poll Will RIM Just Die?

[FMH]

Multiple Choice allowed in Question 2

[Muhammad Farrukh]

No

[FMH]

You do know that according to the current strategy, their next generation phone will come in late 2012. Can it really survive that long?

[HoochieMamma]

Yes, but very slowly and painfully. Will most likely be bought out by one of the big ones when they do.

[Muhammad Farrukh]

Yes, they most definitely will.

There is still a lot of market across the globe available for RIM

[tiagosilva29]

RIM will open source their ****.

[Muhammad Farrukh]

RIM will open source their ****.

:rofl:

[Vice]

They need to focus on just one good phone and do it right. Their large range of devices has crippled their ability to innovate. They are spread too thin.

Also I think they released a tablet too soon they should have focused on keeping their core audience happy by providing BB10 on a new phone instead of trying to fight the iPad by jumping in to the tablet market.

I think in 12 months from now when they launch their new phones running BB10 the world will shrug and go "So what?" and by April 2013 they will be talking about acquisitions by a competitor. But I don't even think that will save them I don't think they have anything that other companies don't. If you want a bunch of people that know how not to execute a product launch then Blackberry would make a good buy. If you don't want to **** up your business you wouldn't touch them.

I also think that the Blackberry brand has been tainted by all these set backs and service outages. The biggest thing Blackberry has going for it right now is the BBM system and other devices have gained that (iMessage on iOS etc) so it is hard for people to justify staying on the Blackberry platform with a 12 month void of new devices when other platforms have the features that are / were most used on the blackberry devices.

[FMH]

@Vice, I agree with the first line in your post. Very nicely put.

But not with the tablet part. I was actually impressed by how quickly they answered to the original iPad. And what a response it was!

But it's competition was now to iPad 2, and it fall short against it. Against iPad original, it wins hands-down.

And this gesture actually showed to the investors, and consumers, that RIM is a very capable company.

But for past sometime, they ain't acting like one.

[Wombatt]

Fire some more people to save costs FTW :rofl:

[Stetson]

I think they need to significantly reduce their product lines. The names and numbers are just silly now.

They need one with a keyboard and one with a touch screen. That's it. Call them something simple and easy like the Blackberry 10 and the Blackberry Touch 10, running the BBX OS. Apps probably aren't that important, just a really good web browser, email client, and calendar. Focus on really good enterprise management and software support.

It needs to be easier and better to manage and use Blackberry phones for a large business than iPhones. You might pick up some sales from consumers who like the physical keyboard.

They need to be able to win over IT departments who have to manage lots of phones without the end users being frustrated by an old clunky OS, not matter what kind of shiny skin they put on it.

Even if they worked towards all of those things it's probably too late.

[Holey]

I think they should sell themselves to Microsoft. Bring WP7 out as the best possible answer for enterprise, with the combined efforts of BB's success in the corporate sector for phones, + Microsofts success in the corporate sector for everything else. They can't lose. A move like this would be a MASSIVE boon to Microsofts success in the business phone industry

[iamwasiq]

In the end i guess either Microsoft or Apple will buy it or another possibility is going to WP7. I say WP7 because RIM is all about closed operating system which are secure too. They can`t go to iOS cuz its apple exclusive and wont go to Android because it is the least secure. So, WP7 for the win for RIM.

[Vice]

@Vice, I agree with the first line in your post. Very nicely put.

But not with the tablet part. I was actually impressed by how quickly they answered to the original iPad. And what a response it was!

But it's competition was now to iPad 2, and it fall short against it. Against iPad original, it wins hands-down.

And this gesture actually showed to the investors, and consumers, that RIM is a very capable company.

But for past sometime, they ain't acting like one.

I'm not arguing that they didn't do the playbook well. But what I am saying is, look at the net result of the playbook on them as a company. A 12 month delay on any new phones. They put too much effort in to a tablet that didn't break records and it diverted resources that could have better been served on their phone division.

Running a company like Rim is a juggling act. They have a lot of products and services that all need to be updated frequently to keep them on par with the competition. And I think the tablet was simply one ball in the air too many. They didn't need to do a tablet it wasn't their market and it didn't sell that well anyway, now they've lost the most precious thing, time. And with that their customers are left wondering if they should stick with their outdated devices for another 12 months or jump ship. A tablet is all well and good but you can't make phone calls on a playbook.

And I just also want to point out that the investors know this. Back in November blackberry was worth less than its assets. To word this another way people investing and selling stock in blackberry valued it less than the sum of its parts. If the company went bankrupt and all its assets were sold off it would have resulted in more money than its market value indicated. This means that investors lost all confidence in the company entirely and would rather sell there stock at below market valued prices than to wait for a liquidation if such a thing were to happen even though they'd make more money that way.

