Among general consumers, the cool features like camera, mp3 player, even slideout keyboard, will be what wows people.

It really depends on RIM. If they want to be content with the corporate crowd, they have that locked up for now. If they want to branch out more into the consumer, one sale at a time, market, they will have to add some features to compete.

I always like to compare RIM’s position now to Palm’s position when it ruled the PDA market. Then Palm had the reputation that BB enjoys now: the stable, secure, user friendly device. However, as time went by, Palm lost out to Windows PDAs, as these added cutting edge features like great color screens, better multimedia, etc. I remember when the first iPaq came out: it took alot of market share away from Palm, because it was perceived as the more fun, cutting edge device.

RIM would do well to remember this lesson. They need to keep innovating, and offer people exciting features, or else eventually it will lose its hold on the market. Even many corporate users may migrate to the more fully featured Windows Mobile phones, to take advantage of the more exciting features.

I’m a long-time Windows Mobile user and have been pushed into learning about BB for our corporate BES project. I have to say I’m glad I’m getting to understand BB better as I can distinguish the differences between what BB excels at and what WM is good at.

I’ve heard similar stories from others out shopping for new smartphones recently, and I think 2006 is the first year that we have many options open to us. Now instead of debating BB vs. WM vs. Palm, I’d rather look at a uniting feature of all these options: BES.

BES in combination with BB devices, and BB Connect running on WM, Palm, and Symbian devices really have expanded the device selection for the average consumer.