RIM Must Switch To Android Now, Before It's Too Late
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Consider Windows and the PC hardware brands: generally there's not much difference between Dell, Samsung, HP, Lenovo and the rest. For example, most people are buying laptops these days. Sure, all the brands have little niches: some are considered durable and professional, some focus on the cheap segment and some focus on the pricey end, some make big gamers' laptops and some make small travel laptops. But they're all brands and brands are all about what people think and not much about reality. This means that my mother can choose any laptop she want and even the cheapest one has many, many times more power and features than she needs.
For the mobile world, the transition to a commodity took place when phones became computers. Cellphones are a relatively new invention and new market, and in the beginning it was enough to just reliably manufacture a working phone. Not every company could do even that! The best hardware quite a lot better than the worst hardware.
Then gradually the phone hardware become a commodity. The dysfunctional designs got weeded out. Manufacturing got centralized to companies specializing in specific chips or chipsets. These days a company without lots of experience and history in the mobile world can buy a set of required system-on-chips for gsm/3G/bluetooth/camera functionality and anything beyond, and start making mobile phones. While things did work when each cellphone maker had their own OS it was quite a limitation, and very analogous to the 80's home computer market.
In the 80's, you could buy different Commodore, Atari, Apple, PC, Acorn, Sinclair, and probably a few dozen other niche home computers and none of them worked together. Finally, in the late 80's the PC platform with all their dozens of IBM PC clones won over everyone else, even most of Apple. Soon everyone found themselves having landed on the same commodity hardware and they figured that they'll make more money if they just use the same OS than everyone else, rather than a custom OS that would just cut them off the big market. Hence, Windows bloomed, everyone sold it, and soon it didn't matter which computer you bought because you ended up using Windows on it. Differences between PC makers become differences in brands.
The same is happening in mobile phones, err, I mean mobile computers. Because everyone (relatively speaking) can do the hardware, companies can now afford to, and must, focus on the software.
I hereby foresee that in a few years we're down to Android and iPhone and "the rest". Unless Apple begins to target the low end, Android will become the clearly largest mobile phone platform in the world. iPhone will compete in the high end against Android but the relation between Android and iPhone OS are likely to parallel the way Microsoft and Apple relate to each other in the desktop market.
That is, unless unforeseen disruptions arise and completely throw the market upside down, Android will grow to have 40-50% market share, Apple up to 20-30%, and the rest will be 5-15% Symbian, Windows Phone, and many others combined.
My guess would be more along the lines of (obviously I am no analyst and this are really just guesses):
Android: 25% Apple: 25% WP7: 20% Meego/Symbian: 15% RIM: 15%
with Apple and Android aiming mostly at the consumer market, and, Windows and RIM at the business market. Meego will be a generic blog that will work in every field but will never excel. And Symbian will control the cheap, 3rd-world country phones.
I do have hopes though that maybe Meego will end up being a surprise. (I wish, I really liked Nokia back in the days).
Look at what happened with the PC market. Compaq? Gateway? Even Dell and HP, the biggest two are earning very little from their computer division (well, relatively little). The two winners in the PC market have been Windows and Intel.
So now we have RIM. They move to Android, and lose the exclusivity of their OS. Is their hardware division so strong and their product so flawless that they will be able to compete with Samsung, Motorola or HTC?
The way I see it Samsung has still a few aces from its very strong screen division, and others (don't they also produce flash?). HTC also could win: they started from almost 0, a cut-throad market can only do them good.
But the others? They all have access to the same processors, screens, batteries, and OS. Even now (and we have just started) a new phone enjoys a few months in the sunlight before being subclassed by a new model. In the long term they will only be able to compete by adding more recent hardware (but everyone can do that) and price.
Is this really were RIM wants to be in the future?
Your analogy suffers from a strong survivorship bias.
If you were paying attention to the computer market in the 80s, there were countless companies with their own take on computers. The overwhelming number of them disappeared, while a very few (like Dell) managed to hang their fortunes on the winning side (PC-ish, Windows) and saw the dollars pour in.
