101–110 of 157 posts
Was digging up some numbers. In 2010, BlackBerry still sold more phones than Apple. How the mighty have fallen.
What were the real problems then that led to their fall? Lack of technology innovation? badly run company and operations? lost touch with the consumer? All of the above?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
nit, but Ballmer did not dismiss the iPhone, he dismissed the $500 on contract iPhone. And he even said "it may sell very well". Here's the actual video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywi0h_Y5_U I know it's become fun to pretend like Ballmer dismissed the iPhone but I have a hard time watching that video and seeing anything like that.
Remember when they held a public funeral for the iPhone?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They still have their chances with Android. All they have to do is make the best damn Android devices. Considering they have money, they can do it. Other than that, nothing short of miraculous futuretech invention-acquisition will save them.
This is an empty, useless comment full of hot air, and using swear words does nothing to support the poor assumptions and reasoning that you made. The "best" devices will never sell without marketing. And if RIM does move to Android, that signals that they gave up and tried to stave off their decline/death by exploiting the Android market. Not to mention that with the competition, RIM has even less of a chance. I rec…
I've been thinking about RIM lately and I think they basically had chances to turn themselves around, but took neither. The first was in '08/'09 - shortly after the iPhone. Some companies (Google, Samsung) saw where the industry was going, made the appropriate decisions and are now profiting handsomely. In hindsight, that was the right time for RIM to acquire QNX and start on BB10, which might have done very well had…
These are always more easily seen looking from the future into the past, than they are in the past looking to the future. Few companies, with the market share RIM had, see threats as 'near term'. Fewer still have a deep appreciation for the entirety of the technology stack and the time it takes to move things. This is especially true of young executives but can happen to anyone. RIM's technology stack matured over ma…
RIM got caught out by a change to corporate culture - bring your own device - largely driven by economic decisions in response to the recession combined with a restructuring of the mobile market and a generation of hardware that leapfrogged RIM's product line in terms of status appeal.
What happened is Apple changed the market and Ballmer's dissing of a competitor did not mean that Microsoft scaled back its research efforts or gave up its cultural bias toward long term plays.
started developping apps for mobile in 2009. at that time, i aimed for ios development and blackberry. it took me 2 months to get my first app on ios, and i thought "ok, now let's start learning about blackberry". So, i downloaded their doc. iirc, they had three ways to develop apps. one was using web technology, and you couldn't do much. then they had two different sets of java apis : an old, discontinued one, with…
In 2010, I didn't even get this far.
I've been thinking about RIM lately and I think they basically had chances to turn themselves around, but took neither. The first was in '08/'09 - shortly after the iPhone. Some companies (Google, Samsung) saw where the industry was going, made the appropriate decisions and are now profiting handsomely. In hindsight, that was the right time for RIM to acquire QNX and start on BB10, which might have done very well had…
They lost me for two reasons. The first was updates and bug fixes. For example on my BB pausing the music player resulted in the battery being drained flat in less than an hour. They fixed that but of course the update never made it my phone and carrier. Add in 5 minute boot times, and randomly finding it locked up and needing a physical reset. Or the survey on a website about what your favourite app was to daily reb…
Plus, global roaming. It's kinda sad nobody ever thinks about it…
BlackBerry was able to provide worldwide flatrate roaming (well, they could, but it was up to each carrier to sell it as a product or bill each user to death).
Now, BB10 loses that capability. In fact, BB10 is completely and absolutely dumb when it comes to be an enterprise phone: multiple massive inboxes with different providers/technologies, many contacts, busy agenda, roaming and travel planning.
BlackBerry could have been today the perfect companion for people who really mean business. Or, at least, a very powerful one (people sometimes don't mind carrying two phones). But with an utterly expensive, beta-grade[1] device that does none of these things, I can't find a single reason why someone wouldn't pick an Android or an iPhone. Even for business.
I've been thinking about RIM lately and I think they basically had chances to turn themselves around, but took neither. The first was in '08/'09 - shortly after the iPhone. Some companies (Google, Samsung) saw where the industry was going, made the appropriate decisions and are now profiting handsomely. In hindsight, that was the right time for RIM to acquire QNX and start on BB10, which might have done very well had…
They lost me for two reasons. The first was updates and bug fixes. For example on my BB pausing the music player resulted in the battery being drained flat in less than an hour. They fixed that but of course the update never made it my phone and carrier. Add in 5 minute boot times, and randomly finding it locked up and needing a physical reset. Or the survey on a website about what your favourite app was to daily reb…