How RIM Can Survive... | Hacker News Reader

How RIM Can Survive...

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6 pointsTawheed14 comments

I am continually confused when people write things like "Blackberry...has the shittiest web browser, terrible apps, but an absolutely fantastic email experience (still)." I used to work on corporate IT managing and using RIM products from end to end, and I never found the email experience all that compelling. Sure the devices have fairly good keyboards, and, as a proponent of hardware keyboards in an era when they are all being relegated to software, I'm somewhat sympathetic to the RIM cause.

But the "email experience" on the Blackberry's I've used-- from older, clunkier models with the torturous side-scrollwheel to the Storm2-- was only ever as good as the Blackberry OS itself, which has consistently been pretty terrible. Who cares if it's easy to select an email if you have to endure an excruciating boot process before you can get to it? Who cares if the device has a fantastic keyboard if you have to wade through awful UI in order to launch the email app? (This is not to mention the horrible experience of managing the server portions of BES, which I always found confusing and often deliberately crippled).

I think this "myth" stems from the legacy of the Blackberry, which was one of the first devices to really have any kind of data/email capability. (Or, at the very least, was one of the first to be easy to adopt and fairly inexpensive to run with those kinds of capabilities). Of course the Blackberry was considered amazing when it was the only way to connect a corporate email system to a cell phone or other mobile device. But it isn't anymore, and frankly, I've found the "experience" of using and managing Google Apps and an Android phone light years better. (Hell, I think the crappy IMAP client that comes with Android is better than having to use a RIM OS, although I confess, I got out of the game before the Playbook, and thus, QNX).

UPDATE: Grammer, and ending comment.

90% of your time is spent IN the email app. Not the boot process, nor the home screen and certainly not the IT administrative process of setting up servers (users do not care about that -- that is why highly paid IT people deal with it at Enterprises).

As a frontline helpdesk worker at a corporation that deployed hundreds of Blackberrys, I can assure you that the users frequently cared a great deal about the crappy UI of the Blackberry OS. When I left, the MIS (yes, we were that old-school) department were beginning to research moving away from RIM because their end-user devices were consuming too much of our helpdesk resources. And because the executives, who all had iPhones, came to us and asked the question why we couldn't provide them a solution that worked as well as an iPhone's email.

I wouldn't put RIM into 'survival' mode just yet.

Sure they're are taking a beating right now. They were a powerhouse in the early smart-phone wars, and they don't seem to know what they are doing, which direction is up, and lack a clear vision.

But I believe they have a huge ace up their sleeve that is being somewhat ignored. QNX. Not as the operating system for their devices, though obviously that is important too, but as a popular embedded operating system 'in everything from in-dash radios and infotainment systems to the latest casino gaming terminals' (from the qnx.com website).

Blackberry has a history of making some pretty good hardware, and they have systems embedded in enterprise (BIS) and consumer devices (QNX). Those who are only seeing the currently mediocre products I think are selling RIM short.

I don't own a Blackberry but apparently I interact with RIM products everyday.

Let's get real though -- which would you rather have in your next car? A QNX operated system or an iOS system?

It depends on where. Controlling the entertainment system? iOS.

Controlling air bag deployment? QNX.

Strangely, I was thinking the same thing after I wrote the comment. Theoretically, as I have a WP7 and love it, I'd like to see Windows in a car, but I've used the Microsoft Sync in a Ford, and it is HORRENDOUS.

Is QNX a bad OS? Is the playbook software experience somewhat lacking? I don't think so, but I've never used it.

I think RIMs current difficulties are more a problem of lack of vision, which has lead (or I guess wandered) to poor marketing, and hardware in the handset arena which isn't competitive. They've screwed up the developer ecosystem, but will that matter in 5 years?

They need new leadership and flesh blood, but they've already got a few pieces on the board in advantageous or at least competitive positions, now we have to see if they can do anything with it.

Cliff notes: RIM should port or license its email system, app and BBM to iOS and Android. They can "own" the mobile email market across all devices.

Yes, and to add to that -- even if they don't -- that market is still ripe for taking and we're thinking hard about it at Tout.

People have been making relatively similar arguments for awhile about how RIM should just switch all their handsets over to Android, then rewrite BBOS as an Android skin akin to HTC Sense for the enterprise.

Instead they are taking QNX (a solid OS) but having to write tons of compatibility layers, developer tools, and bribing devs to stay.

I'm not trolling when I ask, because I have zero experience with it, but what advantage does BES email have over a properly configured Exchange 2010 server?

Based on my understanding, most "properly configured" Exchange 2010 servers are inside of the corporate firewall sealed off. BES/BIS (whatever the name is) gives secured access to outside servers.

I think one of the salient features of Exchange 2010 is a Microsoft Sync technology that mimics some of the features of BES. Last I'd heard (I'm not in IT anymore, having instead chosen a career that actually matches my education), it was woefully worse than BES. Which is saying something.

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