The more I think about your analogy, the more I realize that the example you gave is an exact counterpoint to your given conclusion.
And really, you claim that Dell and HP make relatively little from their computer divisions? They are both global companies, having profited to the tune of many billions, on the backs of that effort.
RIM cannot continue on their current arc. They will be dead in a matter of years. It is absolutely, positively guaranteed.
In any case, one thing about Android is that in no way do vendors lose exclusivity...that's a part of the platform. I know tech people hate HTC Sense, but you know a lot of end-users actually love it. The same for Moto Blur and the other differentiations. We are not a good study in the utility of such differentiators. RIM would have the full ability to completely customize Android to be a very unique, very powerful experience.
And RIM is not exactly a nobody: they've got a large chunk of the market. Your point is basically: "Forget your past glory, give up your profit margins, and join the Android crowd". Why not instead: "Improve your OS to be on par with the competition (no need to be better), and use your good hardware and your proprietary applications to make the difference".
I don't see how using Android is a long term viable strategy for a company that currently has 17% of the market. It looks more like throwing the towel.
I'm personally not very confident in RIM's hardware or product design skills. So on the hardware front, RIM wouldn't be a competitor.
So, if we ignore RIM's role as a hardware manufacturer. If they were to adopt Android, they'd essentially be reduced to a service provider: BIS/BES. There's no way I'd settle for that if I was RIM.
Would it even be feasible to integrate BIS/BES security features and what into android?
The iPhone (and most Android units, which are keyboardless) don't even attempt to cater to RIM's core market: hardcore emailers. RIM will continue to own that for the foreseeable future. They're even getting some consumer traction since text messaging is so ubiquitous.
Corporate IT departments, that already have BES running, are going to keep buying Blackberries. And the Blackberries are going to keep them running BES. There are certainly alternatives (Android/Active Sync) but the cost involved in switching is significant and the benefits are merely nonexistent.
So all RIM would do in switching to Android is end their vendor lock-in. Vendors don't often give that up.
While the Blackberry OS is rough around the edges, so is Android. And the Berry still does email better than anyone.
Many corporations are moving to a bring-your-own smartphone policy. My organization did exactly that recently, and no new Blackberry has been purchased in some time: We have the BES server and the plans, but users don't want to carry some deadweight blackberry and the Android or iPhone smartphone that they also carry. With Exchange Web Services, the whole BES thing seems like such an anachronism anyways.
The issue is dominance. Once a new player enters the segment, it's a question of time until it fragments. Blackberry enjoyed a dominant position for a long time but being the #1 corporate-issue phone is not important in a world where more and more people bring their own phones into their jobs.
I don't need to point out specific examples because they're pervasive.
Why?
* Within months of Apple announcing iphone Exchange compatibility years ago, it was enabled at every corporation that I know of. (It only takes one VIP with an iphone to make IT jump to make it happen. It's not just an iphone thing, it happens all the time with all sorts of edge/marginal technologies.)
* As for non-VIPs: even Blackberry companies have a cell phone purchase program for non Blackberry devices. This usually involves a preferred carrier and device set (that has a company-wide discount). But it also includes an "exception" program where companies will reimburse part of the cost of whatever device an employee chooses. These programs were not invented for smartphones, but just simple phones. But they sure are being used for smartphones at this point.
* Newest: What I'm seeing on the ground is this: Due to tighter budget scrutiny, fewer and fewer corp-bought devices (of any brand) in general, and employees not even bothering with any employer stuff at the purchase level. And then seeking partial reimbursement for their bill. It's less and less common for the employee-chosen device to be a Blackberry.
This is part of a larger movement of the consumerization of business technology. And employee phones is a part of the larger BYOPC movement. A primer link is here: http://darwinmag.com/article/597485/BYOPC_Could_Make_Sense_f...
"No one who buys BlackBerry products actually cares about the BlackBerry OS."
