RIM is NOT leaving the consumer market?

[mammador]

If you were the RIM CEO what would you do? http://www.tomsguide.com/us/RIM-Bus...r-Market-Statement-Enterprise,news-14655.html

I personally would jump on the Android bandwagon, and license out BBM for all Android, iOS and Win 7 manufacturers. It's the safest strategic move IMO.

 

[Jodell88]

Over here BBM is huge! People no longer ask for your phone number, they ask for your BBM pin.

 

[kyrax12]

Over here BBM is huge! People no longer ask for your phone number, they ask for your BBM pin.

Are you from Canada?

 

[Jodell88]

Are you from Canada?

No, Trinidad and Tobago.

 

[runawayprisoner]

If you were the RIM CEO what would you do? http://www.tomsguide.com/us/RIM-Bus...r-Market-Statement-Enterprise,news-14655.html

I personally would jump on the Android bandwagon, and license out BBM for all Android, iOS and Win 7 manufacturers. It's the safest strategic move IMO.

If I were RIM CEO, I would do a firesale at $99.99 for the PlayBook to entice more buyers, and then assess the situation whether to continue pushing developers with an increased install base, or to abandon and call it a loss. I should tell the software department to stop bothering with this device until further notice in both cases.

After that, my main focus as RIM CEO would be to hire a better industrial designer and go over my device's designs from the ground up, then start pushing aggressively for a Fall presentation of a new line of devices. I should also get the software guys to be ready for a new OS update for the phone line.

In short, I think that as RIM CEO, my main focus should be to get something to the market by Fall 2012!

 

[the DRIZZLE]

If you were the RIM CEO what would you do? http://www.tomsguide.com/us/RIM-Bus...r-Market-Statement-Enterprise,news-14655.html

I personally would jump on the Android bandwagon, and license out BBM for all Android, iOS and Win 7 manufacturers. It's the safest strategic move IMO.

How is abandoning a profitable business model and changing to one that involves cut throat competition and low margins the safest strategic move? You do realize that despite its death spiral RIM has much higher margins than any android manufacturer right?

No one is going to pay to licence BBM at this point, it's old news. RIM's focus on the enterprise market where they do have competitive advantage but there is really no cost to keeping their products on the shelves for consumers so they shouldn't abandon it completely.

 

[silverpig]

One of the things I'd do if I were in charge of RIM is pay the devs of the top ~100 iOS and/or Android apps to do playbook versions. I'd cover 100% of the costs of porting the apps over, and let them keep the revenue from sales on the Playbook. Maybe you even send in a team of devs to port the app for them.

You don't need 600,000 apps to have a good set. You just need the best ones.

I'd then make sure the next BlackBerry phone is a 4.3" 1024x600 device (same res as the playbook), and make Playbook 2 as a ~8 inch 2048x1200 device with the OMAP 5.

For the keyboard people, use the same 4.3" body and make the screen 512x600 (half vertical).

And I would test develop a device that is 4.3" with a full screen on one side, and the keyboard and half screen on the other. Use a switch very similar to the ringer/silent switch on the iPhone 4 to flip the input/output from front to back.

BBM + enterprise + unified development + QNX + top 100 apps + 4.3" retina + 8" retina + qwerty option = win

 

[Imp]

Only about 1-2 million Playbooks have "shipped".... What's the point?

Compare that to all the Android phones and/or iPads and iPhones in the tens of millions each. Why waste your time as an app developer making Playbook versions that don't work with anything else? They'll work for the new BB phones supposedly, but no one knows if that will flop or not. The incentive would have to be huge.

And then, there's the matter of affording the incentive since Playbook is being sold at a huge loss now - it's already being subsidized, and it's not working. The tech is a year old now, so you couldn't even justify the full $500+ price tag if it would sell at that point.

 

[smartpatrol]

Why would they go Android? Then they'd be competing against Samsung, HTC etc. in a commodity market, and they have basically nothing to give them any advantage.

Their best hope is getting bought out. Of course, they've been trying to sell for months it seems.

Honestly I don't see any way they can compete against Android or iOS. As WP7 (and webOS) proved, even a kick ass OS won't save you when you don't have the apps. Time to sell, rather than bleeding money in a futile attempt to regain profitability.

