back to article 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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  1. robert_raw

    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 :)

    1. Anonymous Coward
    2. LarsG
      Meh

      The Blackberry

      Is the first choice phone of the Chav, as jogging pants and Burberry hats are their first choice in fashion wear. Will Win8 phones take over this important crown.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Thumb Down

        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.

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

    3. Bob Vistakin
      Mushroom

      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.

    4. csumpi
      Stop

      Utter BS. When we had blackerries as employees, IT was always complaining about how dealing with blackberry blowed. Unfortunately IT cries about anything that forces them to pause their warcraft session and get off their fat behinds.

    5. Turtle_Fan
      Flame

      @ "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".

  2. Mark Dowling

    MDM != BES

    My BES has pages and pages of policies that can be applied to Blackberry 5-7 devices. The MDMs I've seen offer perhaps one tenth the granularity. Until that changes, BES 10 is still a possibility at our shop.

    1. RICHTO
      Mushroom

      Re: MDM != BES

      So does SCCM 2012. Still not quite as flexible as Blackberry Enteprise Server, but it is getting there...

    2. Turtle_Fan
      Thumb Down

      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!?

  3. Dan 55 Silver badge

    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.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      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.

  4. ratfox
    Meh

    I believe RIM is toast

    It brings me no pleasure to say it, but I believe that the best thing they can hope for is to sell, whether the company or some of its IP.

    Upvote if you agree, downvote if you don't…

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I believe RIM is toast

      The governments of the world will not allow the IP sale unless they are given access to spy. Many already have a problem getting RIM to dot hat today, so they will use any sale to their advantage to leverage that.

    2. Dan 55 Silver badge
      IT Angle

      Re: I believe RIM is toast

      YouTube is that way...

    3. dotslash

      Re: I believe RIM is toast

      They should of opened up their BES to all devices long ago and become a services company.

      1. Dr. Mouse

        Re: I believe RIM is toast

        I have to agree here. BB's main selling point has always been messaging. If they developed apps for other devices, they would open up their market and bring in a lot of new customers.

        1. Darryl
          Thumb Down

          Re: I believe RIM is toast

          BB's main selling point has always been messaging.

          If, by 'always', you mean in the last three years, maybe.

          1. jonathanb Silver badge

            Re: I believe RIM is toast

            Blackberries were able to do messaging before they were able to do voice calls. Back then you would have a Blackberry for messaging, and a separate breeze block sized luggable for making phone calls.

      2. 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.

    4. Atonnis
      Thumb Down

      Re: I believe RIM is toast

      Or ignore you for being one of those people who tells everyone to 'upvote or downvote' them.

    5. 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.

      1. Daves43
        Stop

        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!

        1. asdf
          WTF?

          Re: I believe RIM is toast

          >When they have 0 users and $0 - then they will be toast!

          Wow somebody sure has no idea how Chapter 7 and 11 bankruptcies work. They will certainly still have more than zero customers when they go into bankruptcy court and probably a lot less than $0 when they do.

          1. Daves43
            Meh

            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...

  5. Khaptain Silver badge
    Meh

    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.....

  6. HamsterNet
    Paris Hilton

    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.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    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.

    1. Khaptain Silver badge

      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 ?

  8. 0laf
    Meh

    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.

  9. Big_Ted
    WTF?

    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.....

  10. Charlie Clark Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    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.

    1. RICHTO
      Mushroom

      Re: I smell bias

      WP has quadrupled it's market share in the last year, whereas Blackberry has shrunk about the same.....

      For companies, WP is also much more secure than IOS and Android and is easier to manage via Exchange and SCCM.

      1. 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.

        1. RICHTO
          Mushroom

          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...

          1. 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.

            1. RICHTO
              Mushroom

              Re: I smell bias

              Well I'm so confident in Nokia's fuutre after getting a Lumia 920 that stuck a 5 figure sum into Nokia shares a few weeks ago at ~$3 share. If you think you are right then do go do the same for RIM......

