{"id":4274,"date":"2011-06-17T06:56:16","date_gmt":"2011-06-17T14:56:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/?p=4274"},"modified":"2011-06-17T06:56:16","modified_gmt":"2011-06-17T14:56:16","slug":"rim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2011\/06\/17\/rim\/","title":{"rendered":"RIM"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s toast!<\/p>\n

Have you seen a PlayBook in the field?\u00c2\u00a0 They claim to have shipped 500,000…TO DISTRIBUTORS!\u00c2\u00a0 Middlemen own those tablets, not customers.<\/p>\n

And speaking of customers, the story here is that the public leads.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 People want iPhones and Androids.\u00c2\u00a0 Ever try to surf the Web on a BlackBerry?<\/p>\n

I rest my case.<\/p>\n

As for the apps, how come I can’t even see all the lines of the "New York Times" on my BlackBerry?\u00c2\u00a0 RIM can point to the "Times", claiming development issues with its app, but the bottom line is it just doesn’t work.\u00c2\u00a0 And the consumer expects everything to work, Apple taught them that.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s the problem Microsoft has got, that any competitor has with Apple.\u00c2\u00a0 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?\u00c2\u00a0 And if I do, who do I talk to? Apple’s got that damn Genius Bar.\u00c2\u00a0 Free service.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s killing its competitors.\u00c2\u00a0 We all want someone to talk to.<\/p>\n

But what bugs me here is the press giving RIM the benefit of the doubt.\u00c2\u00a0 So busy accepting what is said when anyone can see that the BlackBerry is dying, just leave your house, take a look around!<\/p>\n

To not question 500,000 PlayBooks sold is to accept Groupon’s financials.\u00c2\u00a0 Yup, the deal site created its own metric, "adjusted CSOI", to make it look more appealing.<\/p>\n

Really, read this report, it’s horrifying:<\/p>\n

\n
The Groupon I.P.O.: What Is Adjusted CSOI?<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Let’s just call RIM dead and move on.\u00c2\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Business is so difficult now.\u00c2\u00a0 You cannot rest on your laurels.\u00c2\u00a0 You must be one step ahead of your customers.\u00c2\u00a0 You must deliver what they don’t even know they want.\u00c2\u00a0 You must kill the old to make way for the new.\u00c2\u00a0 You must constantly move forward to avoid moving behind.<\/p>\n

This is just like the music industry.\u00c2\u00a0 Major labels were so busy playing to middlemen that they missed the market.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 Apple doesn’t bow to intimidation, you bow to it!\u00c2\u00a0 Apple doesn’t bend the rules.\u00c2\u00a0 All that Mafioso-style, backroom arm-twisting…that’s gone.\u00c2\u00a0 Homey don’t play that no more.<\/p>\n

Let me see.\u00c2\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

But it’s worse.\u00c2\u00a0 Because Apple has taken aim at RIM’s secret weapon, BBM, the BlackBerry Messenger.<\/p>\n

Apple’s messaging service will only grow iPhone usage.\u00c2\u00a0 You want to go where your friends are.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not only about being the best, there’s strategy involved.\u00c2\u00a0 And a messaging service can be duplicated any day of the week.<\/p>\n

This is just like the Facebook problem.\u00c2\u00a0 And the Groupon problem.\u00c2\u00a0 They say their concept can’t be replicated, but that’s b.s.\u00c2\u00a0 But at least unlike Facebook and Groupon, mobile handsets are not fads.<\/p>\n

And consumers have mostly given up on e-mail anyway, the BlackBerry’s strength.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s the aforementioned messaging services and texting…<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Android shows Apple is vulnerable.<\/p>\n

And if it stays in place, Google search is vulnerable.<\/p>\n

You’ve got to reinvent yourself every day.<\/p>\n

Or get left behind.<\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s toast! Have you seen a PlayBook in the field?\u00c2\u00a0 They claim to have shipped 500,000…TO DISTRIBUTORS!\u00c2\u00a0 Middlemen own those tablets, not customers. And speaking of customers, the story here is that the public leads.\u00c2\u00a0 So busy focusing on the demands of business, RIM missed the boat, all the exciting developments were in the consumer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-online","category-technology"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s96vPs-rim","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4274"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4275,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4274\/revisions\/4275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}