Don’t write off Research in Motion
There has been a lot of talk about the imminent demise of BlackBerry.
With BlackBerry maker Research in Motion’s declining share price, plummeting market share in its core North American market, and recent service interruptions, a casual observer might think that RIM is not long for this world.
In fact, if you go back through the history of Ben Kelly MyBroadband columns, you will find me arguing that BlackBerry is doomed. However, recent events have brought me round to the point of view that Blackberry is more likely to thrive in the long run than perish.
Much of this comes from the lesson that we have learned from Nokia over the past year or so.
The first strength that BlackBerry has is its growth in the developing world, buoyed by its ‘everything in’ internet connectivity and the strength of Blackberry Messenger.
The lesson from Nokia is that the Finnish company has remained the number one mobile phone company even while grip on the high-end market was being destroyed by Blackberry, Android and Apple.
While margins in the developing world aren’t the same as in the developed world, the revenues from the developing world keep the cash-flow ticking over while you make difficult changes to the internal structure of the company.
The second thing that we have learned from Nokia is that you only need to make a big bang when you come back to get the geeks back on board.
Just a few months ago you would have been hard pressed to find someone that was willing to buy a Nokia smartphone over a BlackBerry, iPhone or Android phone.
Then Nokia released the N9 and geeks fell in love with Nokia all over again. Part of this infatuation might have been an emotional reaction to what MeeGo could have been, but it showed that the warm feelings that people had for Nokia have not dimmed.
The launch of the Lumia and the Asha phones at NokiaWorld recently just reinforced that view.
If you think about the last time that Nokia released a smartphone without someone complaining about the aging Symbian operating system, you can see how long the company has been a funk for.
Blackberry, on the other hand, has been pushing out competent offerings in the midst of trying to migrate from one operating system to another.
I may not be rushing off to get a Blackberry myself, but I have no problem recommending them to friends and family and the feedback has been nothing but positive. With the full QNX/Blackberry OS, dubbed BBX, due early next year RIM has certainly not been resting on its laurels.
Yes, the first QNX device, the tablet PC PlayBook, was a disappointment; and yes, BB OS6 and BB OS7 have been more like putting a band-aid on a bullet wound, but I am pretty sure that RIM has the ammo to deliver a killer offering to the market within the year.
RIM is also playing into a market that is still using BlackBerry’s heavily. Even though its marketshare in North America may be in the toilet, the two-year lifespan of the normal phone means that there are still a ton of users out there who would rather stay with what they know than move to another platform.
All RIM needs to do is take a leaf from the book of Jobs and deliver a device that is close to perfect.
My view is that the biggest risk to RIM is not its product pipeline, but its declining shareprice. At some point the company will be at risk of a hostile takeover and that could change the game completely.
For better or for worse.
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