetration into enterprise markets) and vice versa. The race is on to see which will reach the other side quicker.

Yes, there's some people here who will always be cheering for Apple and deriding other companies. But there's many of us who are simply being realistic.

The real problem is that RIM has very little chance of survival. As much as I'd like to see them turn around (mostly because QNX is freakin' awesome), I have little confidence that they will figure out a new plan before going out of business.

Apple was once the beleaguered company. Except during their turnaround, they had a few things they could rely on that together helped them stay afloat:
1) entrenched markets that were not being met well by competitors : film, computer graphics, audio
2) die-hard fanbase
3) willingness to make hard decisions; willingness to cut products that didn't help the recovery; willingness to focus
4) willingness to try to branch out and try new things; willingness to try new markets; internal research groups doing actual research
5) a consumer market to market to (amongst the other markets)

RIM doesn't have nearly the same resources to utilize in order to turn themselves around.

The release of tools that involve the use of iOS and Android is an example of trying something different. But this doesn't stem the bleeding of customers, nor does it easily translate to a reliable income stream. (remind you of Sun and Java?)

They have a fanbase. But unfortunately, it's shrinking.

They don't do general consumer devices, which would be the bigger market. Just business-oriented devices. But iOS and Android is eating away at them there. Even then, HP/Palm and MS shows how difficult going for the general consumer is.

Unless they feel like going an all-in on a completely new product category that just blows everybody out of the water, I wouldn't be surprised if they were gone in 3 years.

(and yes, I used to own a blackberry too)
 
...Smartphones for consumers (with limited penetration into enterprise markets) and vice versa. The race is on to see which will reach the other side quicker.

In reality, iPhone won both the consumer and enterprise market.
 
No surprised by them bring this out. Something like 50% of there revenue came off the enterprise tools.
 
Apple had Steve Jobs.

RIM has two turkeys that saw the avalanche coming four years ago but went on clucking. All they actually did was deny, deny, deny, and verbally downplay Apple's direction as best they could. Are these two to be trusted at all?

Somehow they'll just "grow" vision miraculously years later? I'm afraid we've seen the best Ballsilie and Laziridis can do already. And there doesn't seem to be a Steve Jobs-type visionary in sight to help them.

There is a LOT of criticism over RIM and its only recent (1.5yrs) due to dwindling consumer marketshare.

Some key points:

1. It took Apple and Android to finally surpass Nokia in shipments of OS (S60 vs the rest) roughly 3yrs!!

2. RIM has 40billion in cash, although their credit rating is taking quarter drops (3qtrs long now).

3. RIM, one of the co-founders, pioneered the data compression - although the NOC was a patent loosing battle against NTP (Good Technologies as well, took Motorola 2yrs after to drop Good Inc). This and as well as many other firsts have RIM's patent a sweet pool for takeovers!!

Irregardless of how we all feel about RIM's consumer/corporate hardware devices ... their implementation is still the majority in worldwide corporate user base (I'm talking OVER 2000 employees for a corp worldwide).

keyboard shortcuts STILL beat endless scrolling (we still use it for faster navigation and executing on PC/Macs/Linux/Unix computers)! But I love my iOS device.

I still don't think RIM will offer anything significant with Fusion:
- it'll be offered as an additional price to an already expensive BES solution
- MVS is still an expensive implementation for corporate voip pbx deployments to BB's. iPhone & Droid's are FREE to implement.

- there is NOTHING that Trellia, MobileIron, Good, or the others can't do that Fusion will be able to do ... except PlayBook management. Right now any CIO that has their wits and their balls should NEVER touch that thing (not until ANdroid gets ported).
 
Honestly I believe the lack of consumer development/poor marketing of the "Blackberry World" led to their foreseeable demise. There is nothing wrong with the OS, and I loved having a keyboard, but when 9/10 apps are for android/iOS only and a crappy web-app for those without really is a turn off. Their hardware is not poor either, but when I see an iPhone/Apple App store with endless game, productivity, and social apps versus a blackberry/blackberry world that barely can get a facebook app to work properly, the decision is clear.
 
In the dying days of the Blackberry empire, the idiot princes looked to Redmond for inspiration. And seeing the explosive shoe salesman "actively working" on bringing its Microsoft Office suite to the iPad, the idiot princes had an idea. They offered gifts to their competitors - in the hope of surviving longer in their domain. But 'twas all in vein, for sitting on their laurels and supping on corporate noggin for so long had made them complacent, lethargic and tragically irrelevant.
 
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