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RIM.... Hmmm... Maybe RIP: Crackberries in the Smart Phone Wars...
Last week I stated “After Getting a Glimpse of the New Windows Phone 7 Functionality, RIMM is Looking More Like a Short Play“.
I meant it, for the Windows Mobile offering looks to be quite
compelling from a usability and capability perspective. This is an
optimum time to be a smart phone consumer/user, for the competition in
this field is red hot and the technology is available to make the
competition into something that increases the productivity of the
enterprise and consumer alike, not to mention transforming the
entertainment and media landscapes, yet again.
With that being said, I believe RIM is coming up short in the
consumer space, and is losing technological advantage in the enterprise
space. No, Apple and Android are not ready to attack Blackberry in the
server connectivity space just yet, but Microsoft is a totally different
scenario. Expect Windows Mobile 7 to be a literal extension of
Exchange/Sharepoint/Windows/Office servers. Combine this with the fact
that Microsoft, Apple and Android all trounce Blackberry in the consumer
space in terms of functionality and hopefully all can see where RIM has
a serious problem.
Yeah, I know RIM just announced their new Blackberry OS6 on top of
their new “iPhone killer” hardware – the Torch. Notice, the only device
to date that can actually qualify as an iPhone killer (the HTC Evo) was
never marketed as such? So, how does the Torch hold up and does it
reduce my proclivity to call Blackberry a potential short? Let’s see
from a feature perspective. Remember the old saying, “The blacker the
berry, the sweeter the juice”? Well the same applies to the chart below.
The darker the shading, the more favorable the asset. Subscribers, this
chart takes precedent over the one included in the Apple business
strategy document, 
Apple business model note. This also ties in with 
Apple iPhone Profit Margin Scenario Analysis Model.
As you can see, from a relative perspective, the Torch is:
- relatively underpowered with an anemic processor
- relatively sparse in the RAM department
- less resolute in its display WITH a smaller screen
- compromised in its video capabilities
- less endowed with i/o and radio functions
- equipped with a small batter.
Of course, one cannot adequately judge a phone from a spreadsheet.
You really have to use it for some time to get a real feel for what it
can do. Even so, the “Crackberry” addicts even take issue with it. If
your own fan base can’t support you, you have a problem. Here is a
review from the Boy Genius website. Go to the site and peruse the comments to get a feel of the Blackberry owners perspective.
- The hardware (casing, build quality, feel) is typical RIM — it’s
great. Very solid, actually a bit heavy, but a very good feel. The
sliding mechanism is top notch. - The software is typical RIM — uninspired, old, clunky sometimes,
and cluttered. Even with the new UI elements in OS 6, we experienced
choppiness in the web browser, hangs navigating between screens, and a
general feeling of well… claustrophobia on occasion. The simplified
BlackBerry now sort of feels like too much has been added without
thinking of the ramifications. - The keyboard is perfect — just like a Bold 9700, and it seems to not be dug in the slider mechanism, unlike the Palm Pre.
- The internals of the BlackBerry Torch 9800 are disappointing. From the 624MHz CPU to only 512MB of RAM, to
(sorry, confused RAM with built-in storage) the 1300mAh battery, it
has us a little worried as it feels like the hardware is pushed to the
max. On a brand new phone. That’s not even out yet. - The screen is laughable. For a company that is always “planning
three years out” they surely didn’t get the memo that a 480×360, poor,
poor LCD wasn’t going to cut it in 2010. That’s the focal point of the
entire device, and it makes you feel outdated out of the gate.
All in all, we came away with mixed
emotions. On one hand, OS 6 is a much better UI leap from OS 5 than OS 5
was to OS 4, but it still feels a bit not thought out. On the other
hand, the device seems like it will continue to excel at specific
functions, mainly email, any sort of text-based messaging, etc. My
personal thought so far is: this is a stop gap device for current
BlackBerry users… and that’s an issue. iPhone 4 or recent Android
owners won’t be lusting after the 9800, and that’s never a good thing.
We have some images in our gallery for you BlackBerry fanatics to drool
over!
I doubt very seriously if this device will be able to stem RIM’s US
market share slide, and they face a tough battle abroad, particularly in
east Asia, one or the largest potential markets.
Still, despite all mentioned above, I thoroughly applaud RIM for
sticking to their enterprise security, something that the other players
have yet to even develop to such an extent – RIM Refuses to Disclose Codes as BlackBerry Faces Indonesian, Saudi Bans.
Click here to download ( Apple iPhone Profit Margin Scenario Analysis Model), and click here to subscribe. Starting next week I will produce substantial forensic analysis with sensitivity and scenario analysis for subscribers
to give valuations for Google, Apple, Microsoft and RIM along a variety
of market win/loss events. The RIM report should be very interesting.