[Growled Member]

I think they need a change of leadership at the top. The current leadership is terrible.

[cbosdell]

Will Android and iOS just die? Please?

[Sir Topham Hatt]

I think yes if they continue how they are.

I think they should go to Windows and see if they can salvage anything. However as Windows Phone 7 is now all about touch screen, the days of the hardware keyboard are limited.

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

The days of RIM are numbered unless they radically change their strategy. It won't be long until the company is acquired - by whom is a different discussion altogether.

[jakem1]

I think they need to significantly reduce their product lines. The names and numbers are just silly now.

They need one with a keyboard and one with a touch screen. That's it. Call them something simple and easy like the Blackberry 10 and the Blackberry Touch 10, running the BBX OS. Apps probably aren't that important, just a really good web browser, email client, and calendar. Focus on really good enterprise management and software support.

It needs to be easier and better to manage and use Blackberry phones for a large business than iPhones. You might pick up some sales from consumers who like the physical keyboard.

They need to be able to win over IT departments who have to manage lots of phones without the end users being frustrated by an old clunky OS, not matter what kind of shiny skin they put on it.

Even if they worked towards all of those things it's probably too late.

I'm no expert on RIM and have no idea how many different phones they offer. However, I don't see how they could afford to limit themselves to just two models because they have two completely different markets - businesses and teenagers. Their teenage market rely on BB because they're cheap (the BBM service is free and the company offer cheap phones that don't cost anything on contract) but their business customers aren't constrained in the same way. As a result, I think they probably need at least three different models, maybe four.

[strekship]

They won't die right away, but they do need to make some changes. The only blackberry phone I ever owned was enough to make me never want to own one again.

[FMH]

They won't die right away, but they do need to make some changes.

I strongly agree with this part.

[johnporter29]

I don't think they'll die, they come up with something and survive.

[nekkidtruth]

I don't understand the need for RIM to "die". So much hate for a company that has for over a decade provided corporations and consumers with amazing products that do just fine. It isn't until you look at the last couple of years that a problem starts to rear it's head. Even then, it's all perfectly logical for a company of this calibre to turn itself around.

RIM does not need to die. It needs to change.

[UndergroundWire]

As I wrote in a previous post, Blackberry used to be the king of smartphones in the enterprise. The problem with that is a lot of companies fall into that same trap. We are #1 so we don't have to change. RIMs biggest mistakes were:

1. When the first iPhone came out, they should have started developing an OS that can compete. After all, Apple started the smartphone phenomena. Not until the iPhone came out did I ever see teenagers carrying around a smartphone.
   
2. The development of the Blackberry Storm was a wasted effort. It was not reviewed very highly yet RIM went out to make a second iteration of that device. Inevitably that product line failed.
   
3. When Android's market share started to rise, that should have been the second wake up call for this company. However, they kept on with their same devices and slow OS. When Android became number 1 in the market share at this time last year, the company should have looked into developing Android phones on the OS with Blackberry Services. This would have held their market share from going to a rapid decline through out 2011.
   
4. The release of Windows Phone 7 is another good example. Here is a company [Microsoft] that was in the mobile OS business in the past that tried, was briefly successful and eventually failed on their first attempt (Windows Mobile). However, Microsoft saw what the market was like at this point and revamped their mobile OS from the ground up. It may not be successful but it is a change.
   
5. Nokia bowing out from designing their own mobile OS was another great opportunity for RIM to take back a few market shares. However, because they didn't plan ahead, there was a as mass exodus from their platform in 2011.
   

The bottom line is, RIM can not pull a Nokia and go exclusively with Windows Phone because there would be nothing to differentiate them from any other Windows Phone in the market. RIM can not make an iOS phone since that is a complete ecosystem that Apple only designs. The only smart strategy they had a year ago was to go with Android. They didn't even have to go exclusively Android but it would have been better for them to still maintain a customer base as the redesigned the Blackberry software. If the Blackberry OS failed in time, at least they had a foot in the door and would still be in the Mobile OS business. Inevitibly I see one of two thing happening this year:

1. The company fails completely
   
2. They go exclusively with Android offering Blackberry Services (i.e. Messenger, E-Mail, etc...).
   

At this point the Blackberry name is getting tarnished and probably won't survive another year as an OS. If their value gets any lower, Google should just buy them and hopefully take hold of the enterprise market. Time will tell what will happen with this company but I feel we won't have to wait longer than 2012.

[FMH]

...

Hmm.. About the first point.

I on the other hand saw a lot of teenagers with bb. Sure, when iPhone came, the number grew drastically.