Has this guy ever talked to a Blackberry owner? They seem to be some of the most loyal cell phone owners around. Everyone talks about switching to an iPhone or whatever, but (from the article):
"RIM is still selling plenty of BlackBerry devices -- thanks to international expansion and big sales at carriers."
Basically they either need to get their software up to speed or move to android.
Source: http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/android-so...
Id buy a Nintendo like iPhone.
Seriously, I don't know where to begin dissecting your assertion that "Microsoft has a pretty great mobile OS in Windows 7". To start, it would be prudent to point out that Windows Phone 7 is not even out yet, so who knows how great it will turn out to be. The screen captures so far seem a little bit low on usability to this smartphone user, but it's obviously a bit early to be making such a judgment. At this point, we don't really know whether MS has an ace or a turd up their sleeve.
Seriously, though, what's the deal with iPhone fans giving a shout-out to Windows Mobile 7 constantly? It's a little transparent.
I like that MS tried for once to think outside the box: maybe it will be good, maybe it will be crap. Ironically everything I hated about MS (trying too cover all the basis, doing me-too products) seems to be the way Google is going.
But that doesn't mean I want Android to do badly. I just think the mobile market is still young and there's a lot of innovation. I like a good competition, and I appreciate when a company, ANY company, tries to do a serious product. I could not care less that it's MS, Nokia, or Palm.
Your Android points are so far from reality that I don't even want to engage in that. Android complexity? Security?
The truth of the matter is that iPhone owners who wave the flag see Windows Mobile 7 as the crippled kid that they try to promote as the alternative to Android, singing its praises as a weak distraction. Every teenager saw this transparent technique play out, and I would hope that we can all recognize it for what it is now.
http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/LauraFoy/First-Look-Windows-P...
http://gizmodo.com/5471805/windows-phone-7-series-everything...
For the record I own an iPhone and an Android phone. I've owned a BlackBerry, WM6 phone, Palm Pre, etc. If I had a third front pocket I might consider buying a WM7 device.
You might want to reconsider that knowing that the web browser is the most used app on both the iPhone and Android:
Internet Explorer Mobile browser will be a mixture of Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 8 desktop versions
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_Mobile
Why would they need Android?
RIM just bought QNX. Blackberry OS has nothing to do with QNX, though purportedly their Black Pad (once you go black...) will.
Note that QNX is known to be solid as hell, but also quite slow -- it by design forces message and context switches for virtually every bit of intra-system communications, buying tremendous stability and security at the cost of performance. Put Neutrino on an ARM chip and you could probably divide the performance by three.
Having said that, ultimately Dalvik is like J2ME, only without the crippling stupidity of Sun's mobile efforts destroying it. There is no reason -- if the cooperation can be achieved -- that a RIM phone, on Blackberry OS or QNX or anything else -- can't run Dalvik (aka Android) apps. If they provide the right API wrapper, and assure the OHA that they'll make a good implementation, there is nothing technically stopping it.
Yeah, but then why not just use Android? Why spend a lot of R&D to build a QNX/Android chimera that's no better than vanilla Android?
I realize that RIM needs to modernize their OS, but given a choice of buying QNX or just downloading Android, I don't understand why they chose QNX.
...Did you mean the UI or something?
(Incidentally here in the UK Blackberries are doing very well, and not just in the corporate environment. A lot of students and teenager have them too.)
I think if the Blackberry keep being solid mobiles that are a little bit behind the curve but not much (say 6 to 12 months), they'll be just perfect for corporations. There's a bright future ahead.
Palm had a money problem, but if they didn't maybe they could have got good returns.
And on the horizon we have Meego and Windows Phone 7.
A year from now the situation may be very very different. Plus when your product is mostly good but some aspects are crap, wouldn't the best policy be to improve the latter instead of throwing everything and become a me-too manufacturer?
RIM should set up shop in a warmer climate, maybe the California Bay Area, so that they can attract more software design talent hesitant to live in cold, windy Toronto.
thought #2 open source to != profit. Ever heard of apple, microsoft, cisco, etc.
Companies need to protect there intellectual property.