The Death Of RIM | Hacker News Reader

The Death Of RIM

lefsetz.com

59 pointsmikecane55 comments

Rim is doomed because they've fogotten who their core customers were: businesspeople.

Compare what I think is the greatest phone every made: http://r.phonedog.com/shared/images/items/1464-main-medium-b...

To what it was replaced by: http://www.dplwholesale.com/buy2buygg/2010101415181049514.jp...

The old one was tough as freaking nails. It didn't do much, but it did those things really, really well. It had a scroll wheel on the side, and you clicked and right clicked on things just by either pressing with the tip or the knuckle of your thumb.

It never, ever broke. I still have my original 7520 sittin gin a drawer in my house (unused because I don't have a nextel account anymore). The thing had fallen out of my jeep while it was moving, had been left sitting in a puddle for an hour and it just never, ever stopped ticking. (For reference, here is what happened to my iphone when it fell off the top of my dresser and landed on my wood floor: http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs980.snc4/75359...)

People were absolutely addicted to their blackberries. The interface was flawless, it synced your mail every 30 seconds, never complained, the battery never died. It was exactly the type of thing that every person working on every product being worked on should strive to replicate. It was a business staple.

Was a business staple. Somewhere along the line, RIM decided to turn their back on the people who had given them so much success and, instead, try to duplicate the success of the razr (remember when that was the hottest phone around?). They ditched the bulletproof plastic cases and battery doors that never came off for shiny, cheap plastic because it was prettier. They ditched the functional, I would say perfect interface of the scroll wheel and thumb-knuckle button for some horrible, horrible trackball that has to be replaced every few months when it either gets too smooth to work, or gets some get stuck inside of it because it was cool.

They made the phone smaller, and lighter. It didn't go in a dorky hip-clip anymore, it went in a pocket or a purse.

RIM, at least in my opinion, stopped making hammers and started making accessories. Unfortunately for them, their accessories aren't even in the same realm as apple's. As much as I don't really like the iphone, I like it a lot better than any or RIM's current offerings.

I agree that they've tried too hard, for my taste anyway, to attract non-business customers. However, from RIM's point of view, I'm not convinced they made a bad decision. I now have friends who don't need a phone for business reasons, yet they chose Blackberries. In addition, you see people like Justin Bieber using blackberries - while I haven't seen anything on this subject, I'm confident that there are thousands of teenagers out there who'd happilly chose a phone based on what he uses.

As to it no longer being a business staple, I disagree. Personally I think the Bold was their best phone ever, and the Bold 2 repeated that feat. It could and should be better, and there are many improvements I would make, but mostly in areas that the older models (such as the 7520) hadn't even imagined offering.

In my opinion, though, the market of people who would buy a phone just based on what Justin Bieber has are extremely volatile. Unlike businesspeople, they'll switch to whatever the newest, hippest thing to come out is.

Honestly, look at a blackberry bold (which is a $500 phone, wtf?) then look at an HTC evo (the same price). You would have to be absolutely out of your mind to get a blackberry unless you were using BES. I doubt that the justin bieber crowd is using BES.

The Justin Bieber crowd will pick it because it's used by him, not because they particularly care about the product itself. Obviously not all his fans would value his choice over their own, but there will be many.

And sure, they're volatile, but I'm not saying that Justin Bieber is the reason their consumer-friendly approach wasn't neccesarily a bad idea, just that it currently does, and will in the future, produce more celebrity (non-verbal) endorsements (by using them).

Sure, it's volatile. But do you think Justin Bieber chose BlackBerry because he wants one, or because he got a huge paycheck to use it? Product placement does not end at television and movies.

You might be right about the product placement, but a BlackBerry is still a sensible choice for Mr. Bieber's line of work: touring the world, constantly meeting with people, etc.

The Bieber effect is an important point. I think RIM realized that they don't need bleeding edge tech to stay competitive. That's how you sell to people like Bob Lefsetz and David Pogue, but those guys aren't even close to representative of the largest segment of the consumer smartphone market. The way to sell to the everyday smartphone user? Influence. Product placement, both in media and the real world (i.e. putting new units in the hands of celebrities), is an extremely powerful trick. I think it's worked, and will continue to work, very well for RIM. Think about BlackBerry as a brand. Take the wealthiest and most powerful people in America: CEO's, celebrities, politicians. Mostly BlackBerry users. Hell, they even got Obama using one. They've married the ideas of affluence and power to their brand. Sure, those of us who care about innovation and moving tech forward want them to do something groundbreaking like they did with mobile email, but isn't it cheaper to just comp a 15 year old popstar a phone and watch the money roll in? The market rewards big companies with well-marketed mediocrity, so that's what we get. I mean shit, just look at Microsoft.

