http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38544557/ns/technology_and_science-wireless/
It is crazy to think that in 1.5 to 2 years, RIM will be in the dumps.
It is crazy to think that in 1.5 to 2 years, RIM will be in the dumps.
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Undwhelming Blackberry TORCH spells DOOM FOR RIM
- Thread starter Sean4123
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Blackberries won't die because of their loyal legacy of enterprise customers.
It will continue to stagnate, however. 480x360 (cataract) display for a high end offering? Really?
It will continue to stagnate, however. 480x360 (cataract) display for a high end offering? Really?
This.
As long as there is no competition to RIM's instant, reliable, secure email solution for enterprise clients, Blackberry will never die. I have a Blackberry for work, because I am literally forced to. (Of course there is the very odd demographic of young girls obsessed with BBM--never understood the big deal with this.)
It would be nice if Blackberry would just give up on the hardware side of things, but I doubt that would happen.
Sing along with me......
If you don't want a BB Torch, don't buy one...........If you have a BB and you don't like it....bring it back........if you think you want an iPhone 4 then buy one....if you don't like the iPhone 4....bring it back.........
If you don't want a BB Torch, don't buy one...........If you have a BB and you don't like it....bring it back........if you think you want an iPhone 4 then buy one....if you don't like the iPhone 4....bring it back.........
I'm not a teenage girl (33 yr old male) but I have to say that BBM is superior to any other instant messaging program I've ever used.
Since 90% of my friends and family have BB using BBM is much easier than texting. Of course, most of my friends/family have BB because they have jobs and they get them through that.
I'm not sure that the iPhone is really catching on outside the 15yr - 25yr old demographic at this point, at least where I'm from.
(I'm from the same city as RIM head quarters and where BB was invented btw.....)
having owned blackberries for a few years i can honestly say it's the one mobile platform that once accustomed to, just worked. if rims got one thing right it's messaging. it's email/im/sms platform to date in my opinion is the best, right down to the best physical qwerty keyboard of any phone in current existence.
slightly lack-luster on other fronts? absolutely. but it's still rocking what it rocks best.
slightly lack-luster on other fronts? absolutely. but it's still rocking what it rocks best.
I suppose I could see the value if you don't have unlimited texting, but other than that it seems like a gimmick. Not everyone has a BlackBerry, so texting is definitely more practical.
I hate to say it but seriously, everyone I know with a PDA phone has a Blackberry. I don't know one person who has an iPhone.
I know a few teenagers that have them and they use texting more than BBM because a lot of their friends just have standard type cellphones.
I get that the iPhone is very cool and is a great multi-media device. I know because I have an iPod Touch and it has all those great features.
But seriously, if you're trying to compare standard text messaging to BBM you obviously don't know what you are taking about.
That's great, and it would make sense for Toronto, RIM's headquarter, to be as such. But where I'm from the demographics are quite the opposite. No one I know, professional or otherwise uses Blackberries outside of work-related contacts/emails. To the contrary, here in Southern California, it's usually the young girls who swear by BBM to avoid texting charges or signing up for unlimited texting plans--or Mexicans wishing to message back home without having to deal with international texting fees. Blackberries are also a much cheaper option, they come free with contracts--so it's pretty normal here to see 15 year olds walking around BBMing each other. Simply put, BBM = IM client exclusive to Blackberries, how is that at all impressive?
I will stand by what I said before, RIM and Blackberries are only around because of secure push-email that's reliable.
False, I'm 16 and I hate blackberry keyboards! The keys are too tiny, the only exception is the blackberry pearl. The only reason I used to like blackberries were because of the looks. But after all my blackberrys and phones in general I'll defiantly stick with iPhones
LoL..... Sounds like YOU don't know what you're talking about. I know maybe 5 people that still use BB the rest have moved onto different phones of different makes. Not saying other phones are better or worse, just saying BB isn't a main attraction when it comes to "smart" phones now a days.
Most my contacts are Military (Nextel/Sprint), LEO (Nextel/Sprint/iPhone) and Medical (Overlap Military/medical my line of work....used to be BB now every one is making the switch to iPhone). I guess I just don't hang out with the BB crowd (lawyers and office slaves?)
I really want one, just one person to tell me how BB mail is "superior" to the iPhone Mail. I have a BB Bold (9000) and the iPhone 3GS, and, in my experience, the way that the iPhone renders email (especially HTML email), and the way it displays attachments, is years ahead of BB (OS 5, haven't checked out 6 yet - but I see they are using WebKit to render mail, so they obviously realised that it's crap).
If we leave out the encryption and the delivery method (the BES push), how is BB email better than the iPhone?
If we leave out the encryption and the delivery method (the BES push), how is BB email better than the iPhone?
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_0_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8A306 Safari/6531.22.7)
I had a BB for years, and I'm never going back.
I had a BB for years, and I'm never going back.
Err... why would we leave out those two good, very important, primary reasons why it isn't better?
For corporates, it's about security. Period. The amount of jailbreaks, and Apple's highly secretive nature about when fixes are coming for serious flaws such as the current jailbreak method (which is honestly lightyears behind Microsoft, RIM et al) is another good reason.
Phazer
Once BlackBerries start getting hacked, they'll die.
