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BlackBerry 10 is a failure that won’t be able to compete, company source says

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Re: BlackBerry 10 is a failure that won’t be able to compete, company source says

#11
It will be a shame if they fail because OS 2 has the potential to be amazing, making "real time" really work on mobile, thanks to it's multi kernel architecture. Some detail here - http://forums.crackberry.com/blackberry-playbook-f222/qnx-mi...

Can imagine UIs that adapt to your current location and environment as you move around.

Re: BlackBerry 10 is a failure that won’t be able to compete, company source says

#12
post #9
post #6

Bad products, horrible software That seems strongly overstated. I don't use a BlackBerry, but nothing about RIM's products strikes me as bad or horrible. They are, at worst, uninspired products in a market with much stronger competitors. I get the strong feeling that many in tech want RIM to crash and burn as spectacularly as possible - I can swear there's a lot of schadenfreude in all these articles, and I can't fig…

You said it yourself you don't use a blackberry, so your comment doesn't exactly reflect on reality. I use a blackberry and I can confirm it's the worse phone I have ever had. It's missing features that my other 5 year old phone has, almost pathetic. To tap this, their prices are over the top. Personally, I don't think that article exaggerates anything. I don't know why people want RIM to fail but I bet they will fai…

I have a Blackberry for work. It's fine. It receives emails. It makes phone calls. It makes a noise when I have a meeting.

An amazing work of art it is not, but it does work well enough. So I agree with the OP, it's uninspired but it's not horrible. It's a minimum viable product.

Re: BlackBerry 10 is a failure that won’t be able to compete, company source says

#13

Seems like a decent executive would have started a division running Android with Blackberry customizations a while back.

It's a risky proposition. Blackberry is software. Buying other people's software and reselling it makes you an easy-to-eliminate middleman.

HTC and Samsung like Android because they hate writing software (although not enough to stop doing it) and Android is much better than anything they could dream of making themselves. RIM, on the other hand, has already made pretty decent software. So it would be weird to throw all that away and start making low-margin hardware that competes with 100 other low-margin phones and tablets.

Re: BlackBerry 10 is a failure that won’t be able to compete, company source says

#14

Seems like a decent executive would have started a division running Android with Blackberry customizations a while back.

It's a risky proposition. Blackberry is software. Buying other people's software and reselling it makes you an easy-to-eliminate middleman. HTC and Samsung like Android because they hate writing software (although not enough to stop doing it) and Android is much better than anything they could dream of making themselves. RIM, on the other hand, has already made pretty decent software. So it would be weird to throw al…

RIM has pretty deep enterprise integration compared to everyone else. Presumably they could leverage a lot of their existing software (on the backend - push, mail, messaging, etc) plus some great Android apps?

Re: BlackBerry 10 is a failure that won’t be able to compete, company source says

#15
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You said it yourself you don't use a blackberry, so your comment doesn't exactly reflect on reality. I use a blackberry and I can confirm it's the worse phone I have ever had. It's missing features that my other 5 year old phone has, almost pathetic. To tap this, their prices are over the top. Personally, I don't think that article exaggerates anything. I don't know why people want RIM to fail but I bet they will fai…

I have a Blackberry for work. It's fine. It receives emails. It makes phone calls. It makes a noise when I have a meeting. An amazing work of art it is not, but it does work well enough. So I agree with the OP, it's uninspired but it's not horrible. It's a minimum viable product.

Minimum viable product in this market will only compete at minimum viable price, and that's not where the margins are. Nokia is surely evidence of this.

RIM's emphasis on services and their brand recognition may help stem the tide for a while, but they desperately need competitive products.

