Don't believe the hype!

[mch]

Slow down, If people are keeping the BB, why would they need to buy other phones? It is like a resturaunt that has loyal customers, sure the resturaunt accross the street gets new customers maybe more on occasion, but, the steady loyal customers keep coming and they are sufficient. those "new" customers are seen for what they are, tourist" cannot bank on tourist, regulars is where it is at.

That is a recipe for a shrinking company. Nobody wants to invest in a shrinking company.

Many of the regulars are leaving. Let me see... I carried a blackberry for a decade. From the RIM 950, through several models, all the way through the BB 9700. Was I a regular?

[puckthem]

That is a recipe for a shrinking company. Nobody wants to invest in a shrinking company.

Many of the regulars are leaving. Let me see... I carried a blackberry for a decade. From the RIM 950, through several models, all the way through the BB 9700. Was I a regular?

So you were the only regular? BB will be around, alot of propaganda that is all.

[mch]

So you were the only regular? BB will be around, alot of propaganda that is all.

Indeed. The BB will still be around in some form. Just look forward to downsizing, layoffs, and not a lot of innovation.

By comparison pager companies are still around because they fill an important niche. Mostly corporate and government customers. There is still some profit to be made in selling the devices and service. The last real innovation in that industry was ReFLEX.

This is the danger for RIM. Unless they can start growing again, the long term picture is pretty grim: layoffs, the good talent leaves, not enough cash to take risks, lack of innovation. They all feed each other. I have worked at shrinking companies before. It is not fun. I hope that RIM can figure out how to appeal to a broader customer base. What can they do that would be as revolutionary as the RIM 850/950 was in the late 90s?

[puckthem]

Indeed. The BB will still be around in some form. Just look forward to downsizing, layoffs, and not a lot of innovation.

By comparison pager companies are still around because they fill an important niche. Mostly corporate and government customers. There is still some profit to be made in selling the devices and service. The last real innovation in that industry was ReFLEX.

This is the danger for RIM. Unless they can start growing again, the long term picture is pretty grim: layoffs, the good talent leaves, not enough cash to take risks, lack of innovation. They all feed each other. I have worked at shrinking companies before. It is not fun. I hope that RIM can figure out how to appeal to a broader customer base. What can they do that would be as revolutionary as the RIM 850/950 was in the late 90s?

Until that happens it's all speculation, People will buy BB, the email push is still in demand. Pagers were a different animal, no comparison, People still identify with BB, that's all that matters some people want the world some just want the bare essientials.

[mch]

Until that happens it's all speculation, People will buy BB, the email push is still in demand. Pagers were a different animal, no comparison, People still identify with BB, that's all that matters some people want the world some just want the bare essientials.

Maybe so, but the RIM market share numbers, stock price, and layoffs are telling a not so optimistic story.

In fact, I do still have an employer provided pager. Paging isn't completely dead. It has mostly been relegated to employer provided devices because consumers no longer want pagers.

Still, I have been wrong before. All I am really saying is RIM is in a dangerous position. The only things we can say for sure are that RIM's market share is plummeting, BES is more expensive than Activesync, and that BYOD is becoming more much common for corporate push email.

[cooter55]

bb is great if you live in a large city or its burbs.if you gotta have your email in real time.
Now if you live in the rual ares not the phone for you,or you are part of the byod.maybe rim might put out a bb that talors to the simm swap markit.

[mch]

To be clear, I do hope that RIM recovers. Even if I personally never buy another Blackberry, I realise that an iOS/Android smartphone OS duopoly is not going to serve customers well. It is looking like we might be going in that direction. That is, unless RIM bounces back and/or Windows Phone takes off.

[ToastyinCAD]

bb is great if you live in a large city or its burbs.if you gotta have your email in real time.
Now if you live in the rual ares not the phone for you,or you are part of the byod.maybe rim might put out a bb that talors to the simm swap markit.

Problem is that this was rims only major advantage but others gave caught up and every provider essentially has push email linked via ms exchange or some other format. They need to find another real competitive advantage

[mch]

Problem is that this was rims only major advantage but others gave caught up and every provider essentially has push email linked via ms exchange or some other format. They need to find another real competitive advantage

There are some security advantages for corporate use of a Blackberry hooked up to a corporate BES. In particular, BES provides lots of options to lock down the functionality of a phone and closely monitor usage. Not the kind of thing that would go over in a BYOD environment, but it is compelling for some organisations that provide smartphones to their employees.

[rambo47]

RIM has security in place now, which is a huge advantage. Plus they're entrenched. Large companies have admins trained in all facets of managing a mobile fleet based on BlackBerry. iOS and Android have made some inroads in these areas, but they're not all the way there yet. No telling if/when they will actually equal RIM in security.

[mch]

RIM has security in place now, which is a huge advantage. Plus they're entrenched. Large companies have admins trained in all facets of managing a mobile fleet based on BlackBerry. iOS and Android have made some inroads in these areas, but they're not all the way there yet. No telling if/when they will actually equal RIM in security.

My bet is that Android/iOS never will equal RIM/BES in terms of security, and this will ensure that RIM/BES survives in some form. There is a fundamental tension between BYOD and the lock it down and monitor everything approach that BES enables.

The direction forward for Android/iOS in terms of corporate data security is data separation. To some extent, third party management products for Android/iOS will close the gap. Even then, nothing quite compares to the RIM approach having a separate corporate owned device that is locked down in terms of what apps it can run and with all usage monitored. The separate device eliminates a whole class of security issues. The downside is that corporate provided devices and BES are expensive. In a difficult economy, companies are always looking at ways to cut overhead.

Even IBM, for example, is embracing BYOD. It is the up and coming IT trend. To some degree RIM is addressing it http://us.blackberry.com/business/to...artphones.html

q.v. http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/...016/2012-06-26

More BYOD means that what consumers want is increasingly going to drive what smartphone gets purchased. So I'm back at the question, "how is RIM going to appeal to consumers?"

Another approach RIM could take is to primarily become a software vendor providing a third party corporate data security and device management solution for iOS/Android. There are already a number of players in that market though, and RIM runs the risk of undercutting its core business.

It will be fascinating to see how all this plays out.

[MIAJamesFan]

RIM has security in place now, which is a huge advantage. Plus they're entrenched. Large companies have admins trained in all facets of managing a mobile fleet based on BlackBerry. iOS and Android have made some inroads in these areas, but they're not all the way there yet. No telling if/when they will actually equal RIM in security.

For sure. For this sort of purpose, there is no equal to the Blackberry yet. Also we'll have to see if Blackberry 10 will be good enough for the leisure users to try it over an android, iphone etc.

[cooter55]

the thing is rim is about security and most smart phone users don't care about that much security.most are Facebook,twittering,and getting directions.

[ToastyinCAD]

It would be a huge step up if one didn't need to reboot ones phone after evey app update. Also with companies using exchange more and more - rim security - while unmatched - becomes a little less of a selling feature if the company's own IT secures its exchange server correctly.

Unfortunately features and usability are becoming more and more important and rim is falling by the wayside