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What's really wrong with BlackBerry

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Re: What's really wrong with BlackBerry

#71

Post by richardw »

Legion wrote: post #66
richardw wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

» How is that any kind of rebuttal? A free competitor in the software world can have more users, but that doesn't necessarily mean your business is failing. Similarly, Apple has had many fewer users than Windows for a long time but it's doing just fine compared to most Windows hardware vendors. Other phone vendors have moved from Windows Mobile & Symbian to Android, partly due to the free O.S. The customer profile of…

>> "A free competitor in the software world can have more users, but that doesn't necessarily mean your business is failing." But this isn't like free end user software. An Android phone isn't "free" to the end user. People are paying money for Android phones, instead of spending that money to buy BlackBerries. The fact that the OS is free to the manufacturer providing the phones is of no consequence. What is of cons…

Agreed, not to the user. But I would imagine MS extracting a fair amount of cash from companies using their operating system. That would provide an incentive to move to a free-as-in-beer-and-speech system.

Re: What's really wrong with BlackBerry

#72

Post by MichaelMace »

timtadh wrote: post #8

"Yes, Android is doing well, but neither RIM nor Apple is giving away its operating system, so it was close to inevitable that Android would eventually get the unit lead." If that is true, why doesn't the Linux desktop have the unit lead? I mean its free, installable on everything, and easily obtainable. This kinda of reasoning simply does not hold. There a loads of reasons why Android is doing well, but I don't thin…

Windows was already established as the desktop OS standard before Linux became prominent. Windows had a huge base of apps and massive network effects. Saving money on the cost of the OS was not enough of an advantage to make most users switch away from Windows.

Mobile is very different. There is no single established OS standard, and in fact most phone buyers don't even know what the OS is in their phone (I am talking about average users, not the folks who are reading this comment). Cellphone companies will sweat blood in order to cut ten cents out of the parts cost of a phone. Eliminating ten dollars in cost is a huge deal to them.

Add to that the marketing power of the Google brand, and Android looked very attractive to mobile phone manufacturers when compared to Windows Mobile and Symbian, which were the other main choices at the time.

Re: What's really wrong with BlackBerry

#73

Post by rythie »

timtadh wrote: post #8

"Yes, Android is doing well, but neither RIM nor Apple is giving away its operating system, so it was close to inevitable that Android would eventually get the unit lead." If that is true, why doesn't the Linux desktop have the unit lead? I mean its free, installable on everything, and easily obtainable. This kinda of reasoning simply does not hold. There a loads of reasons why Android is doing well, but I don't thin…

Linux hasn't managed to take off because for most people it requires changing virtually every application they use to a different one.

OSX is able to make inroads because several key applications such as Microsoft Office, Adobe's products, iTunes etc. also work on Macs.

Mobile phones didn't really have 3rd party apps (they weren't popular) until they iPhone and people were switching brands pretty often anyway.

Re: What's really wrong with BlackBerry

#74

Post by isani »

philwelch wrote: post #49
gnufreex wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About Apple killing classic MacOS, it was really kill or be killed. They did it years too late, IMHO.

They had been trying continuously since the late 1980's. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taligent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copland_(operating_system) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhapsody_(operating_system)

You could add Newton OS to that list. It was an attempt to do what iOS achieved: a move out of the Mac into mobile devices. Apple initially planned to implement a large number of mobile form factors based on Newton.

Re: What's really wrong with BlackBerry

#75

Post by Etiko »

mortenjorck wrote: post #59
westajay wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of platform volatility doesn't bode well for developers. Who wants to invest their time learning something that will just be deprecated shortly after? Before RIM started hyping playbook, 8 months ago they were hyping OS 6. Now you don't hear anything about OS 6.

This looks to me like almost exactly the same situation as with Nokia and Symbian. At this point, it's fairly obvious MeeGo is the way forward for the company, and they're trying to put Symbian out to pasture gently, but there's really no way to do it without the appearance of platform volatility.

Hence why they're using QT. If you develop for QT it should, theoretically, compile for Symbian as well as for MeeGo.

Re: What's really wrong with BlackBerry

#76

Post by gnufreex »

philwelch wrote: post #49
gnufreex wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About Apple killing classic MacOS, it was really kill or be killed. They did it years too late, IMHO.

They had been trying continuously since the late 1980's. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taligent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copland_(operating_system) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhapsody_(operating_system)

They also fumbled with MkLinux and BeOS, IIRC.
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