RIM

It’s toast!

Have you seen a PlayBook in the field?  They claim to have shipped 500,000…TO DISTRIBUTORS!  Middlemen own those tablets, not customers.

And speaking of customers, the story here is that the public leads.  So busy focusing on the demands of business, RIM missed the boat, all the exciting developments were in the consumer sphere and eventually those innovative devices bubbled up and business people wanted them and corporations just couldn’t say no.  People want iPhones and Androids.  Ever try to surf the Web on a BlackBerry?

I rest my case.

As for the apps, how come I can’t even see all the lines of the "New York Times" on my BlackBerry?  RIM can point to the "Times", claiming development issues with its app, but the bottom line is it just doesn’t work.  And the consumer expects everything to work, Apple taught them that.  That’s the problem Microsoft has got, that any competitor has with Apple.  It’s not the shiny hardware, it’s not even the marketing, but can I take your product off the shelf and does it work intuitively and will I have no problems?  And if I do, who do I talk to? Apple’s got that damn Genius Bar.  Free service.  That’s killing its competitors.  We all want someone to talk to.

But what bugs me here is the press giving RIM the benefit of the doubt.  So busy accepting what is said when anyone can see that the BlackBerry is dying, just leave your house, take a look around!

To not question 500,000 PlayBooks sold is to accept Groupon’s financials.  Yup, the deal site created its own metric, "adjusted CSOI", to make it look more appealing.

Really, read this report, it’s horrifying:

Let’s just call RIM dead and move on.  The same people who put faith in the PlayBook are the same people who said Palm was gonna make a comeback, and you see how that turned out.

Business is so difficult now.  You cannot rest on your laurels.  You must be one step ahead of your customers.  You must deliver what they don’t even know they want.  You must kill the old to make way for the new.  You must constantly move forward to avoid moving behind.

This is just like the music industry.  Major labels were so busy playing to middlemen that they missed the market.  So busy placating record stores, listening to Wal-Mart, that not only did they not come up with a reasonable way to monetize digital acquisition, they ceded the entire market to a new company, Apple, that does not play by their rules.  Apple doesn’t bow to intimidation, you bow to it!  Apple doesn’t bend the rules.  All that Mafioso-style, backroom arm-twisting…that’s gone.  Homey don’t play that no more.

Let me see.  To succeed RIM has to come up with a sharp looking device that synchs everything I’ve got with the cloud and has hundreds of thousands of apps.

But it’s worse.  Because Apple has taken aim at RIM’s secret weapon, BBM, the BlackBerry Messenger.

Apple’s messaging service will only grow iPhone usage.  You want to go where your friends are.  It’s not only about being the best, there’s strategy involved.  And a messaging service can be duplicated any day of the week.

This is just like the Facebook problem.  And the Groupon problem.  They say their concept can’t be replicated, but that’s b.s.  But at least unlike Facebook and Groupon, mobile handsets are not fads.

And consumers have mostly given up on e-mail anyway, the BlackBerry’s strength.  There’s the aforementioned messaging services and texting…

I’m just angry that no one in the mainstream press has called this debacle when it’s been evident for at least a year, ever since the Android juggernaut began.

Android shows Apple is vulnerable.

And if it stays in place, Google search is vulnerable.

You’ve got to reinvent yourself every day.

Or get left behind.

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