Although I am not overly keen on the devices, life in the IT management department was much easier when we had blackberries, Goddam you.... progression :)
RIM is really in trouble when even Windows Phone 8 looks great
RIM has seen its once dominant market position in corporate mobile plummet from a great height in the last couple of years. The Canadian giant has suffered a huge fall in stock price and, more importantly, penetration - currently around eight per cent market share - with continual declines, quarter upon quarter. So there is a …
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Tuesday 11th December 2012 09:48 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: The Blackberry
So...insightful technical and marketing analysis of RIM's problems?
All that effort spent by so many engineers over the years so people who don't know how things work can shout "hipster" "isheep" or "chav" at one another.
And the British class system - if you can't afford to pay too much for something, you deserve derision.
An iPhone is not a specially commissioned piece of jewellery or a painting designed to show off your knowledge and taste - nor is an Audi. They are heavily marketed consumer products (as is the basic Blackberry, currently being advertised on the Underground). Having more or less money, or different needs (a lot of mobile email versus taking lots of pictures, say) does not make one person better or worse than another.
And the failure to understand that, LarsG, is a large part of what is wrong with the English-speaking word, which is still in love with aristocracy.
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Monday 10th December 2012 22:24 GMT Bob Vistakin
They've a chance of being the third mobile platform player if they run Android apps well. Otherwise they've < 12 months before being asset stripped the way microsoft raped nokia ... come to think of it, the beast may well be ready for another round just about then, and it would be a great way for them to try to prolong the inevitable WP8 failure.
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Thursday 20th December 2012 21:33 GMT Turtle_Fan
@ "life in the IT management department..."
This is one of the 3 main reasons for BB's demise.
1. Severely underpowered handsets (sucked at multimedia, didn't do Wireless AP tethering till years after the competition, FC's on large heavy webpages due to insufficient memory)
2. Kinda sucky app store were everything is overpriced
3. An IT administrator's wet dream. Unfortunately, IT is (for better or for worse) seen as a necessary evil dealings with which are best minimised. Pity that It is no longer seen as an enabler, value-multiplier, facilitator that can unlock peoples' and enterprises' potential. Let's face it this very fine-tuned tampering with the device (bluetooth blocking, anyone?) just pissed users off and most were only too happy to ditch them.
I, despite being with Android, still yearn for a qwerty handset with the build quality, battery life and holster features of a BB. Alas, I'm in the minority as nearly no qwerty Androids are produced any more. As for the battery life, I begin to suspect that the reason for BB endurance was the (largely) absense of much of anything "smart".
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Thursday 20th December 2012 21:41 GMT Turtle_Fan
Re: MDM != BES
Ha!
Well guess what, this is one of the 3 main reasons (IMO) that users ditched BB as soon as they were given half a chance. Users don't care for the granularity you treasure because most likely it will mean that some bored IT busybody will decide to lockdown some obscure feature that users will find (to their surpise and disgust) they need but cannot have.
Bluetooth profiles and services anyone!?
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Monday 10th December 2012 14:54 GMT Dan 55
The bottom of the curve
What makes anyone think that Nokia's reached the bottom? If nobody wanted Windows Phone 7 then nobody's going to want Windows Phone 8 because from the user's view it's practically the same.
RIM's sensible waiting till next year, firstly so they can finish the phones properly which is something MS didn't do with WP8 (no notification centre) and secondly so that Nokia and publish its dismal Christmas sales figures and WP8 can be declared officially dead. RIM don't need to bother so much about not having Christmas sales figures if they're aiming BB10 at enterprise.
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Monday 10th December 2012 15:32 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: The bottom of the curve
It's game over already for RIM - if you asked RIM how many of their installed base still expect to be using BB in 12-24 months or IT departments how many users were happy with the BB handsets and were not nagging for an iPhone it would probably be telling. I'd also like to see stats for new installations - I'd suspect people are just running contracts out or waiting until enough people are requesting a new handset to justify junking the old BB kit.
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Tuesday 11th December 2012 12:04 GMT b166er
Re: I believe RIM is toast
Except that BES, for a small company at least, is a bloated pain in the arse, on a par with iTunes and Hewlett Packard printer drivers.
I understand there is (going to be?) a decent management suite coming as part of Office365 for BlackBerry stalwarts. Of course, you have to be on a paid O365 plan, but that seems somewhat like the future for MS corporate productivity apps and Exchange.
BlackBerry are also canning the BlackBerry Management Centre at the end of January, which WAS serving as a lighter footprint alternative to BES(X) for some of my customers :/
This alone has encouraged me further to suggest they move platform.
BB10 better be a whole lot of good.
