RIM is Getting Things Right – Montreal Developer Jam
RIM’s BlackBerry 10 Developer Jam swung by Montréal this week to coincide with Montréal’s International Start-up Festival. The event was interesting on two levels.
Globally the event shows that RIM is investing in the developer community and it showed some aspects of the quality of the underlying OS.
Obviously, BlackBerry 10 has not been released or fully demonstrated, and it wasn’t at RIM’s event, but there were glimpses of the performance of the OS. Aspects of the OS were very, very smooth; event smoother than iOS and much smoother than Android. This hints that the underlying foundation of the OS is strong; which is …
RIM’s Postponing of 2013 Seems to Have Sealed its Fate
Well, it looks like RIM is going to be soon in Nortel mode. They announced today that their BB10 operating system will not be ready until 2013 and that feels way too long. By then Android phones will be getting Ice Cream Sandwich, Windows Phone 8 will be out and we’ll be wondering what Apple will be putting into iOS 7.
I’m not surprised that BB10 is late. It felt late when they last showed it off, it left that it was far from being production ready.
Meanwhile, RIM is laying off another 5000 people. The best will be leaving shortly, especially given that there will be a lot of competition for the remaining non-RIM jobs in Waterloo Ontario. Further, one has to wonder whether RIM can really …
More Data Showing that Apple is Winning the Platform War
2012 seems to be the year of Apple. Recently they started gaining market share from Android; and more data has been released showing Apple gaining more ground.
Jay Yarow in Business Insider has reported that data from flurry analytics shows that 69% of new application projects are for iOS devices and only 31% for Android.
Year-on-year Android’s share is down from 37%, hence fewer projects are being started on Android this year than last.
Why is this the case? In the opinion of Digital Possibilities, there are several factors. First and foremost, paid applications are much harder to monetize on Android than on iOS. Developers want (need!) a return on their investment. Two, iOS …
BlackBerry World: Can BlackBerry 10 Save RIM?
At the BlackBerry World (BBW) developer conference today, RIM showed off some of the new features coming to the latest version of their operating system. There is a lot riding on this as it will either enable RIM to stay in the game or seal their death warrant.
The big question: from what we’ve seen so far, can we determine that RIM has done enough to save the company?
In order to respond to the question, we really need to define what we feel RIM needs to do to “save the company.” Here are four key criteria:
1.Focus on corporate and government customers over the medium term. 2.Provide a user experience that doesn’t suck. 3.Deliver excellent quality hardware. …
RIM launching cheap BlackBerry for Developing Markets
From John Paczkowski in AllthingsD:
On Thursday, the company will debut in India the BlackBerry Curve 9220, a stripped-down 2G handset with a built-in FM radio, a two-megapixel camera, seven hours of talk time and a dedicated BlackBerry Messenger key. Price? 10,990 rupees, or $210 U.S.
This is a very good move by RIM. Markets such as India and Indonesia still benefit from RIM’s data compression, bringing smartphones into the realm of people who could not afford the data bills of an Android or iPhone device.
Supplying this market today, RIM can hope to convert current users into users of future competitive devices. Effectively creating brand loyalty and product lock-in.
RIM’s rebirth may well begin in Asia and not North America.
Amazon should partner with RIM to build a smartphone
Successful mobile phone ecosystems in the future are going to feature a whole range of devices to access data and consume content. Amazon has a strong presence with its Kindle range of devices, and arguably is strong on the web, but has little or no direct control over smartphones.
It has borrowed space on smartphones today with its kindle book reader for iOS and Android, and has created an Android app market. But it doesn’t control the underlying platforms so is susceptible to competitive pressures from Google or Apple.
Amazon’s Platform Strategy
With the introduction of the Kindle fire for $199 it’s clear that Amazon is using the razor-blade model to make device hardware cheap and wireless transport of their content cheap. Amazon’s goal with hardware is to …
RIM’s Solution: It Should Service the 20%
RIM’s latest financial results along with Nielsen’s latest market share results have demonstrated the ongoing trend of RIM losing pace in smartphones.
Today it would be hard to recommend to anyone to choose a BlackBerry device except if they only really want to do a lot of mobile email.
Thorsten Heins, RIM’s CEO, has instigated a strategic review to look at options for RIM, but has also suggested that the company needs to focus on what it knows well: government and corporate clients.
[RIM] said it would focus on “what makes a BlackBerry a BlackBerry,” and go after the enterprise market with a renewed focus
Source: The Globe and Mail
If you look at the smartphone market, Apple has done enough to satisfy the needs …
The Benefits of a Multi-device World
The smartphone space is a very interesting one today, with so many vendors, especially in the Android space. This is spurring a lot of innovation, certainly keeping Apple on its toes, and making sure that there are lots of options for different use cases.
Samsung has recently launched its new smartphone, the Galaxy note. This is a large scale device, somewhere really between a smartphone and a tablet in physical size, but it comes with a stylus. For most people, this phone will be too big, and the use of a stylus will be cumbersome. Yet for a niche of certain people, may be architects or engineers who need to sketch a lot, this may be a very welcome feature.
In a mono-supplier universe, this kind of diversity and innovation …
