It seems like every time Research in Motion takes half a step forward something comes along to knock them a full step back. In this week’s edition of What Else Can Go Wrong for RIM, energy services company Halliburton has announced plans to drop support for BlackBerry in favor of the iPhone.
“We are making this transition in order to better support our mobile applications initiatives,” said Beverly Blohm Stafford, director of corporate affairs for Halliburton, in a statement. “Halliburton has engaged with Apple on this transition.”
Of Halliburton’s 70,000 global workers, 4500 of them have been issued BlackBerry devices which will be swapped out for iPhones over the next two years. Companies, in increasing numbers, are allowing employees to connect their personal iPhones to corporate email systems. If Halliburton follows suit, the number of iPhone users they support could number in the tens of thousands.
[Via New York Times]
It appears no on is going to challenge you. Please explain the “half a step forward”. I love my BlackBerry but I cannot recall a step forward in recent times.
My company is well over 100,000 users and our policy on BB only is about to change. While we will give a similar statement to Halliburton the reality is it is a lack of confidence in the future of RIM. To be more direct our CEO has asked my boss the CTO for a alternative strategy in the event the company is sold for parts or in his words become insolvent.
For my team we are looking at this as a DR plan and strategy to deal with the rapid decline of RIM.
I was referring to the naming of Thorsten Heins as the new CEO.
It is very telling when you say that you are looking to replace RIM as part of your DR strategy.
Wait the New Old Guy is a step forward.
Not a full step. Half a step.
What I find most interesting is the concept the a large company is putting a diaster recovery plan in place for RIM. Given it is likely a key and critical part of the business communication I can understand the need to plan for it but this highlights the concern companies have. It is not like a normal DR plan where you need to react NOW due to a diaster rather planning for the collaspe of a company in distress.
If more companies follow this thinking the money pool for RIM in the enterprise market could quickly dry up. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy and RIM’s worst scenario.
It may say more that a large company CEO has a lack of confidence in the future of RIM.