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Monday 10th December 2012 17:13 GMT Azzy
Re: I believe RIM is toast
RIM has lost, it's over. It was over before they delayed BB10 another year. BB10, even if it's amazing, is too little, too late. They needed it 2-3 years ago to remain meaningful.
RIM needs to sell their IP, and any part of the business they can find takers for to anyone who will buy it, fire everyone who's left, and stop wasting the shareholders' money trying to raise the dead.
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Monday 10th December 2012 20:08 GMT Daves43
Re: I believe RIM is toast
Don't count them out yet, they have reinvented themselves this year and are more than capable of turning things around. There are lots of people out there wanting an alternative to iOS/Android, even if only half of the current Blackberry subscribers upgrade to BB10, thats 40 million right there, then there are the other 50% of the global population that currently dont have a smartphone, that's a huge market....When they have 0 users and $0 - then they will be toast!
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Tuesday 11th December 2012 09:24 GMT Daves43
Re: I believe RIM is toast
Ok, well I'm just trying to make a point that they haven't reached rock bottom yet - even as everyone is trying to count them out already!
Actually I worked at a company that went through Chapter 11 - not fun, and yes they hadn't got to complete zero in terms of "users", however they owed lots of money. From what I understand RIM still has 2 billion in cash and isn't loosing so much since their restructure. I agree that things will be tight by the time they get the new phones out the door...we will have to see...
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Monday 10th December 2012 15:25 GMT Khaptain
No helpdesk required
Once the BBs are setup up and the correct policies are implemented, there is almost no need for any kind of support whatsover.
In our company we seldon hear anyone complain about the BBs, they are sturdy, have a good battery life and are pretty damned good at Email.
Personally I am happy to remain with the BB as my main work device, my Galaxy Note is fine for my personal stuff. The best of both worlds....
One bad thing though, the data subscriptions are expensive compared to standard subscriptions.....
PS : Will the ElReg authors kindly stop punting BYOD unless they can present some facts. "A big increase in BYOD", please show some proof to this pudding, with numbers please, not percentages... 3 more extra BYOD users would almost double the existing park which is a big increase indeed, percentage wise.....
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Monday 10th December 2012 15:26 GMT HamsterNet
Child Phone
BB are simply for poor children in hoodies. Children of wealthier climbs have Androids and iOS devices.
Its bad enough to be unfashionable, but to associated with the less sociable acceptable "youths" is an image death sentence.
Paris - as she knows all about selling tat to the chavs.
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Monday 10th December 2012 15:29 GMT Anonymous Coward
Blackberries are still around as people either do not know better, are waiting for their contracts to expire or lazy IT departments or IT managers who spent a load on BES and now stick with it even though the users would prefer an iPhone or Android. Most companies I know are migrating users off BB onto iPhones.
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Monday 10th December 2012 16:16 GMT Khaptain
You sure about that
Would you kindly post some evidence other than anecdotes.
I find it kind of hard to believes that CFO's would sign of a command for Very Expensive Iphones just because "the employees wanted them".
And what do you replace your BES with when you turn on all those Iphones?
Can you really lock down an Iphone as secure as a BB ? How ?
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Monday 10th December 2012 15:33 GMT 0laf
Don't forget the Government
RIM makes the only device that is really considered secure by the US and Uk governments. There are guides to let you use iOS but they are provided under sufferance. Blackberry has the CESG and FIPS certs so will almost always have a place in governments. Unless it gets bought by the Chinese in which case it'll be dropped faster than an X-Factor winner's contract.
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Monday 10th December 2012 15:56 GMT Big_Ted
WTF ?
BB are increasing users world wide, especially in second world economies, BB 10 looks like it could be a game changer purely as it looks like nothing before and is designed from the bottom up for comunication.
Win P 8 is a dead duck unless enterprises decide its the one to use the same as Win 7 is now and XP was simply down to lower costs than changing to another OS.
Oh and RIM should be dropped from the language as they are calling themselves BB now and even their business cards don't mention RIM any more.....
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Monday 10th December 2012 16:46 GMT Charlie Clark
I smell bias
It appears RIM has a long way to go to turn around the oil tanker - just look how long it’s taken Nokia to get to the bottom of the curve - so let’s hope (for RIM's sake) that BB10 offers some inspiration for the world at large to remain with the BlackBerry brand.
The comparison is flawed: Nokia had two viable OSes which it burned in favour of Microsoft's promises; BlackBerry knew that BB OS needed replacing. By offering full-backwards compatibility BB 10 offers a bridge for customers who have considerable investments in the infrastructure. They still have to deliver but, while it was not commercially successful, the PlayBook was an excellent technology showcase. QNX should provide the underpinnings for a parsimonious but responsive OS, which along with BlackBerry's tradition for well designed and engineered hardware should provide some differentiation.
As others have pointed out, BlackBerry remains remarkably popular around the world, cf. the new Nigerian film "BlackBerry Babes".