Re: BlackBerry 10 is a failure that won’t be able to compete, company source says

#16
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You said it yourself you don't use a blackberry, so your comment doesn't exactly reflect on reality. I use a blackberry and I can confirm it's the worse phone I have ever had. It's missing features that my other 5 year old phone has, almost pathetic. To tap this, their prices are over the top. Personally, I don't think that article exaggerates anything. I don't know why people want RIM to fail but I bet they will fai…

I have a Blackberry for work. It's fine. It receives emails. It makes phone calls. It makes a noise when I have a meeting. An amazing work of art it is not, but it does work well enough. So I agree with the OP, it's uninspired but it's not horrible. It's a minimum viable product.

It's a minimum viable product.

I'm not sure that is true today. The enterprise fortress is crumbling around RIM, and BES was the anchor giving RIM some stability. As more companies allow people to bring their own device in, being a very weak competitor to iOS, Android, and Windows very likely will be too much to overcome.

I expect Microsoft to buy RIM in 2012 in order to integrate BES with Windows Phone. Blackberry's OS will be shuttered then.

Re: BlackBerry 10 is a failure that won’t be able to compete, company source says

#17
I used to be very ambivalent about BB devices, until I spent some time recently using a BlackBerry 9900.

I'd read about the BlackBerry OS being behind the times, and outdated, but as I used the 9900, I just wasn't seeing it. The touchscreen looks and works extremely well, the OS is smooth and responsive, and looks great too. And the web browser rendered every mobile site I loaded perfectly.

I know it is popular to cast BB devices as horribly outdated, but after using the 9900, I found myself seriously considering purchasing one and selling my iPhone 4. I love my iPhone, but the BlackBerry really impressed me.

This is anecdotal, I know...but perhaps we're all writing RIM off too soon?

Re: BlackBerry 10 is a failure that won’t be able to compete, company source says

#18
post #17

I used to be very ambivalent about BB devices, until I spent some time recently using a BlackBerry 9900. I'd read about the BlackBerry OS being behind the times, and outdated, but as I used the 9900, I just wasn't seeing it. The touchscreen looks and works extremely well, the OS is smooth and responsive, and looks great too. And the web browser rendered every mobile site I loaded perfectly. I know it is popular to ca…

I agree. There is a substantial bandwagoning effect going on. Still, I wouldn't deny that problems exist.

Re: BlackBerry 10 is a failure that won’t be able to compete, company source says

#19
post #17

I used to be very ambivalent about BB devices, until I spent some time recently using a BlackBerry 9900. I'd read about the BlackBerry OS being behind the times, and outdated, but as I used the 9900, I just wasn't seeing it. The touchscreen looks and works extremely well, the OS is smooth and responsive, and looks great too. And the web browser rendered every mobile site I loaded perfectly. I know it is popular to ca…

I'm on the same boat. I feel the new 9900 is a great device. BBM is a great service and managing email on a BB is fantastic.

I'm seriously considering getting one (again. I'm on an Iphone4 now) as I see the Blackberry as a productivity tool and my Iphone as an entertaiment center (I'm actually considering dropping the Iphone for an Android, but that's another story)

Re: BlackBerry 10 is a failure that won’t be able to compete, company source says

#20
post #4

As a Playbook owner running OS 2, and a software developer, I agree that there isn't room for a fourth ecosystem of 'native' apps written especially for BB devices. __Blackberry should stop running to where the ball is, and start running to where it's going to be__ What I would like is the ability to run web apps as proper apps. Ie: make Playbook the best way to consume web apps out there. - Apple's trying to push na…

I just want to add a datapoint to your "where it's going to be" point, which I agree is the way to go for RIM.

Out of the blue, our startup started to receive suggestions directly from RIM on how to improve our performance and compatibility with the Playbook's Webkit implementation. They actually went as far as cracking open their web inspector and doing some analysis of our handling of touch events, some minor CSS issues (we use a lot of -webkit-transform), etc. I'm not sure whether this is part of an officially-endorsed policy or whether it's just some proactive folks within RIM, but it's been quite helpful.

Whether positioning the Playbook as a really good Webkit runner will win them back significant market share or not is up for debate, since there are many tablets entering the market that have decent implementations on decent hardware now.

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