The
now-$99 iPhone 3G is a "year old product" that doesn't bother Research in Motion co-CEO Jim Balsillie much, he said on a conference call with analysts today. Announcing that RIM had added 3.8 million new BlackBerry subscribers in the last quarter, Balsillie fended off analysts' questions about the new iPhone and
Palm Pre by playing up the BlackBerry's efficiency and wide carrier support.
While Apple has just driven down the price of the iPhone to $99, RIM has "had lots of offers for the BlackBerry that have been free and $49 and $99 ... so I don't really fret those kinds of things," Balsillie said. RIM's commanding
55% market share in US smart phones for the past quarter was driven in part by a buy-one, get-one-free offer from Verizon Wireless. The company expects to add another 3.8-4.1 million customers over the next quarter, thanks to the new
BlackBerry Tour (at left) which will be debuting with Sprint and Verizon this summer.
Parrying questions about RIM's substandard Web browsing experience and the number of third-party apps in the BlackBerry App World, Balsillie touted the platform's "fuel efficiency" and urged analysts to look at the BlackBerry OS, servers and network infrastructure as a "system." As more smartphone users come online, Balsillie said, they'll create more strain on networks, and RIM's multi-layered compression schemes let BlackBerries take the heat off the carriers.
"These are network appliances, not distributed computing," he said. "You have to think of the OS in a broader definition than just at an [end] point."
Balsillie couldn't get past the fact that competition is getting more intense, though. As he said that 80% of new BlackBerry subscribers were now consumers rather than enterprise IT managers, RIM has launched fully into the world of individual choice. The handheld maker will try to maintain momentum with a string of new phones, Balsillie said.
"We're excited about the plans we have in place for the second half of the fiscal year. We have a number of exciting new products planned," he said.
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June 18, 2009 8:11 PM
The problem with a device that can be " free and $49 and $99 ..." is that it's only as good as the things it can do.
Right now, for the enterprise, the Blackberry is killer - it does everything that corporate users want it to, and it's manageable to the degree that corporate IT departments want it to be. But for the everyday person? Not so much - Web browsing still stinks and the App Market is lacking. Until those two problems are solved (and don't get me wrong, RIM has come a long LONG way in a short period) they'll always wind up parrying questions about their devices.
Sadly, they could easily win on features, it's just that things like remote administration and management, remote data deletion, and a low price point just aren't sexy enough to compete with the likes of the iPhone and the Palm Pre.
June 19, 2009 7:59 PM
What apps would you like? Time wasters like Crash Bandicoot? Or maybe you can't live without hearing the latest crapola from American Idol.
Please.
BB is a buisness phone w/ serious apps, not some portable gaming system that happens to have a phone ducktaped to it. We don't expect Apple users to understand buisness apps. Because they don't get much in the way of computer progamming.
Besides, the iPhone just keeps churning out different versions of itself. Keeping it's customer base off balance enough to make them rush out and buy their "latest" model.
Apple puts out so many models, that, in a years time, it renders it's OWN products obsolete. And that's a waste of material that has to find it's way into the recycling system. If not, it's poisoning our planet.
June 20, 2009 12:54 PM
@Wolfie: I think the 21 million iPhone owners out there would disagree with your condescending attitude towards the product they own, many of them businesspeople who use their iPhones as Blackberry replacements. Saying the Blackberry is a "big kid's phone" where the iPhone isn't shows not only a tremendous lack of understanding of the device (poisioning the planet?), but it also shows you've never paid attention to the apps in the App store. Take a look and then get back to us with meaningful commentary.
As for Apple rendering its own products obsolete - I can't think of someone who's worse at that than Blackberry. The Bold, the Curve, the Storm, the Pearl, the Flip, Blackberry has so many cannibalizing models out there targeted at essentially the same user base it's ridiculous. They claim the Storm is their flagship device, but the problem with it is that it's just flat out terrible.
At least Apple's managed to create a serious platform that's capable of pleasing more than one audience.
June 21, 2009 4:50 PM
There are three problems with networking on the BlackBerry.
1. In most cases, BlackBerries are connected through the BlackBerry networking infrastructure, which results in poor data connection speeds when accessing the Internet. While this infrastructure supports compressed push text email very well, it's a real bottleneck when trying to access the open Internet.
2. Multiple apps making simultaneous Internet connections really slow things down. It looks like the device just wasn't designed for such a scenario. In fact, until recently, most BlackBerries only used to support a maximum of 5 simultaneous connections.
3. WiFi is broken. Not only do apps have to be specially coded to access the Internet via WiFi (outside of the BlackBerry infrastructure), but the network stack on the device seems to have some real problems with connecting through some DNS servers and some ISPs. What's worse is that if the device fails to make a connection through a DNS server, it will cache this result, so that it won't even try to make another connection to the same domain -- which essentially means, one error, and you're locked out of a web site for a day.
It's interesting that they have been promoting streaming media apps like Slacker and Pandora. But neither of these will connect over open WiFi with my ISP. This is simply unacceptable.