WP8 on the other hand still looks like it is going nowhere fast on phones. If companies are prepared to change IT policies then they might as well go with Android or IOS, which managers already have than something Microsoft is vaguely promising to offer in future releases.
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Monday 10th December 2012 19:24 GMT Richard Plinston
Re: I smell bias
> WP has quadrupled it's market share in the last year
That may have been true if your fantasy prediction of Nokia selling 30million WP7 phones in 2012 had actually happened.
However, reality is different from what you have in your dreams:
"""For Q3 2011, Nielsen reported a US market share of 1.2% for WP7,[81] which rose to 1.3% in Q4 2011,[82] and to 1.7% in Q1 2012,[83] and then dropped back to 1.3% in Q2 2012.[84] Kantar released their report and found out that the US market share is at 3.3%. They also reported their key eight countries results that Wp is up from 3.5% to 4.8%.[85]
Worldwide, IDC pointed that Windows Phone had a 50% quarter-over-quarter decline in Q3 2012, thus having a total 2.0% global market share."""
Or perhaps you are still living in the past, like you were for the your claim that XBox division was making a profit, they did for a couple of quarters a couple of years ago.
WP7 may have quadrupled its market share in the first couple of quarters when first released, from nothing, but that was a couple of years ago.
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Tuesday 11th December 2012 12:35 GMT RICHTO
Re: I smell bias
That doesnt take into account the launch of WP8.....market share is NOW 4 times what it was at the same time last year....
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/mobile/display/20121128205406_Microsoft_Sales_of_Windows_Phone_Based_Handsets_Quadruple_with_Windows_Phone_8.html
And before you start quoting Octobers numbers, you should read: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2012/12/03/its-not-octobers-market-share-that-counts-for-windows-phone-its-novembers/
And you might want to read what i actually said which was "The writer of the article cant count. Nokia already sold 4 Million Lumias last quarter. That's 16 million a year. So If they double sales over the next year, that means 8 million a quarter or 32 million a year." - which was referring to the authors inability to do basic maths - not a sales prediction.....
However allegedly Nokia ALREADY sold 7 million WP handsets this quarter, so it looks like they are now selling at circa 30 million a year...
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Tuesday 11th December 2012 19:08 GMT Richard Plinston
Re: I smell bias
> market share is NOW 4 times what it was at the same time last year....
You probably don't see why you are universally regarded as clueless. The article says:
"""the company claims that shipments of Windows Phone 8 smartphones in November ’12 were four times higher compared to sales of Windows Phone 7 phones in November ’11. """
It is about _shipments_ from the factory to the distributors. November 12 was the first month they shipped. There were probably almost no shipments in October having killed off WP7 and not yet got going with WP8. It may be that in October 11 they were shipping to meet the December sales and had fulfilled all the orders so not much shipped November 11.
It is _not_ about customer sales nor 'market share'. In fact in the article it highlights this with:
"""Actual sales of Windows Phone 8-based smartphones are still pretty low,"""
> However allegedly Nokia ALREADY sold 7 million WP handsets this quarter,
That figures appears to have come from Gartner, the group that claimed that WP7 would outsell iPhone by the end of 2012, and seems to be entirely based on multiplying Q4'11 sales by 4. The x4 figure being entirely about something else. This is the usual incompetent business puffery of paid consultants.
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Tuesday 11th December 2012 19:21 GMT Richard Plinston
Re: I smell bias
> "The writer of the article cant count. ...
What the writer said was:
"""As for phones, Nokia is being credited with having sold seven million Lumias, with four million in the last quarter and two million in two quarters before that. It's almost a year since the first Lumia appeared, so even if Nokia doubles its sales a year from now, that would still just be 14 million."""
Double 7 million is 14 million. How hard is that ?
It was entirely your speculation that they could sustain one quarter's high shipments and then double that.
In other words they had _already_ doubled in going from 2 million a quarter to 4million in one quarter (actually it was 3.7 I think), and _your_ prediction was they could double that _again_.
You are not a maths genius.
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Tuesday 11th December 2012 22:15 GMT RICHTO
Re: I smell bias
You need to learn to read. It says "Nokia is being credited with having sold seven million Lumias, with four million in the last quarter" and "if Nokia doubles its sales a year from now"
So current rate was 4 million a quarter - is ALREADY a rate of 16 million a year. If they doubled that then the current yearly rate would be 32 million. Not hard is it...
Or if you want to look at the historic yearly rate then If we assume linear sales growth we would have sales of 5 million, 6 million, 7million, 8 million per quarter to get to double sales then thats still a lot higher than 14 million....(26 million).
Or even if you are talking about double the cumuative sales at the time then the author says "four million in the last quarter and two million in two quarters before that." errm - so that would be 8 million doubled then to give 16 million then, not 14 million...