          2. 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.

            1. RICHTO
              Mushroom

              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.

              1. 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.

                1. RICHTO
                  Mushroom

                  Re: I smell bias

                  Q4 is the businest quarter - and WP phone sales are steadily increasing so my numbers would only have been an under-estimate.

                  2+2+4 isnt 7....!

                  1. 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

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    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?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      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...

  12. 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.

    1. 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?

  13. 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.

  14. 404
    Pint

    Go Blackberry!

    I *still* miss my Storm2..

    ;)

    Sent via my Verizon Motorola Droid Razr

  15. 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...

    1. bazza Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: Tablet flop

      Android apps don't have to sideloaded. Lots are turning up on the BB App World as official releases. You can't tell that they're Android apps unless you know them as having been seen first on Android devices. RIM have made the porting job dead simple. It's only Kindle Reader that is the major Android App the hasn't been placed in App world (Amazon - boo) and requires sideloading.

      For £129 the 64GB Playbook is a tremendous piece of kit. I have one, and am very pleased with it indeed :)

  16. ThomH

    Dare I make an Apple comparison?

    It feels to me that there are a lot of parallels between RIM now and Apple in 1997 — a product once emblematic of what has become a fundamental device category, and a resilient niche as a result, but marketshare that's been eroded almost down to nothing by later competitors with stronger offerings. So they're betting the house on a bought-in new operating system.

    That being said, one reason so much has been written about Apple's recovery is that it was so improbable; there's probably no iPod in RIM's future. So I'm going to keep an open mind but not necessarily a great store of confidence.

  17. Dare to Think
    IT Angle

    Commodity computing

    Good article, but it does not mention that smartphones, indeed mobile phones in general have become a commodity. The USPs used to be functionality (in software), now that every mobile OS does more or less the same than the rest the USP is again hardware.

    Soon there will be more, other Linux distros available for mobile phones, Canonical is developing in this direction at this point in time. It wouldn't surprise me if there is or will be a community effort for Debian. Which brings us back to the business adaptivity of mobile OSes: Wouldn't it be better, from a security perspective, for companies to create their own Linux distros for desktops, tablets and smartphones?

    It's easy enough.

  18. Simon Rockman

    There will always be a place for Blackberry

    But it will become a niche player which is good at secure email. That's not important enough for lots of people who will favour "secure enough" and other things like NFC, Floating cameras and ecosystems.

    Blackberry should build an e-ink long life email device and licence BBM to ONE android manufacturer to give them a point of differentiation.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: There will always be a place for Blackberry

      You do realise that RIM had NFC working on all its high end devices before anyone else, and that Apple still doesn't? Or that RIM is rolling out NFC-based micropayments systems in second world countries?

      They are doing interesting stuff, but it is not aimed at the US market.

  19. Sean Kennedy

    I said it before, I'll say it again

    RIM needs to bail on the hardware. They have demonstrated a unique incompetence in this area, and other companies are handing them their lunch. The App store needs to go too. In fact, the only thing they really should be focusing on is managing mobile data devices. They *should* be focusing on a point to point secure mobile solution. Indeed, they should have for a couple years now.

    What do I mean by that? A client, available for all major phone platforms, that provides management and security functionality. Business email, stored encrypted on otherwise wide open devices. The ability to remotely wipe business data. To GPS track phones...the list goes on and on. They could very well have maintained their corporate presence had they jumped on board this ship years ago, but they still have a name in corporate data security and could trade on that, although it would be an uphill battle at this point.

    Were I a share holder, I'be furious at the opportunities the board has continually wasted.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I said it before, I'll say it again

      In fact the Playbook is a marketing failure but one of the best tablets - and they called the 7 inch form factor when Jobs did not. Their current entry level offering is a niche piece of kit but very well adapted for its job - low power, large battery, simple operation but with the in-depth features there if you look, and physically robust. It doesn't suit the wants of American teenagers, but it provides good messaging and phone performance with a 3 day battery life, and the cheap Android phones just do not do this.

