If you’ve been following RIM’s “earnings” (losings) for 2012, you’ll see they’re not doing too well, and they’re firing a lot more people, again. Considering they’re supposed to be hard at work at BB10, I’m wondering who they’re firing. People involved in it? People that weren’t doing anything anyway?
Previews of BB10 have not been as friendly as Windows 7/8 reviews. Windows 7 actually deservers a little marketshare. But it was too little too late for consumers to change course back from iOS and Android. BB10, which is most likely worse, and more incomplete (in terms of feature parity) than Windows Phone isn’t going to magically not have the adoption problems Windows Phone is having.
The myth that they can cling to Enterprise customers.
The only reason enterprises didn’t want iPhones at first is because they didn’t support Microsoft Exchange email and calendaring. They do now, and have for quite some time. (iOS 3? 2 even?). Encryption? Check. Remote Wiping? Check. Tracking? Check. Wiping from bad password attempts? Check. Alphanumeric Passwords? Check. IT managed security profiles? Check… I’m not sure what exactly RIM thinks it does that iPhones don’t do in the enterprise, but clearly many companies, including healthcare, the most security conscious industry there is, are moving to “it just works” iPhones.
Can RIM be saved? Sure, if they reduce themselves down to just having BBM as product. But at this point I don’t even think they have the resources (or morale) left make a BB skin for Android much less fork it Amazon Kindle style.
Perhaps RIM, Nokia, and Microsoft should learn that there simply is no blowing Apple out of the Water. Whatever they slap you with was 5 years in the making. You’ll never catch up. So obvious is this fact to mainstream media that the only reason these pieces of crap get press is because we want to see Apple misstep. “Dethroning” Apple is an interesting story. It’s just that it’s so-far a made-up one. And don’t pretend Android isn’t. Let’s count Android 4.0 devices vs iOS 5.0 Devices.