Blackberries are surprisingly popular with younger people, but I think that's largely a function of how cheap they are compared to other full-keyboard phones that aren't a pain to text with. You can easily get a BB free on contract, and they don't require a data plan. They may not remain popular as other smart phones move downmarket.

I think on Verizon you need a data plan, not sure exactly and not sure about other carriers.

I have a Bold 9000 for almost a year now (and I bought it used). My trackball works perfectly without any issues. And this is the toughest phone I've ever owned or seen. So I don't know where you are coming from.

I also like the interface, everything just integrates with everything. I can send pretty much anything to pretty much any service I use (fb, twitter, tumblr, ...) with the same interface. I just love that. But YMMV :)

Do you work in a clean room? (joking).

Honestly, you're lucky. We've had nothing but problems with the trackballs at work. To be clear, I still love the software part of the UI, I just hate the trackball.

Did you ever use any of the old style blackberries?

I keep it in the leather thingy (don't know what it's called), maybe that makes a difference ...

I haven't used any of the old models, but now I see that I've been missing out :) My next phone will most likely be the Torch (or it's successor) as I think it combines best of both worlds.

Then you haven't used the Torch yet. :-)

I'll echo what everyone else here is saying - Blackberry is still king with email and might always be. But the iPhone and Android are just doing something completely different that's more relevant to more smartphone users.

I've used both the phones in your post and by and large I agree with you. That said, you seem to be talking about phones in a business environment. Do the users of the phones you're talking about own them? I wonder if they treat them with less respect if they can get a new one just by dumping it on your desk every 3 months.

I'm not saying the problem isn't there, just it might be exacerbated by user behaviour that RIM didn't anticipate.

This is a great strategy, well argued, well reasoned, but it's, to quote the article, 'so 2007'. Single function is great if you're trying to appeal to business people who have no other need than email, but that's becoming increasingly rare.

I would happily trade all the crappy extra features on my Bold 9700 for bulletproof durability, push email faster than outlook, and a glitch-free interface (all of which it fails on at the moment). But the minute our IT department starts supporting iPhone I'll be dropping my Bold.

Consumer smartphones (iPhone/Android) have become a 'good enough' enterprise phones. No they don't email as quickly and don't sync quite perfectly, but neither does RIM. And even if RIM does get that extra 10% of convenience from email, it still won't be worth losing every other app I use. In addition to email I want maps, calendar, dictionary, news, books, music, and games. What do you think is more likely: will iPhone get better at email, or will RIM get better at... everything else?

Our new class of analysts are all dual-wielding iPhones and BB's, and everyone is waiting for IT to start supporting iPhone so we can finally drop RIM. Will email be as fluid, easy, or quick? Probably not. But it'll be good enough, and I can stop carrying this single-function brick around.

> Rim is doomed because they've fogotten who their core customers were: businesspeople.

In the US. And the US business market is not that big, and considering more people are entering it all the time, it's shrinking fast. Even more so with the iPad making inroads there, which is very likely going to push the iPhone further in it as corporations work on iOS integration in general. RIM is trying to expand into the wider consumer market because they have no choice: if they don't, they will be annihilated as competitors invade their space.

FWIW, RIM never amounted to much in the European business world (apart from the City maybe, but that's not Europe), its sales come mostly from teenagers and young adults as it's the perfect texting line of phones (and in that, TFA is wrong: blackberries aren't good at email, they're excellent at written messages in general)

Badly written article making a single point that has been debated to death many times.

As far as I'm concerned, I won't be leaving RIM for as long as they keep making phones like the Bold 9700, and I know many colleagues and friends who feel the same. I also know a handful who moved from Blackberry to iPhone and regret it, they are all either planning to move back, or they already have. (Don't think I know a single person who moved away from Blackberry and doesn't regret it.)

I love what Google are doing with Android and I love Apple products (I currently own two generations of iPod Touch and two generators if iPod Nano - side note, the newest Nano is perfection.) But RIM's products aren't an older version of what Apple and other companies are creating, it's just a different product, and for people like me, it's still the best product.

