RIM was taken completely taken off guard when Apple’s iPhone became an overnight success, according to a former RIM employee.
[ad#Google Adsense 300×250 in story]”RIM didn’t expect iphone to take off the way it did because it was so badly flawed from day one,” the former RIM employee said in a Reuters report [PDF]. “They believed that users wanted great battery life, great security, great mail handling, minimal network use, and a great keyboard experience. They never expected users didn’t care.”
Speaking as an iPhone user from the beginning, and a former BlackBerry user, I find the battery life, security and mail handling of the iPhone to be exceptional.
Of course, RIM seems to have misjudged the popularity of the iPad as well. In recent interviews Reuters said RIM co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie “have painted the playBook as a gilded object blessed with perfect timing and pedigree.”
“For me, it’s all about mobile computing and always was. And it’s about always choosing the right moment, the right time, the right technology,” said Lazaridis.
It seems to me the right time was last year, but of course, RIM is a follower, not a leader. And what about Apple selling 15 million iPads and its control of the tablet market?
“We decided the tablet market was still in its infancy, it hasn’t really taken off yet,” said Lazaridis.
Apple is all about style over substance as far as I am concerned. You can find a better and cheaper alternative to all their products.
also Lazardis said “I am the eggman, coo coo ca choo”
Apple makes products that actually work — looking good is just a bonus. As for better and cheaper, yes there are products that are cheaper and products that have a better feature set, but I don’t need the extra aggravation to try and make them work. Every time I use a windows machine – it is an exercise in frustration, of things being “almost” right.
go and find one, buy it. Shut up about things you have no intention of buying. If I want a review of buttons I won’t ask the opinion of the Amish.
agree. good enough is not good enough anymore
I keep hearing that yet few people can actually show me anything, even equal on the whole. It always boils down to a specific thing significant to that person but not particularly important to most.
It’s like hearing the blind argue “Who cares about light?” I suspect if you are blind, and like being blind, light is of little use. Apple’s products are for those who have seen the light!
Apple being so perfect how come you even know about windows… oh cause you need it to get through life!
And they say Steve Jobs has a “reality distortion field…” sheesh!
Then you are afflicted with spectrum of disorders affecting your perception. Or, more probably, you look askance at what is popular because that’s the hipster thing to do. Either way, your “opinion” is seriously in error.
After having an iPhone 4 having it changed 4 times. I still had the proximity problem. Plus other little niggles. Push stops working for apps. Etc. I will never goto iPhone again. I do have an iPad. But since getting an android desire handset rarely use the iPad. Everything just seems to work on Android.
The children’s table is down the hall. Look for the room with the advertisements suggesting that a phone will turn into a spaceship.
The thing he’s getting wrong is assuming that the mass market would want the same thing the business sector wanted. He lists “great security, great mail handling, minimal network use” which are good features, but not something that makes most people’s wish lists for a phone. Those are features that businesses ask for.
RIM’s leadership is clearly terrible. lacks both strategic thinking and execution. looks like RIM was basically a one-trick-pony. it was a great trick, taking the PDA market away from Palm, but now it’s running out of gas as the multifunction/minicomputer smartphone/tablet era takes over.
so RIM will wind up in a forced sale at big discount just like Palm did too. if they were smart, they would sell it now while it could get a halfway decent price. but they won’t. these guys will hang on to their false hopes until it’s way too late – two years from now – and get pennies on the dollar. what dopes.
That’s true. I mean, what distortion field was used by Motorola to make people buy a broken beta product you have to mail away to activate a feature used to sell the product? Is a Xoom like a cereal boxtop? If you send back ten can you get a poster of Barney?
Keep posting numskull things like that around these parts and you’ll learn something Mark Twain once said:
“A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.”
RIM might make a great take over target for Nokia
Nokia’s full onboard with the Windows Phone platform. I don’t know what they would do with RIM other than buy them for their engineering talent
Did RIM mention any thing about how flawed the Torch was or are they just throwing stones from their glass house?
