The BlackBerry stops here

This is the way this enterprise ends: not with a bang but a whimper.


Omair Zeeshan October 18, 2010

The BlackBerry is struggling to stay relevant. The cracks became visible when they started deviating from their usual advertising strategy and started trying to get non-corporate users to give its platform a try.

Maybe this was because Research in Motion (Rim), the company that makes the smartphones, knew that The Nielsen Company, Gartner, IDC and ChangeWave (all incredibly respected technology analysis firms) would be analysing their negative sales trends and letting the industry know of the clear decline in consumerist love for their product.

And this is not because smartphones are dying – their sales are now a quarter of the US mobile market according to Nielsen, which predicts they will outsell all other kinds of phones by the end of 2011.

Another study, reported by The Times’ Bits blog, puts smartphone growth at 64 per cent in the second quarter of this year alone.

The BlackBerry was a great idea back in the day. It was a corporate weapon, giving business users access to their email away from the computers. Their enterprise server and ‘push’ email technology ensured that an email was received almost as soon as it was sent.

It was always on and always connected. It was intuitive and more importantly, easy to use. They said that ‘even your dad could learn to use it’.

BlackBerry even made sure that their data was secure with 128 bit security. The BlackBerry Messenger was one of the phone chat clients, allowing users to chat on the go and making every legitimate owner a part of the larger BlackBerry community.

The only problem is that now other smartphones do everything that the BlackBerrys can, and usually better. These new phones house processors that are as fast as those found in personal computers a few years back.

Apple and Android smartphones offer push emails and are incredibly easy to use. They give you unlimited access to the internet via 3G connections and they have chat clients that surpass the BlackBerry equivalent in every possible way. Just imagine having MSN, Yahoo and every chat messenger service on the internet, simultaneously at your fingertips.

Security-wise, smartphones can be as safe as they want.  Forrester Research has found that the iPhone is now secure enough and meets the criteria of most corporate IT departments.

Standard Chartered, for example, is replacing the BlackBerry – its current standard corporate communications device – with the iPhone, according to Reuters. This move could eventually result in thousands of bankers, and eventually other corporations, switching to other smartphones for their on-the-go business communication needs.

A recent advertisement showed men in black suits singing about with their Blackberry, when a bunch of very non-corporate types start pouring in, dancing and singing along with them. The men in suits seemed pretty disconcerted and surprised because they are no longer the focus of the company.

Ironically, this is precisely how Rim must feel like right now: outgunned, out of their element and not the focus of every business consumer.

Not to suggest that the company, or its products, are dead. It just means that they will have to take a new approach to compete with other smartphones that may have surpassed the BlackBerry on many counts.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 18th, 2010.

COMMENTS (11)

Omair Zeeshan | 13 years ago | Reply @Deen Sheikh Even though i wrote the article saying that blackberry is dead, i would still like to point out that consumers in Pakistan are very late to pick up on trends and drop them. Case in point, Cultus' are still more popular than vitz/swift; which are both pretty decently reviewed and received cars. So, blackberry in Pakistan will go on for quite a while, even if most countries prone to early adoption start forgetting them. But you and i dont have to like it one bit :)
Jay | 13 years ago | Reply There is a common denominator between products like cars and phones as far as perception is concerned; They represent who you are. They reflect your lifestyle, habits, and even how you like to spend you time. Brands play on this all over the world. Hence, I think it is a little unfair to relate this 'prestige-factor' to only our society. Sure we may be pretentious and want to be 'cool', but as far as a BB-purchase is concerned, we are acting like consumers all over the world. Also I think people have the same reasons to buy a Blackberry and an iPhone (its 'cool'). As far as market dynamics are concerned, price will be the ultimate driver of purchase as the last poster correctly pointed out. Taking the same argument forward, If the iPhone was brought to Pakistan with subsidized deals like those abroad, you can say bye bye to all Android OS devices (BB as well). I say this because even though Android devices are 'open-source' (read: fragmented), they have significant disadvantages when compared to 'closed-source' (read: integrated). Also I think Blackberry's 'BBM' CAN definitely be considered a USP even though it may have the same functions as any instant messengers. Competitors have already realized this. That is why devices like iPhones now have 'Whats app', a messenger that can be downloaded on numerous devices other than iPhones. Functional benefits have not been the selling point for contemporary brands (first generation iPods technically had the same functions as an MP3 player). If Blackberry can sell the messenger as a 'customized', 'high-powered', 'secure' service, they still have a chance to capitalize sales to consumers who buy BBs only for the messenger. I still believe RIM will do better if it focused on 'professionalism' rather than anything else. Lets see what happens.
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