What early adopters often forget is how huge the pool of email users is.

http://xkcd.com/802/

The users of email dwarf the users of social networking and smartphone apps. Blackberry still makes great devices for email power users.

Agreed. Terriible article.

What sums it up for me is RIM email and keyboard owns. iPhone browsing owns. Wish I could have both. I personally could care less about the apps although I'm sure many do.

Writing this on my iPhone was painful.

well, i moved from a bb to an iphone4 and love it. it has a far better browsing experience, nicer apps for linkedin etc., dropbox and egnyte.

the last two ones are a dealbreaker for me, i now have access to my private and work documents and a screen where i can actually read them.

when it comes to email i love the unified inbox, having my private and work mails in one, virtual place.

Why does the author think that RIM can't innovate like other companies have?

In the past ten years, people have said that Apple was over, Nintendo had lost their market to Sony and Microsoft, GM and Ford were finished.

All because these companies didn't innovate to maintain market share.

Now if RIM was just kicking back with blinders on like the auto industry did, maybe I would agree.

But RIM, understanding that it doesn't have much of the capabilities it needs to compete in today market, has been making acquisitions to beef up the areas they are weak.

Let's not forget that the reason BlackBerry was able to get such huge market traction was because they were so innovative early on with their messaging systems.

I wouldn't be so sure that RIM is a one trick pony.

Why does the author think that RIM can't innovate like other companies have?

Indeed. This industry is overrun by people making bold predictions of what has already happened.

Despite being Canadian, I've never owned a Blackberry. I have moved more than one organizations away from Blackberry, because their existing model was archaic.

I applied to the company once many years back and they never even called (clearly the root of their problems today).

Yet of course they can (and are) change. The PlayBook looks like a very interesting product, and QNX is bloody beautiful. I keep my mind open to the prospect that RIM is going to come out with a superstar.

A tiresome, poorly written thrashed to death blog post. iPhone's haven't displayed iPods and Blackberry may have introduced some new models that appeal to a different user than the businessperson, but the Bold is as solid, reliable and indestructible as any previous model. I've owned many blackberries over the years and am more than happy with it. My friends are pretty evenly divided between blackberry and iPhone. Those I know that tried Android sold them and went with the iPhone.

I'm not parting with mine anytime soon. I don't need any of the apps. That said, I have an iPad, so maybe I get my app fix with that.

I just wonder why his blog would change my mouse cursor

He lost all credibility with me at the exact moment I noticed my pointer change.

I don't know why he does that. I've pointed to other posts of his in the past and this is a complaint that others here have lodged too. Maybe someone should drop him an email about that. Maybe if enough did, he'd have that changed.

I've been immensely disappointed with RIM lately. I don't really get app envy since I have both an iPod Touch (with Facetime!) and a Blackberry 9700. It's not my first Blackberry and hopefully not my last.

The reason why I love BB so much is because of BBM (instant contact with anyone, cross-carrier), the tactile feedback of the keyboard, and email processing. These features can EASILY be copied by a Droid or Windows Phone (doubt Apple will release a keyboard phone).

Where RIM failed is by being clueless. They charged $200 per 10 apps and forbid prices less than $2.99 that weren't free. I mean, what kind of business decision is that? What kind of company disallows $0.99 apps on claims that they don't want trivial apps? Who would pay $200 without the guarantee of a return? Sure, now they support new prices but only after a year of realizing it wasn't working.

Next, WHY would the CEO even think that the Torch could achieve iPhone-like sales opening weekend when it has to compete with the iPhone 4 and Android phones on a single carrier, AT&T?

I feel like the company is just naive now. OS6 has been great. But, the bugs that it has are just embarrassing. Memory leaks, battery jumps from 40% to 5%, browser crashes, 3rd party app crashes, etc. So disappointing.

Some things are improving: They've waived all app store distribution fees (see http://us.blackberry.com/developers/appworld/distribution.js...). It is a "limited time offer" but RIM is dead if they ever reinstate those insane fees (those 10 apps included updates!). I'm cautiously optimistic about a QNX-based OS too.

Being a bunch of PC users for the existence of our company, it was somewhat uplifting to finally get a few Macs and experience what everyone is so joyous about. On the sidelines is seems foolish. But once immersed in the Mac world, it seems foolhardy to "deal with" Windows or Ubuntu (although I definitely appreciate what Canonical is doing).

The same is to be said for RIM. They definitely broke the ice for smartphones, but failed to lead the pact. As a Canadian, I do wish different results. But as a logistical, Apple picked up the reigns and jockeyed to the finish line.