 

[Nothinman]

Why would they go Android? Then they'd be competing against Samsung, HTC etc. in a commodity market, and they have basically nothing to give them any advantage.

Their best hope is getting bought out. Of course, they've been trying to sell for months it seems.

Honestly I don't see any way they can compete against Android or iOS. As WP7 (and webOS) proved, even a kick ass OS won't save you when you don't have the apps. Time to sell, rather than bleeding money in a futile attempt to regain profitability.

I agree for the most part. Google beat MS with their own strategy and Apple is just Apple. RIM could probably stick around as a management software company, making software to manage all manner of mobile OSes in one central place. I'm sure HTC, Motorola/Google, etc would dedicate at least 1 or 2 models as "professional" and ship them with client-side software to hook them up into the next generation of BES. ActiveSync policies only get you so much control.

 

[Rottie]

BB should foucs with business where they sell very well. Consumers are not buying BB anymore except for PlayBook.

 

[silverpig]

Only about 1-2 million Playbooks have "shipped".... What's the point?

Compare that to all the Android phones and/or iPads and iPhones in the tens of millions each. Why waste your time as an app developer making Playbook versions that don't work with anything else? They'll work for the new BB phones supposedly, but no one knows if that will flop or not. The incentive would have to be huge.

And then, there's the matter of affording the incentive since Playbook is being sold at a huge loss now - it's already being subsidized, and it's not working. The tech is a year old now, so you couldn't even justify the full $500+ price tag if it would sell at that point.

Revenue per user is highest on AppWorld by far. And if RIM is subsidizing the apps, the cost is negligible to the app developers. It's all upside.

More apps mean more people are willing to buy the device. The PlayBook itself is good, the OS is good, it just doesn't have the apps that the other devices do. Fix that problem and you're most of the way there.

 

[Lifted]

If anyone at RIM had a brain...

Take Android, secure the fvck out of it, add a ton of enterprise security features that can be managed with BES, build secure phones with the best encryption and remote management/nuke capabilities built in, then finish off with the best keyboard on the market.

Anything else by RIM at this point is suicide.

I should be CEO of that company.

 

[quest55720]

I honestly don't see how RIM will be in business in the near future. The consumer wing is almost dead. With MS taking enterprise and business very serious with WP8 there is a great chance they will lose that market. I see someone buying them up cheap for patents with in the next year.

 

[WelshBloke]

Over here BBM is huge! People no longer ask for your phone number, they ask for your BBM pin.

They are still pretty big in the UK. They seem to be holding at around 18% marketshare. Linkage.

 

[Ryaxnb]

I honestly don't see how RIM will be in business in the near future. The consumer wing is almost dead. With MS taking enterprise and business very serious with WP8 there is a great chance they will lose that market. I see someone buying them up cheap for patents with in the next year.

Windows Phone?
The 5th place worldwide OS, maybe 6th or 7th? With less apps than blackberry or symbian and less marketshare than Bada OS?
Windows Phone? With no native API yet and not cross-platform development architecture, no multitasking (real, that is), poor keyboard support (landscape or portrait or slider mode) and none of that iPhone software/web-services inertia?
Windows Phone? With very little enterprise software, a price floor of ~$250 per phone, limited worldwide availablity, limited carrier availability (no support on verizon or sprint of any significance), and based on a API model that MS is deprecating elsewhere (Silverlight and Windows CE?)

Windows Phone?
No.

Windows Phone is doomed.

 

[mammador]

Windows Phone is highly rated though, at least in terms of feel/useability. Another factor is that Nokia in terms of smartphone sales is way behind Apple and the top Android makers. Blackberry OS is one of the main reasons RIM is failing.

 

[Kntx]

One of the things I'd do if I were in charge of RIM is pay the devs of the top ~100 iOS and/or Android apps to do playbook versions. I'd cover 100% of the costs of porting the apps over, and let them keep the revenue from sales on the Playbook. Maybe you even send in a team of devs to port the app for them.

You don't need 600,000 apps to have a good set. You just need the best ones.

Agree with this. Just bought a playbook and it is a really nice piece of hardware. The apps though are severely lacking.