

Why RIM is no Nortel - woohoo
http://www.markevanstech.com/2011/06/23/six-reasony-why-rim-is-no-nortel/

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jammur
“With the right strategic execution, significant improvements in the half-
baked Playbook and a big dose of luck, RIM could keep its status as a tier-one
smartphone maker.”

I really take issue with this statement. First, what evidence is there that
RIM’s management are capable of “the right strategic execution”? They’ve had
no credible response to the iPhone in the 4 years since it was released, and
to Android in the 3 years since it’s first hardware release. A new entrant
came into a market that RIM essentially created, and they did nothing for 4
years. I don’t think it’s valid to use the company’s performance in the time
leading up to the iPhone, when RIM had no credible competition, as a predictor
of future success. The moment a credible competitor began to encroach on their
market, they had no response. IMO this is a much better indicator of future
performance in the face of dominant competition.

“significant improvements in the half-baked Playbook”

Again, what evidence is there that this will happen. The first Storm was, by
all accounts, a massive failure. The Storm 2 was too little, too late. The
current management was responsible for both. People love to talk about how
Apple came back from the dead, but what they forget is that Apple was driven
to the brink of death by someone other than Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs came back
and brought Apple to where it is today. Had the existing management remained
in place, they would have undoubtedly gone bankrupt. RIM desperately needs a
change of management.

“a big dose of luck”

With a big dose of luck, the 6/49 could make me millionaire. But you can be
sure I’m not making investment decisions based on those odds.

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p_h
The Blackberry does have some advantages over other consumer smart phones.
RIM's built a lot of infrastructure for dealing with corporate clients and
security. It's probably going to be a long time before the president of the
United States switches from a Blackberry.

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pragmatic
"RIM is highly profitable with lots of cash, which should provide it with a
healthy financial cushion to figure out how to ride out the storm."

I don't think this is a storm. This is more like armageddon for RIM.

They have a clunky product that people don't _want_. People want iPhones and
Android devices. People ask for them by name.

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someone13
See, not everyone wants the latest iWhatever. I quite like the BlackBerry,
actually - it's not flashy, gets far more battery life than nearly any other
mobile device, has BBM (which is still, in my opinion, one of the best mobile
chat platforms out there), and can do email/web browsing.

Yeah, there's not as many apps, and yeah, it's not all shiny like the
iWhatever, or quite as open and easy to develop for as Android, but it's
_very_ stable and reliable. And there's something to be said for that.

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digamber_kamat
Blackberry has few years of profitability at their disposal. Consider the
Indian market. Blackberry is spreading here almost like a wildfire. The reason
is that it is an incredible smartphone at very affordable price. iPhone is
almost thrice costlier than BB and the data plans double the cost of BB data
plans.

In my opinion QNX holds key to BB's future. I had opportunity to work with QNX
and I know it as a very powerful operating system that can run metro rails and
nuclear reactors. I feel BB should relax and take their time to build the next
OS based on QNX.

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jammur
I think that pegging RIM's future to QNX is a mistake. There is no single
technology that will return RIM to it's former status. iOS isn't the reason
Apple is succeeding, it's simply one piece of the puzzle.

I keep hearing the same thing you wrote, that QNX runs nuclear reactors so it
must inherently be good as a smartphone OS. I fail to see the connection
between the two.

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suprgeek
No Not Nortel but from a corporate perspective a little bit like Sun maybe.
Making Outdated Phones for an enterprise market that has move on, relying on
an humongous installed user baser, making weird technology bets, and half-
hearted attempts at emerging markets like Tablets. Sound almost like Sun with
Solaris, Java, MySQL and VirtualBox. I think Microsoft will play the Role of
Oracle as the last act :)

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mailarchis
There is a surprising fact I stumbled upon when i visited Panama couple of
weeks back. Blackberries rule in Latin America (at least from what i saw in
Panama and heard)

Maybe Blackberry is losing out in states but is still going strong in other
places.

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canistr
Interesting insight into RIM and Nortel. It's rather refreshing to read this
compared to the sensationalistic articles written by other tech blogs and the
media who don't really understand either RIM nor Nortel.

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goalieca
RIM was caught off guard. They were hiring many new positions here in Ottawa
(home of Nortel) and even others they own like QNX were hiring. RIM has now in
fact announced they will be making layoffs instead. This doesn't help for
confidence in the leadership if they didn't see this coming.

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bryanwb
RIM seems worse off than nortel. Individuals can change mobile phones much
faster than companies can change telephony infrastructures.