Android, Windows Phone and RIM won't turn heads or wallets by saying, "me too". They have to define an experience, not copy it somewhat.

You make these assumptions with that one mode is definitely superior to the other. I know several teenagers who have willingly traded iPhones for Blackberries because they didn't like the platform. I tried the Mac experience, but ended up needing to install Linux on my Mac Mini (after failing with KDE) because I couldn't stand the interface, package management, and so on. I used an iPod Touch for over a year and found it far less productive than Palm OS and Maemo devices I'd used for its purpose before.

Apple took what they learned from iPod, created a business logic tied to their counter-culture. Generated and harvested it into loyalty.

RIM all but abandoned their core audience (business folk) to find the mass market and got lost in the middle doing poorly for both.

When RIM releases a new feature (app store, touch screen, etc) it is to mirror what is already being provided. "Me too!" isn't an encouraging sign for a market investment.

> RIM is a one hit wonder. That is now chasing trends, poorly.

That's about it. The problem is, RIM's lost track of what they're doing.

If trying to beat the best, you have to play catch up to keep yourselves at a particular threshold of relevance. Unfortunately RIM's doing that poorly with some poor strategies (how many devices do they have right now?) At the same time, it looks like they're losing site of their core market, big business.

Big efforts from RIM have suffered from RIM rushing products out the door. Look at the Storm, arguably OS6 and the PlayBook. RIM's running themselves thin. If they can learn from this rough patch, I think they can make a case to lead again. But that's a big IF

My primary phone is a Torch 9800. I wanted an e-mail processing device with a real keyboard and decent browser. This is my third blackberry and I wonder why I persist with the bugs.

In Canada the phone cost about the same as an iPhone. The build quality is dreadful.. silver plastic bezel is peeling. The software is buggy and glitchy (I get a dialog with a java.lang.NullPointerException sometimes when I receive an SMS.. wtf!?).

My last blackberry also had a ton of bugs and glitchy UI behaviour.

I think the problem with RIM is when it comes to software implementation, they just aren't as good as their competitors.

Things I like about my Blackberry:

- I haven't had to reboot it since I bought it months ago. I have yet to experience an application, let alone OS, crash.

- There wasn't one instance where any of the applications were sluggish, even a little bit.

- It's actually a phone, and a good one at that.

- The battery lasts for a week, easily.

I don't use email on the BB, and I agree that the browser could be better, but I think RIM-doomsayers should use a BB for a week.

It would then be obvious to them that a company producing such a top-notch product won't be going out business in a long time.

Which blackberry do you have?

8500 series

The assumption here is that everyone wants a SmartPhone. I don't think that's true. A telephone that also does e-mail (and IM, BBM) while offering great battery life is a totally different class of device.

As a single datapoint, I admit of being almost a Luddite when it comes to mobiles. I barely have a dumbphone and I don't even get what all the fuss is about smartphones, let alone own one. If I spend most of my awake hours in front of a 24'' screen and a four core machine, what's so compelling about carrying an underpowered device with me the few hours I am (and usually want to be) offline ? And yet it seems I belong to a shrinking minority, at least for people of my generation (30ish) and younger.

Having had an iPhone for several years now, I find myself wishing I had a device that was nothing but text messaging and a WiFi hub. I'm probably just getting old, but I'm tired of trying to work on a small screen. The only thing I miss when I leave my iPhone behind is the ability to tell people that I'm early/late.

Sure, but if you're a personal user using BIS the email experience on the BB is pretty poor compared to the other phones out there today. With BIS connecting to IMAP it doesn't actually do a two-way sync so if I read and delete an email on my BB it isn't reflected when I get home and check my mail on my laptop. Total fail. All because they're trying to push BES server licenses onto people. I think it's actually this pig-headedness that will kill them in the end. In fact, they're too focused on extracting BES money out of businesses to properly address personal IMAP/POP mail properly.

Wrong, I can read and delete emails on my Blackberry and it gets read and deleted on both a Googleapps account and a regular Imap account. I use BIS.

Things can change pretty quickly in the tech industry. Sometimes for the worse, but other times for the better.

If RIM is struggling, I wouldn't count them out. I wouldn't count anyone out.

As I reviewed the Blackberry Torch one thing was obvious: RIM wants an iPhone like device for the average customer, but still holds the e-mail/business market and doesn't want to lose it.

