

RIM Apparently Not Interested In Switching To Windows Phone - SlipperySlope
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2012/06/29/rim-apparently-not-interested-in-switching-to-windows-phone/

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RyanMcGreal
It would make more sense for RIM to go the Android route. A free, mature
operating system and development platform with strong market share that runs
on a huge variety of devices would give RIM the chance to go for broke on the
physical device and recapture some hardware market share.

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ConstantineXVI
RIM would still have to do a lot of work to harden Android to their standards:
security is a large selling point for the BlackBerry wrt enterprise/gov't.
Switch to bare Android, they lose their security edge and the enterprise
happily continues to dump them. Harden Android, they'll be even later to
market, likely break compatibility, and their customers will be gone by the
time they're out.

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redthrowaway
Forgive the ignorance, but what really needs to be hardened? RIM'd be rolling
their own Enterprise mail apps, etc, and Android's built on a pretty secure
Linux foundation. Maybe add full disk encryption (eww w/ flash mem)? Restrict
app purchases to those approved by RIM?

In what ways is BBOS more secure than Android?

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ConstantineXVI
The most obvious bit is RIM hasn't ever allowed self-signed code on the
BlackBerry. It's not obvious from the user end (as they support sideloading
just like Android), but you have to request a cert from them and dial home
every time you sign (even for dev builds).

Also, when you say "secure Linux foundation", realize that the vast majority
of Android phones get rooted[0], which would allow for circumventing their
security and enterprise controls (ex: disabling the camera, kill switches,
restricting apps, monitoring usage, etc.). Part of RIM's appeal has been their
relative immunity to rooting; they'd have to be able to prove their variant of
Android is notably more secure than AOSP (else there's no advantage)

[0] by which I mean models that can be rooted, not individual phones that have
been rooted

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vibrunazo
I'm not sure against what kind of problems are you looking for security
against? If it's just to make sure employees phones are safe against external
attacks, why not simply tell your employees to not root their phones and use
Android's full-disk encryption? If it's defense from malicious employees from
accessing your VPN, then the solution seems out of the scope of your phone
software - and banning non-blackberries (as many companies do) wouldn't solve
the problem.

Or is it something else I'm missing?

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ConstantineXVI
Saying "don't root it" only works (weakly) to make sure your employees aren't
doing things they shouldn't. If Alice leaves her phone behind at lunch, Eve
can root it and install a bug to forward all her secret company mail to
EveCo's servers, and Alice won't know when she grabs it from the cafe the next
day. If her phone's known to be sufficiently hardened, AliceCo has less to be
concerned about when it's lost.

That's RIM's only solid current advantage, enterprise customers that can trust
their security. Anything that would give the appearance they can't offer this
security anymore would totally destroy them.

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vibrunazo
Android's full disk encryption is supposed to solve that problem. You can't
root her device and make it look the same (so she doesn't notice), because
that would require breaking the encryption.

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azakai
> The idea: abandon the BlackBerry OS 10 fiasco and adopt the upcoming Windows
> Phone 8 software instead. That’s basically the route Nokia took, opting to
> abandon Symbian in favor of Windows to power high-end phones.

And how is that working out for Nokia?

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desigooner
anecdotal-y: I've seen more Nokia smartphones in the northeast (Boston-NYC-
Washington DC corridor which I travel through pretty often) post-windows
switch than before. Maybe it's the marketing push from AT&T that has helped
them sell more smartphone units now vs. in the past

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astrodust
The Nokia phones are more visible now, the industrial design is quite
striking, but they are selling in far smaller numbers than ever.

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BruceIV
A pity RIM rejected this - still, once their stock tanks further, Microsoft
may just buy them out. Combined with a Nokia acquisition, they might be able
to put together a strong mobile presence in both the consumer and enterprise
sectors.

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Danieru
If you have two lame horses and you glue them together do you get:

1\. A race horse, or 2. Two sticky lame horses

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notaddicted
"Just because you tie two rocks together doesn't make them float" - Andy Grove

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Thimble
Badly needed cash? RIM has 2 billion.

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johansch
And with 10k employees a burn-rate at something like $150M/month.

