Comments on: Should RIM Be Worried About Android? Investors Certainly Appear To Be

By: gquaglia

gquaglia — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:54:52 +0000

I hate to break to all you BB fans, but the BB is on borrowed time unless they seriously up their game. Minor tweaks here and there and basically the same hardware with small improvements isn’t going to cut against the iphone and Android. Android devices seem to be exploding all over the place this year and given some time, BB will look like the old Palm 700 compared to them. And once Apple releases the iphone to all the carriers, the BB will be dead in the consumer market. Sure there will be small niche business market for BB, but that is not where the money is.

By: Hugh

Hugh — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:36:15 +0000

Of course they should be worried. The damage caused to the RIM brand by poor models and patchy firmware is minor when taken on its own but when you put it up against and OS that is developed by one of the more popular companies in terms of ‘wares then they have to be worried.

By: Mike Rugland

Mike Rugland — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 04:23:45 +0000

I am chucking my tour

By: Lol

Lol — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:17:18 +0000

The BlackBerry Storm is it. They just need to tweak it some more.

By: Roger Ricondo

Roger Ricondo — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:04:13 +0000

RIM has to expand to the consumer market to remain competitive. It has a lock on email and business apps and should continue to improve upon that relationship. Reliability and security are RIMS biggest strengths and those need to be maintained. But RIM needs an iPhone competitor/alternative (not an iPhone killer) that has a good browser, faster internet access, flash support and more internal memory! Better yet, allow apps to install to the memory card. The Blackberry Storm is not it.

By: Carlos

Carlos — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:09:02 +0000

I’ve been posting my thoughts on crackberry.com forums and this is exactly what I meant. I think Rim is going to start losing ground if they do not shape up that UI and the browser. In my opinion, the only thing keeping (CUSTOMERS NOT BUSINESS PEOPLE) from jumping out of the ship is the BBM and how fast and reliable is, but taking away the BBM people are starting to compare the UI from Android and the capabilities of such to the UI of the BB and their software. I think RIM is not acting fast enough and they just settled with optimizations on the hardware part and just little tweaks on the software part. If RIM do not do anything drastically to reinvent the Blackberry software, unfortunately it will have the same fate as a PALM. Is true Rim has a very original product that any other company does not have which is push , but my question is , is this really enough to keep the company afloat ? Similar things are happening with the GPS companies like TOM TOM and GARMIN, looked at what happened when googled announced their FREE GPS system to use with the Motorola Droid, Stocks went down for both companies big time. RIM did great in the last 3-4 years but we are in a time now where technology is rising very fast and you have to keep growing an reinventing products, software and features really fast . For me RIM is losing ground and it is going to continue to lose ground if they do not do anything FAST. I would like to be optimistic since I am a BB user and has been for the last 7 years and I would hate to see RIM go down. But this is reality folks …!!!

By: Brian

Brian — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 02:42:12 +0000

The way I see it. For RIM to stay competitive they need to do 5 simple things:

1) Fix their browser with a fast WebKit engine
2) Add OpenGL ES
3) Allow apps to install on the memory card
4) Create a UI designer for developers so they can quickly develop apps
5) Support for Exchange ActiveSync (BES, BPS won’t cut it for small businesses they want a zero server software install, all other smart phones deliver this).

Now for all those people who say “they need to chuck the whole OS” you need to just stop gassing. People keep saying “Java is so slow and old”… I got news for them all apps for Droid / Android are written in Java. So why are their more apps for Droid? UI Designer. Google understands that most developers suck at UI design, and it’s very hard to visualize the JavaDocs into an actual working UI. Developers are good at hooking up the back-end and not pixel placing logic.

Also, OpenGL ES can be easily added (there are Java open source implementations already). They don’t need to re-invent the wheel. The Storm 1 and 2 hardware are screaming for this API (once they do that the 3D accelerator just sitting there will sing). They need to do this while allowing for Apps to be installed on the memory card (Large 3D games do us no good without storage). They also need to allow multiple sounds at once. If they do this the games will start to flow. Believe me alot of game companies will do ports of all their 3D games quickly and throw them up on App world.

Now for ActiveSync… I think my bullet point is enough. Small business will not tolerate needing to install a server side piece of software when every other smartphone implements ActiveSync and gets them wireless email, calender and contacts. Yeah yeah not true push… But shut up it does not matter anymore. Large business will be interested. However, small business will just tell their employees to go iPhone, Symbian, Android, and Windows Mobile. RIM you need to loosen up a bit on the BES server obsession. It will kill you! This is the only one I am afraid RIM won’t do. If they don’t do this… They won’t be around much longer.

Now for the Web Browser. This is the single most biggest problem for RIM. Everyone at RIM gets this one. That’s a good thing. I expect by summer they will have a WebKit browser that works really well, and maybe not as good as the iPhone, but it will be good enough to compete.

If RIM does these 5 simple things they will keep on this amazing ride with consumers that started with the Pearl. Everyone underestimated RIM when the Pearl came out… Now look where they are!

I own a Storm2 and it’s a great device. The UI is quick and clean. It has nice transitions. It’s stable. It is a great looking device (I can’t say that for the Motorola Droid). I love the Storm2… I loved my Storm 1… I fully expect RIM to fix these things….

But the Browser by far is their most dangerous sticking point. Opera Mini can only keep them going for so long!

By: Brent

Brent — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:37:56 +0000

I’ve dealt with the Storm for a year, after a decade of WinMo. Although the Storm finally doesn’t require the use of a stylus, it has been fairly disappointing in almost every other way. For a phone that supposedly focuses on email, it has been a very sad experience, especially when I have invested so much time and energy in moving the OS along. As long as the Exchange experience is satisfactory on the Droid, I will be long gone in a week. I will still have to support my wife’s Tour, but that should be easy in comparison to what I have already experienced. I hate to say it, but can I point out that the Emperor’s butt is naked?

By: Tyler

Tyler — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:15:46 +0000

I loved my blackberry for years, the Pearl was a great smartphone. But the total lack of apps, the constant freeze ups, and the dirty sticking trackball gets old really quick. Besides the awful web surfing. Rim is great and I love blackberry, but they have had all this time to come up with something atleast on par with the Iphone and now Android and the storm is best they came up with ? please. Sorry Rim your losing this battle.