So not only were you wrong in stating that i claimed sales of 30 million, but you can't do basic maths either - like the author.
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Wednesday 12th December 2012 06:12 GMT Richard Plinston
Re: I smell bias
> So current rate was 4 million a quarter - is ALREADY a rate of 16 million a year.
Which shows how little you know. Sales vary in each quarter for a variety of reasons. If the sales this year are 1,2,2,4 then next year the doubling could make them 2,4,4,8. These are rounded so the actuals may have been eg: 1.3,1.8,2.1,3.7 or so and total roughly 7 million.
The flaw in your argument is that 4m/Q = 16m/year. It isn't. For exactly the same reason that if they sold 1m snow shovels in December it won't mean that will sell 12m in a year.
> you can't do basic maths either - like the author.
2 x 7 still comes to 14 on this world.
But it is all academic anyway, they are unlikely to sell another WP7 phone.
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Monday 17th December 2012 22:12 GMT Richard Plinston
Re: I smell bias
> WP phone sales are steadily increasing
Being optimistic is one thing, but being blind to reality is what you are.
Try working out a 'steady increase' from the graph based on Nokia's actual results:
http://www.tech-thoughts.net/2012/10/nokia-q3-results-lumia-shipments-crash.html
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Monday 10th December 2012 16:48 GMT Anonymous Coward
Don't write RIM off yet
You can create a reasonably secure BYOD enviroment for iPads and iPhones using MobilEcho and MobileIron over a VPN. We use these two app's primarily to support native e-mail on iPads which allows the bankers to view their pitch books on the move.
My firm will be sticking with RIM for the vast majority of users though because we already have the infrastructure to support it. That reason can also be called inertia but in the current climate we are sticking with what is known to work.
As for the kids, I thought that they were all over BBM?
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Monday 10th December 2012 17:18 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Don't write RIM off yet
"reasonably secure" does not equal "secure".
As a personal BlackBerry OS7 device user and someone who's company has made the switch from an outdated BES environment to using iPhones and the related MDM solution I can safely say that the security on iPhones secured through MDM is nowhere near as granular (or secure) as BlackBerry's on BES.
I have to agree that this headline did have "TROLL (ROFL)" written all over it. Has the author researched BB10? Has he compared the security available via an iPhone/Androd MDM solution to the BlackBerry Fusion product which incorporates BES and MDM?
And I wont even touch the Windows Mob 8 comparison...
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Monday 10th December 2012 17:14 GMT Shiver MeTimbers
Wrong strategy
I think RIM have got it totally wrong with their strategy:
1) A huge number of the "80 Million loyal users" use low end Blackberries, BB10 is way out of their price range.
2) RIM have a large Corporate user base who like them because they have physical keyboards, Initial BB10 phones are touchscreens, no physical keyboard, and their last touchscreen phone tanked big time.
3) BB10 needed to be a big step forward in phones in general to succeed. I've used it and its ok, but just ok. There are plenty of cheaper ok phones out there at the moment.
What RIM should have done is release a lower end physical keyboard BB10 device first to establish volume, then follow up with mid tier and premium devices to grow the brand again.
By aiming at premium first with an average OS is madness.
They have made a device that their current base either do not want or cannot afford by failing to understand what their current customers want.
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Monday 10th December 2012 17:29 GMT PapaBravo
Re: Wrong strategy
"By aiming at premium first with an average OS is madness"
?? By all accounts BB10 is set to blow iOS and Android out of the water. From what i have seen, and from what has been spouted by journalists who have been shown BB10, it is not an average OS.
They are also issuing a physical keyboard BB10 device shortly after the launch of the touchscreen. How do you know "there are cheaper ok phones out there at the moment" when we dont know the pricing of BB10 devices?
But pray tell...where did you use BB10?
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Monday 10th December 2012 17:14 GMT Jason Hindle
Where RIM works well
Is when you're roaming at £8 per MB and you've just spent the best part of £50 in no time flat by having the audacity to switch on your Android phone at the airport (or worse still, then checked Facebook using the bloated HTML5 app from Hell). This was never a problem with data frugal Blackberry devices.
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Monday 10th December 2012 19:13 GMT Daniel Bower
Tablet flop
Actually, now the Playbook can sideload (and seemlessly run and multitask) Android apps, no longer requires a BB phone to actually do anything and coupled to the fact that PC World are flogging the 64gb version for £129 it makes it a viable alternative to Droid / Apple slabs.
I just bought my wife one and its a lovely piece of kit, so nice in fact I'm off tomorrow to buy me one.
Added to RIM's stance of support and software upgrades (the recent OS 2.1 release was a significant step up) meaning it will run BB10 means there's life in the old dog yet...