      I'm sure that Jeremy Clarkson hates the Hyundai I10 with a passion, and no American would be seen dead in one, but they sell very well around the world for much the same reason: cheap, reliable, economical to run, and much better than the low end products of US companies.

      Your assumption is that RIM is incompetent. I would suggest that it was incompetent, but under the new management it is clawing back.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I said it before, I'll say it again

      "What do I mean by that? A client, available for all major phone platforms, that provides management and security functionality. Business email, stored encrypted on otherwise wide open devices. The ability to remotely wipe business data. To GPS track phones...the list goes on and on."

      So...Good for Enterprise then?

      Again another commentor who I can only assume hasn't seen/avoided anything to do with BB10. The hardware has been built from the ground up and they are doing a HUGE amount of work to ensure a large App ecosystem is available on launch. Developers are loving the new OS and I'm sure that will show in January.

      Hardware wise, the cheap Curve phones are a disaster but you get what you pay for and I havent had any issues with either of my Bold devices. If Apple produced a budget iPhone I am 100% certain it would have just as many problems as a BB Curve device (or a full price iPhone ;) )

  20. bailey86

    I smell MS marketing/astroturfing...

    ...all over this article and the comments.

    WP is struggling against iOS and Android.

    The only market they could possibly go for is the corporate one. And that is pretty well covered by BB.

    I expect there will be plenty of attacks against BB over the next few years.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I smell MS marketing/astroturfing...

      But for BB you need a seperate server infrastructure and have to pay a BB network tax. WP does away with all of that cost and complexity and connects directly to your Exchange servers whilst still allowing a similar level of device control....Corporates will be interested.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    Want to embrace new but don't have rubber gloves.

    Blackberries have been doing the "Work" thing for us for a few years but now there seems to be a subtle shift from the phone being seen as a work tool to something from the mythical land of handheld nirvana.

    I don't want to take up some other system because (to cut down some of the blue sky talk) "You can install all sorts of shit on them!!" I want secure reliable "just works" sort of technology.

    I'm getting tired of this blurring of my most people come to work, it's not to beef out their faecebook profile it's to get a task done and precious few individuals will get the tasks done better with more distraction.

    It may be part of the mindset that thinks the UK will get by as a service industry and we can support 50% of the population in the media industry the other half (non interesting jobs) can be done by immigrants.

    A country has to produce something and as far as I know naval gazing has never really contributed much to the GDP.

    Yeah I know it's a rant but as others have said show me where BYOD is working, give real world examples of good practice and efficient deployments, save the name calling for daytime TV.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Want to embrace new but don't have rubber gloves.

      Pedant alert

      Naval gazing has frequently ensured that the UK did not have a sudden precipitous decline in GDP.

      Navel gazing...different story.

      BYOD as a concept is, I imagine, well funded by that Californian company that never had much impact on corporations.

  22. tom 78

    The main reason for BB's success with the teens was

    Tight parents providing contracts with limited text allowances or pay as you go sims.

    This made the Blackberries main appeal BB Messenger, completely free of charge and very functional.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The main reason for BB's success with the teens was

      But it's not free. You pay a ~ £5 a month tax on the line rental just for the BB features...

  23. Tom 35

    even Windows Phone 8 looks great

    Ha ha ha good one.

    From what I've seen BB10 looks like it may put them back on track. I have never had a Blackberry but I will be having a look at it when it ships. The only way I'd end up with a Windows Phone would be if work gave me one (some of the marketing types have received one) but I'm not holding my breath for that.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: even Windows Phone 8 looks great

      Or if you wanted the best Camera, the best Touch Screen, with the best contrast, the best Navigation, the best Maps, the best Augmented Reality and NFC support with Wireless Charging and the best Smartphone OS with the best cross device eco-system currently available on any phone you could go get a Lumia 920......until then you will just have to hold your breath...

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