Obvious troll is obvious. Go back to Gizmodo please.
This whole RIM situation just keeps on getting more and more delicious.
RIM is so messed up, they need to can the Co CEO’s and replace them with 17 year old’s.
They’re not as jacked up as Nokia, but give them a few years, and they’ll be a footnote…
The Playbook is going to be a clusterf#ck, and cheap Android phones will kill off their sales in developing countries.
Well Rim is correct about one thing. the market is still an infant. As is the ipad. Well more like a toddler I suppose. But given how far it is already, imagine how far it can go. Especially with no one saying no simply by getting their stuff out there. 9k units that still haven’t been delivered is a joke. 2 million units in the channel with only perhaps 10% actually sold and easily 40% of that returned within two weeks is a joke. Talk that hasn’t actually developed into a product yet is a joke. Someone please get yourselves together and release something, anything before the ipad and Apple have 99.9999999999999% and their baby turns into a demonic stay puft marshmallow man trying to eat the world.
And remember kids, DON’T CROSS THE STREAMS
to some degree your statements are true. Apple doesn’t go for creating iDevices that have a lot of options in terms of a custom UI etc. They like their way it should look, which doesn’t work and don’t really care if you want it to work your way. They do like to make their things pretty even if it means perhaps doing things a little more expensively so that they can be thinner etc.
And yes in terms of things that cost less and let you geek out etc you can find other things. Well sort of. You can find folks talking a lot about their other thing and a couple that got it out a handful of stores. But at least the talk is out there.
However the general public has no issue with Apple’s style or cost and they are buying. And since this is a business and not an art form it is sales and money that really judges ‘best’ and so far Apple is leagues ahead of the few folks that are out there and probably will be for a while
sarcasm
1579, from L.L. sarcasmos, from Gk. sarkasmos “a sneer, jest, taunt, mockery,” from sarkazein “to speak bitterly, sneer,” lit. “to strip off the flesh,” from sarx (gen. sarkos ) “flesh,” prop. “piece of meat,” from PIE base *twerk- “to cut” (cf. Avestan thwares “to cut”). Sarcastic is from 1695. For nuances of usage, see humor.
Spot-on!
One of the most compelling features about iOS devices is third party software.
Without applications like Simplenote, Reeder, Instapaper, Twitterrific, ConvertBot and many many more,
the iPad and the iPad would only be well made hardware devices.
This, again, is something neither RIM nor Nokia or Microsoft have understood. Since the opening of the App Store, Apple has built devices to accommodate apps by third party developers and they’ve made the device’s and OS’s features as easy to utilise as possible; introducing new APIs with every major OS update.
I sometimes don’t understand how managers at Apple’s competitors can be so damn blind and not see Apple’s strategy, when every consumer with half a brain can.
Maybe they should start to investigate their own reality distortion fields, because they are malfunctioning: Their “dimwit rays” are directed at themselves.
@Immi
Just because you can’t see doesn’t mean it’s not there. Don’t be proud of your lack of percipience.
Thanks for the page hits.
It confounds me to hear such inside-a-small-bubble talk from people who run big companies that sell communication products.
Will you be buying a Playbook, then? Or are you pinning your hopes on Xoom’s eventual capabilities after giving up on the Galaxy Tab?
then don’t buy anything from Apple. i’m starting to believe people who make a point of bashing everything Apple makes are actually closet Apple fans. overcompensation perhaps?
Some body say cell phone evolutionary just is iPhone 4, iPhone 5, iPhone 6, iPhone 7, iPhone 8, iPhone 9, iPhone 10 and so on.
wow, there are tons of stuff that are better. Yes you are right, people should keep their mouth shut of things they don’t intend to buy. Get all the crapple fan boys off sites. that would be a great start
name one. Galactose Tablet? Doom? What? You got one, go and buy it. Thanks for your pointless and inept opinion.