I wonder what would happen if RIM bought Palm back in the day and had two series of devices, one for business with QWERTY keyboards and great e-mail, and another one to compete with Apple.

All it takes is a new OS by RIM. I am so tired of mac addicts trying to convince themselves in public that their phones are the best in the world. If you want to spend more on your phone, fine. If you want a touch screen, fine. That technology has been around since Ms Pac Man, so stop acting like its cutting edge... You, as a iPhone user owe a lot to RIM because your phone would not be as secure, as talented, and as inexpensive as it is now if it wasn't for Blackberries. Stop being a tech elitist and allow technology to coexist, and to share space so that ALL phones get better. RIM is far from dying, your proclamation is sensationalist, and your writing is misguided and marred in a biased mentality that one too many apple product users commonly hold.

RIM and blackberry are totally dominating in many countries, for example Thailand. It's not dead.

Indeed. In Bangkok, every other person on the street is using a Blackberry. The OP is just linkbait with zero research.

I think everyone is missing the one main reason blackberrys wont be replaced. The blackberry enterprise server that allows buisness's to control everything. I may be wrong in assuming the iphone/android dont have the same, but as far as I know they don't.

Having that control is very important to most companys.

Just my two cents.

my ancient iPhone hooks happily into our much more ancient Exchange Server, if that's what you mean

No, the software does far more then that. http://us.blackberry.com/apps-software/server/5/

And a better flash demo - http://www.blackberry.com/select/server/autodemo/1551_RIM_BE...

I had no idea...

That was really interesting, thanks. And yes, as far as I know Apple offer nothing like this

Is it fair to say that RIM is dead in the same sense that Paul claimed that Microsoft was dead, namely that nobody fears RIM and that their influence over the tech landscape is minimal?

People who define "dead" in that way need to buy themselves a new dictionary.

Regardless, Kinect is a recent example that Microsoft aren't even dead using that definition, and I don't think RIM are, either.

RIM has been increasing its market share, just because RIM isn't the only smart mobile on the market, doesn't mean it's going to turn into the next palm. RIM has been doing a good job differentiating itself as a business solution. I don't they are going to die anytime soon, but they're slow pace of innovation, software updates are hurting their consumer market....but then again apple can come out with a phone with a broken antenna and expect to sell millions, RIM has a far more corporate audience, so they need to be careful how they expand. All in all, it may seem like rim is dying for a consumer perspective, but I think they may still have a chance, although with a smaller market share.

RIM has not been increasing market share very recently, they have been passed by Apple and Android - see slide 8 here - http://www.scribd.com/doc/42793400/Internet-Trends-Presentat...

Blackberries do email very well, they are very bandwidth efficient (but the compression may be why the browsing experience is so slow), their BBM avoids insane SMS charges, they have slick hardware like Bold and Flip, they are designed from the ground up for enterprise security and manageability.

But the world is going to touch and mobile Web/apps, and RIM is keyboard centric and hard to develop for, with multiple form factors, OS versions and even the pitiful touch Storm.

Businesses are starting to adopt iPhones and iPads - RIM is going to have to reinvent themselves fast or face irrelevance.

I think everyone is wrong. RIM is losing for quite a simple reason. The reason is so hard to see when you are in their "winning streak" but the reason is simple...

They did not give their customers what the customers wanted.

Basically at first rim was the only game in town. Its BB or Palm. BB did it better, cooler, CHEAPER (ish). It was perfect. Everyone who was anyone had a BB.

Now a smart company would continue the trend: Keep innovating. Look at YOUR CUSTOMERS. Where do they suffer? How to make everything better? 83XX series is a perfect example. They made a major upgrade to their os and put it on the shittiest hardware (see the $99 android tablet, thats basically the 83xx, ok the 83xx was usable). That phone was shit at best.

As a company realizing that they WILL be dethroned unless they innovate, they would have put better hardware, worked more on their platform, attracted developers, etc. App store shmapp store they coulda done SOMETHING. The blackberry world store came out AFTER the apple app store and it was a lot worse, and didn't even come pre-installed. Basically version 1 did not asynchronously fetch images, making browsing anything other than top 10 list impossible. Not to mention that what was on top 10 2 yrs ago is still there, nothing comes out for BB.

RIM is a nothing company who had a good idea. They are losing steam. They have no good hardware. They have no good software. In fact name me 1 application for the BB that is in any way exclusive to BB and is useful.

Long story short. RIM stagnated and by the time they opened their eyes, it was too late.

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