Additional must read portable computing commentary and analysis:
- There Is Another Paradigm Shift Coming in Technology and Media: Apple, Microsoft and Google Know its Winner Takes All
- The Mobile Computing and Content Wars: Part 2, the Google Response to the Paradigm Shift
- An Introduction to How Apple Apple Will Compete With the Google/Android Onslaught
- Don’t Count Microsoft Out of the Ultra-Mobile Computing Wars Just Yet
- This article should drive the point home: An iPhone 4 Recall Will Hurt Apple More By Opening Additional Opportunity for Android Devices Than Increased Expenses
- A First in the Mainstream Media: Apple’s Flagship Product Loses In a Comparison Review to HTC’s Google-Powered Phone
- After Getting a Glimpse of the New Windows Phone 7 Functionality, RIMM is Looking More Like a Short Play
- Android is gaining preference as the long-term choice of application developers
- A Glimpse of the BoomBustBlog Internal Discussion Concerning the Fate of Apple
- Math and the Pace of Smart Phone Innovation May Take a Byte Out of Apple’s (Short-lived?) Dominance
- Apple on the Margin
- advertisements -
Mossberg reviewed BB Torch in WSJ this morning. IMHO,m a throwaway comment in his piece is the next great differentiator. Torch is available on a "capped data plan" at $15 /month (instead of $30 /mo). Over a two-year contract, that's $360. I use maybe 30MB/month on BB, so I would add TCO to picking among all the smartphone choices.
Does anybody know when /if Verizon will add a discount data plan option? (They offer one now, but it's only for select "multi-media" (i.e., not Android or BB) phones.
Anybody have some insight on this topic?
Is it fair to say that RIM, Apple, DROID are platforms and that the value added is in the richness of the software available to end users?
Well Adroid is wide open, they let me be a developer. The RIM stuff is pretty well corralled and the iPhone has to be rooted to get it to let you run what you want.
In that case, and in keeping with the site's theme, I put my money on the platform that provides the greatest possibility for innovation and micro entrepreneurs - Google's android.
My hope is that in the future phones have more sensors, eg., temperature, humidity, magnometers etc. Imagine the possibilities and the revenue streams.
How about take a call outside a metro area? Only one of my craptacular phones that can make a call 20kms outside of a metro is the one with the antenna. Again eyecandy over use.
Who give a crap? As the asshole building this crap to support users I would love to see something useful that means a phone last longer than 6 months. Otherwise you get the same support answer: Go buy another one.
Maybe you can put that in your man purse while in the hybrid death trap/eco dump you're driving sipping on romanitized over priced coffee and eating a panini sandwich from the deli. Or maybe while riding in your bike shipped 2000 miles to comfort your sorry fat ass to feel good the materials cost as much as a car in terms of energy.
Fuck I hate California...why can't we short the crap out of the state as a whole yet? OR have funding drive to push it into the ocean? What a dump.
I have both. The iPhone lasts MAYBE a day on battery. My BB seems to annoy me all week by working and sending annoying things like emails and phone calls.
The iPhone has a lot of cool apps for email but it's hard to beat BB as it's not just a phone, it's a plugin for MS Exchange/Groupwise/Name mail server here.
AAPL products are cute fuck around toys for the groove set. If you need to get work done you use a BB. (I do like the games on the iPhone though, but I could just buy an iTouch for that.)
RIM following the path laid by PALM???
Double post, sorry
But wait, you re an android fanboy right. Android just hired a bunch of MSFT kin castoffs and Danger Sidekickers. So your dream device is going to change radically- probably for the worse as they Palm Pre Android Os
Almost completely incoherent.
Google wins, Android is very sweet. I have started on my first app which I will give away.
Fun and an amazing device too this sexy nexy. Eat yer heart's out bois.
/b/tard
Who cares? You are the same idiot stick that proclaimed the atari ST was the future 20 years ago in terms of music.
Here's a clue.
It's shit in a box. The shit in the box is disposable and overpriced. What it really done is make phone calls. It's a phucking phone.
Screw this...I'm making a jammer tommorrow, driving downtown and jamming. Idiot sticks. 3g my ass, let's see who as analogue, because they will be the only assholes in a 10 block radius making a call. Anyone interested. I'll put the spec up on instructables and the fancy phone arguement will be finished for around 10 bucks in parts.
Helped build the infrastructure and I'm now sick to death of watching people fondle brand name cocks because of fashion. It wasn't there to be fashionable, it was there to be useful.
//can you hear me now? fuck it, I'll see you at the pub and talk there.
