Anonymous RIM Employee Blasts Company in Open Letter (2011) • Hacker News Board

Re: Anonymous RIM Employee Blasts Company in Open Letter (2011)

#21

Post by rwg » Sun, Sep 22, 2013, 6:57 AM UTC

kjackson2012 wrote: post #19

WestCoastJustin wrote: post #2

> 4) Developers, not Carriers can now make or break us [1] Hindsight is 20/20, but this anonymous letter to RIM Senior Management Team, really nailed this point. The developer ecosystem, and the app for everything mind set, that Apple pretty much invented, and later emulated via Google with Android, is simply stunning. Personally, I think RIM should turn itself into mainly a hardware vendor, cut its losses, agree tha…

Ditching BBOS and using Android is exactly what SGI tried to do by ditching IRIX and going with Windows NT. It destroyed the company. Not that BBM has any hope at this point, but getting rid of BBOS is not the solution, because they will lose their current fans, and they will not migrate over any existing Android users.

The Visual Workstation line failed because you could get 90% of the performance for But the Visual Workstation line's failure was merely one gut punch in a succession of gut punches that destroyed SGI. SGI had two core competencies: graphics workstations and HPC. The availability of cheap (comparatively) multi-processor x86 workstations running ports of formerly IRIX-only software killed their workstation lines, and the combination of Itanium being late, Itanium trailing way behind x86 in $/FLOPS and watts/FLOP, and x86 clusters with fast Myrinet (later 10GigE and Infiniband) interconnects becoming in vogue killed most (not all, but enough) of SGI's HPC market share.

(I type this all with a bit of sadness: part of my first job out of college was running and porting software to a 20 CPU, 20 GB RAM SGI Power Challenge 10000, and I still have a soft spot for exotic big iron.)

Re: Anonymous RIM Employee Blasts Company in Open Letter (2011)

#22

Post by biomecha » Sun, Sep 22, 2013, 7:02 AM UTC

kjackson2012 wrote: post #19

WestCoastJustin wrote: post #2

> 4) Developers, not Carriers can now make or break us [1] Hindsight is 20/20, but this anonymous letter to RIM Senior Management Team, really nailed this point. The developer ecosystem, and the app for everything mind set, that Apple pretty much invented, and later emulated via Google with Android, is simply stunning. Personally, I think RIM should turn itself into mainly a hardware vendor, cut its losses, agree tha…

Ditching BBOS and using Android is exactly what SGI tried to do by ditching IRIX and going with Windows NT. It destroyed the company. Not that BBM has any hope at this point, but getting rid of BBOS is not the solution, because they will lose their current fans, and they will not migrate over any existing Android users.

Totally agree with you. The last thing BB should do is get rid of their assets. Besides, UI-wise, BBOS is already quite close to android, and very open to android apps: develop your app for android, convert it trivially to a BB app with the SDK tools and you're done.

My main gripe as a dev. regarding BB is the same as for Bada (Tizen ancestor): no SDK on linux (which also means BSD). It's a minor point though.

Nah, the real problem with BB is its image outside its user base. I bet most people associate BB with tiny devices with tiny keyboard, while people think of Apple and Android stuff as cool, fashionable. Their latest product sports touch screens and perhaps more, but it will take time for the public to pick it up.

Re: Anonymous RIM Employee Blasts Company in Open Letter (2011)

#23

Post by nullymcnull » Sun, Sep 22, 2013, 8:53 PM UTC

ams6110 wrote: post #9

pedalpete wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm assuming somebody else will pick up QNX, or it will be split off into it's own company. I don't think most people realise the value of QNX, maybe not as a phone OS, but in running so many other devices. Interestingly, RIM doesn't say how much revenue QNX makes for the company. http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/04/05/the-little-known-comp...

I'm guessing that QNX will soon face a run for its money as iOS and/or Android start seeing use in devices besides phones and tablets. A common UI experience from phone to tablet to automobile controls/navigation would be something consumers would appreciate.

I don't think you understand what QNX is or where it's used then. QNX will not be seeing serious competition from Android or iOS anytime soon in the domains it has locked up - ones which require hard real-time.