That's a point, actually. They're popular in business because of the security, but nothing is 100% secure - there has to be some exploits in there somewhere.
I wonder how long it'll take to happen, though.
Because Activesync works just as well as BES. Also, because the security adds nothing to the user experience, which was the point of my post.
Do you have any comments regarding the user experience of the two platforms?
I had a BlackBerry Bold during my I-am-getting-bored-of-the-iPhone-phase. I have to say with the two to three people that I had using BBM with, it was pretty fantastic. Apple should come out with something similar with their iPhone, called...*SHOCK* iChat...
I'm also underwhelmed and I also believe to compete with iPhone and Android they needed to hit one out of the part, with a sexy phone, and a much improved OS. Neither of which occurred.
Now with that said, I don't think this is going to spell the doom for RIM, at least yet. They're still selling more phone in the US then anyone and they have the business sector locked up. Yes apple is making inroads, but still RIM as a huge lead. The problem is that lead can evaporate if they fail to innovate. Just look at what happened to Palm a few years ago. They had the smart phone business lock stock and barrel, but they failed to produce an updated OS and/or improved phones. MS came in with and stole their marketshare away. Likewise RIM has to keep innovating or they'll be cast aside.
Now with that said, I don't think this is going to spell the doom for RIM, at least yet. They're still selling more phone in the US then anyone and they have the business sector locked up. Yes apple is making inroads, but still RIM as a huge lead. The problem is that lead can evaporate if they fail to innovate. Just look at what happened to Palm a few years ago. They had the smart phone business lock stock and barrel, but they failed to produce an updated OS and/or improved phones. MS came in with and stole their marketshare away. Likewise RIM has to keep innovating or they'll be cast aside.
Yea, BB security is great, except in the UAE. That is a huge problem. I was in Dubai in January and I promise you, the banning of BB in the UAE is a horrible blow (just think of the American and Canadian contractors over there, then think of the number of people who live there who have BB's). Yikes!
Then there was the timing of The Torch. I could not have chosen a worse time to announce The Torch than right now. Everyone is still glowing and fighting about the iPhone, the X, the Y, and the Z android phones in a summertime folly. BB looks like the old man who came to play in a pick up basketball game.
They would have done so much better to announce a new phone around November (just in time for Xmas...what a concept!). Find out what the heck people want and give it to them (wow....genius). What doesn't HTC do well? Just tackle that and outdo that one company, and the world is your oyster. But no.
Yea, I suspect that it would take a lot of time to come out with something which was a LOT better than HTC, but putting in that time would yield great results. Better than what they did.
If I were running RIM, I would have waited until November. I would have concentrated on cosmetic changes (yes, Virginia, people like shiny things and in bright gay colors, too). "Get more mileage from a new pair of sneakers" as Billy Joel says. Also, some gimmicks to plug the gap (like a decent video player or a snappier interface to the desktop manager). In the meantime, really overhaul the OS, come up with even snappier cosmetic changes, make a CEO model (the glass and chrome end of it leaving plastic behind for the TOL series). Segment the line, have a phone for the worker bees with some features, up to The Great Man loaded with features. New and wonderful improvement announced on March 21 (spring). Beat everyone else to the punch and foul up their Grand Unveiling plans. I really don't think that RIM believes in modern marketing, I think their philosophy is "slow and steady wins the race".
Then there was the timing of The Torch. I could not have chosen a worse time to announce The Torch than right now. Everyone is still glowing and fighting about the iPhone, the X, the Y, and the Z android phones in a summertime folly. BB looks like the old man who came to play in a pick up basketball game.
They would have done so much better to announce a new phone around November (just in time for Xmas...what a concept!). Find out what the heck people want and give it to them (wow....genius). What doesn't HTC do well? Just tackle that and outdo that one company, and the world is your oyster. But no.
Yea, I suspect that it would take a lot of time to come out with something which was a LOT better than HTC, but putting in that time would yield great results. Better than what they did.
If I were running RIM, I would have waited until November. I would have concentrated on cosmetic changes (yes, Virginia, people like shiny things and in bright gay colors, too). "Get more mileage from a new pair of sneakers" as Billy Joel says. Also, some gimmicks to plug the gap (like a decent video player or a snappier interface to the desktop manager). In the meantime, really overhaul the OS, come up with even snappier cosmetic changes, make a CEO model (the glass and chrome end of it leaving plastic behind for the TOL series). Segment the line, have a phone for the worker bees with some features, up to The Great Man loaded with features. New and wonderful improvement announced on March 21 (spring). Beat everyone else to the punch and foul up their Grand Unveiling plans. I really don't think that RIM believes in modern marketing, I think their philosophy is "slow and steady wins the race".
RIM is riding the same beat donkey that Motorola road off into the sunset and into the desert with the RAZR.
Hope they brought LOTS of water with 'em!
Hope they brought LOTS of water with 'em!
False, I'm 16 and I hate blackberry keyboards! The keys are too tiny, the only exception is the blackberry pearl. The only reason I used to like blackberries were because of the looks. But after all my blackberrys and phones in general I'll defiantly stick with iPhones
Same. Even though I'm not a teenager anymore, I could never ever think of using a Blackberry again. I used one about three years ago and gave it to a friend after two months when I bought my first iPhone. I'll be buying iPhones until Apple stops making them.