Opinions of this sort reek of desperation to keep suckers in the market,long or short.
I love my EVO!
Woohoo! First post on the Z-hedge, my favorite site.
P.S. F*&K aapl.
man those are B I G g O O g l e s
G string
I was with a bunch of BB toting tweens this weekend and they were all like "I love my Blackberry", I really thought they would be more like "I want an iphone"..
I got the demographic wrong in the prior post, I wrote "tween" thinking it meant between teen and twenties, I was wrong, a tween is the stage between middle childhood and adolescence in human development, generally in the age range of 10 to 12 years of age.
doh! That's what I get for trying to keep up with the latest in linguistics.
The crew I was with were late teens, early twenties.
Indeed, one can see RIMs marketing campaign aimed at the consumer is working. BBs are not just business anymore. For those who can't afford iphones anyway..
As a software engineer I have written software for Blackberry and Pocket PC (among others). Microsoft provides excellent development tools. Blackberry's tools are a cruel joke in comparison. Blackberry also has cumbersome procedures to get access to tools, to deploy, etc. I think they are basically a bunch of idiots, sad to say, since I am Canadian myself.
As the guy deploying your tools it has to do with security and MIPS processes. BB's are tighter than a ducks ass. iPhones you can run AirSnort (open source, free, easy to use) and pretty much pick up everything like a HAM radio channel (AAPL isn't big on security, never have been, however, no viruses).
The android isn't much better than the iPhone. It's built for eye candy, not the person nor their security. Seriously though, download airsnort and do a packet capture on Android and the iPhone OS. Not even a whispher of masking text. The browser is the handling the encryption, not the device, it's 42 bit basic RSA...real time cracking on a P3 with a b-band broadcom.
The tech looks like it's 2015, but it's a 1995 engine under the hood.
slight problem with smart phones. Nobody is serious about securing these stupid data leakage nightmares. Till that happens, it's a free-for-all, and a matter of time until somebody makes Front Page news over it.
No the recent AT&T incident does not really count.
Crackberry Torch is still using a trackball, lmao.
Updated DOW daily chart:
http://stockmarket618.wordpress.com
cell phones S U C K period
i just don't talk to anyone any more, problem solved. D O N E
Agree.
iphones suck to just because of their toy name and look.
Blackberries are for pimps, iPhones are for geeks.
If I am the CEO of a fortune 5000 company, do I really want the same phone as some gummer just out of highschool delivering pizza ?
... the same phone as some gummer just out of highschool delivering pizza ?
The device held by the gummer delivering pizza is not really a phone. Folks at that level and lower don't talk to each other anymore. They text.
The device held by the CEO has to be a phone. The CEO is talking constantly. That's his job.
Heh. Yep. I have a cell phone that sits in my car console -- for emergencies only. It has not been used in weeks. I wonder what hell will be unleashed SOON by the solar flares that are coming?! From NASA:
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2006/10mar_stormwar...
thanks RR for the solar forecast, never know which way the wind blows.
Solar Max - - - good avatar for Leo.
Agreed. Communication is over rated...including email. One's productive capacity is dramatically reduced, when having to update project managers, and other ignorant leeches as to the status of one's little corner of the world every 5 minutes.
I say just get it done. Ready, Fire, Aim
I have a BB for work and a Iphone private, and I must say that the email application is superior to the iphone apps.
Also the keyboard is a advantage for that, the Iphone just sucks as all the other touch screen phones.
I used to have a nokia I65 before that but the keys where to small and dropped it hard enough to get a new one.
For everthing else, I use the Iphone.
So for professional use: the BB is the best.
For personal use: the one with the most gadgets: Iphone.
But don't forget that there are still a heck of a lot of phone used as company phones.
I am guessing that RIM picked up a massive stock of Xscale ARM processors and is still trying to use them up. Seriously, RIM, this is the forth phone with same old Xscale ARM that you turn out (9000, 9700, 8500/8900 and now 9800) which means it wont be able to handle HD video, OpenCL etc cutting you out of consumer space and you dared to call it iPhone killer? Lastly, all four phones are basically the same phone, granted recent models doubled RAM. Yet, only 9700 and 9800 "can handle" OS6? Did you just tell everyone that they need to buy your stop gap BB just to get a decent browser?
Loved my BBs to death but RIM is on a slow path to obscurity.
Agree.
I only use my BB when im next to others in my field (you know, so as not to be labeled a hipster) or when call/email comes through.
Otherwise, (maps, internet, apps) i constantly see myself reaching for the iphone.
I really WANT the next (next) BB to have at least a different browser so that i can throw away the apple product, but looks like RIM won't be delivering.