RSSPoor BlackBerry…
Jul 28
I feel the same way as this commenter: A Peek at Blackberry 6:
“In truth, it’s a bit painful to watch. As a former Blackberry user, it’s great to see RIM trying to improve the functionality of their operating system with new features. Sadly, it looks dated. Looks may not be everything, but they definitely help when one is making the decision to purchase.”
It goes further than just looks. As someone who has written and maintains several BB apps, I know you just can’t do near as much on a BB as on iPhone or Android. That’s a dealbreaker for lots of people when deciding which device to buy because smartphones have evolved into mini-laptops in a sense. The quality of the platform is largely driven by the apps available for it.
I want to root for BB, I just can’t until they get onto a modern operating system. I still think they should take Android, layer all their security on top of it, and start fresh. Their current OS still has roots in pagers from 15 years ago and it shows.
Jul 29, 2010 @ 08:05:33
Perhaps the Blackpad will get them back into the game.
http://www.financialpost.com/news/acquires+Internet+domain+name+rights+Blackpad/3336625/story.html
Jul 30, 2010 @ 11:02:51
Step back for a moment and think about the big picture. Accept that the Blackberry, as a smartphone competitor, is dead. But there is still demand for Blackberry as a service. So maybe it’s time for a radical shift. Move the service to another smartphone.
The things that the original Blackberry was designed to do in hardware can now be done in software on any smartphone. Except that smartphones also do a lot more: run third party apps, games, access to a vast marketplace, etc.
Take all that Blackberry is and turn it into a Droid app. Droid phones come complete with the marketplace and third party extensibility. Build on top of that the infrastructure to make the phone interact with RIM servers just like a Blackberry.
There is a huge gap between where the Blackberry is and where it needs to be to compete. Moving to Droid would jump this gap, as well as refocus the company on services customers really want.
Jul 30, 2010 @ 11:39:12
RIM tried that in the past. I forget the name of the product, but you could sort-of get the “blackberry experience” on a windows mobile device. I don’t think it went anywhere.
I think many of the features could work, as you suggest, but there are a bunch that wouldn’t. For example, allowing reliable remote device wiping through the BES could be problematic if BB is running as an app on a phone. Some things probably need integration into the OS at a very low level.
Another issue is that without their custom hardware, RIM might be in danger of being seen as just a layer on top of Exchange. Exchange works well enough on iPhone and Android devices, so maybe it would lead to irrelevancy?
But I agree, RIMs real value add is the service, not the hardware. The locked hardware helps keep people tied to their platform/service.