[HorizonXP]

Disclaimer: I used to work for RIM as a co-op student 8 years ago. I am not a current employee, but I have been an avid BlackBerry user and developer.

IMHO, these layoffs are long overdue. RIM has been growing for years under the BlackBerry OS and failed to adapt to a changing marketplace. The iPhone really blew them out of the water, and the BlackBerry Storm was a terrible attempt to try to answer that threat. The BlackBerry Java OS is old, dated, and does not have the infrastructure needed to compete in the marketplace of 5 years ago, let alone today.

That's all changing with the adoption of the QNX operating system on the BlackBerry PlayBook and BlackBerry 10. People may lament the mismanagement of the launch of the PlayBook, and I would mostly tend to agree. However, RIM has delivered a solid base from which to build upon, and they're doing all of the right things. To this day, we're still figuring out all of the nuances of the OS and what can be done with it. Quite simply, QNX is fast, secure, and well-engineered. IMHO, it is leaps and bounds ahead of what iOS or even Android are capable of.

These changes are also being reflected at RIM itself. Their acquisition of QNX several years back was a masterful move. And even though RIM bought QNX, the culture seems to becoming more QNX-like, which is a great thing. (It's almost like a reverse-takeover.) They're adopting many of the lean startup methods in driving their products forward. One can point to the delivery of Dev Alpha prototypes to developers back in early May. Put out a minimum viable product to your early adopters to gather feedback and figure out what to build next. As developers, we have the opportunity to have a platform built to our needs, rather than the other way around. It smacks of lean startup methodologies.

My rambling does have a point: these layoffs are likely in the old and slow departments of RIM's past, related to the older BBOS. BBOS is going into maintenance mode, as it seems like they are no longer developing new features for it and are reserving it for their budget devices. While layoffs always suck because people are losing their livelihood, I think it's a great move on RIM's part to become leaner and more agile. They have the capability to deliver something truly wonderful with BlackBerry 10. The building blocks are all there. I'm personally hopeful they will execute it well, because that's ultimately what will determine their fate, whether they end up like Palm or like Apple. Only time will tell.

[macspoofing]

>They have the capability to deliver something truly wonderful with BlackBerry 10.

Here's my prediction, Blackberry 10 devices will turn out to be beautiful, well-made and generally pretty darn good annnnnnnnd it won't make a lick of a difference. I don't see RIM breaking the momentum of Apple and Google.

>Their acquisition of QNX several years back was a masterful move.

How so? In hindsight, it did nothing for them. Playbook, though a pretty good tablet, was a financial failure, and it's taking them until Q4 2012 to re-purpose QNX to phones - in the meantime they are hemorrhaging money, users who are switching to iOS and Android, and developers who don't want to support the current, and dead BB7 platform.

It looks like they should have instead jumped on Android bandwagon and gave Samsung a run for its money.

[HorizonXP]

I'm going to have to disagree with you on many of your points.

>Here's my prediction, Blackberry 10 devices will turn out to be beautiful, well-made and generally pretty darn good annnnnnnnd it won't make a lick of a difference. I don't see RIM breaking the momentum of Apple and Google.

I will agree with you and say that RIM's problem has never been engineering prowess. I would say that RIM makes better hardware than Google's OEMs or Apple. Just put a Bold 9900 beside a Galaxy Nexus or an iPhone. It really holds its own, and I'd say it's better. RIM's problem has always been a) software (which they're fixing b) marketing.

OH GOD HAS THE MARKETING BEEN BAD! Atrocious. I don't have answers on this front, but Apple has everyone beat in this regard. They are the trend setters, not the trend followers. Google can't even compete with them in this regard.

But Apple's momentum HAS been broken. Fact is, there are more Android handsets being sold than iPhones. Is it because Android is a better product? People feel the iPhone 4S is old? I have no clue, I'm not an expert at all. I'm just saying, it is possible to beat them. Not easy, but no impossible. And the fact is, consumers are fickle creatures. They'll go wherever the next best thing is. It may be RIM that day when they sign a new contract. And RIM can easily lose that the next time around.

But if RIM can nail the marketing, they stand a chance.

>How so? In hindsight, it did nothing for them. Playbook, though a pretty good tablet, was a financial failure, and it's taking them until Q4 2012 to re-purpose QNX to phones - in the meantime they are hemorrhaging money, users who are switching to iOS and Android, and developers who don't want to support the current, and dead BB7 platform. It looks like they should have instead jumped on Android bandwagon and gave Samsung a run for its money.

You need to understand that QNX was purpose built to run on embedded platforms. CNC machines, medical devices, automobiles, you name it, it likely runs QNX today. Re-purposing it into a mobile platform for the 2010s and 2020s is not an easy move, but it's a sound one. Moreover, RIM is building it with different goals in mind. To this date, BlackBerry is still the only platform lauded by the US government for its secure mobile needs. RIM would like to maintain that.

And I'm not going to be as eloquent here: Jumping on the Android bandwagon is the stupidest fucking choice any company can make right now, and I'm not even going to detail why. Google it yourself.

[macspoofing]

>Just put a Bold 9900 beside a Galaxy Nexus or an iPhone. It really holds its own, and I'd say it's better

It doesn't hold up. I suppose if you like a keyboard with a small screen it may be superior, but the 9900 runs a deprecated, dated OS with no app support.

>RIM's problem has always been a) software (which they're fixing b) marketing.

Their problem is lack of vision.

Regardless, they may or not have bad marketing, but every phone they released in the last 2-3 years has been subpar - no amount of marketing would have fixed that.

>But Apple's momentum HAS been broken.

I said it was a two horse race. Apple is the biggest individual manufacturer and Android has a bigger market-share. At the same time, MS is trying to wedge themselves. Actually, MS is a good example of how incredibly tough it is to break into the market. Windows phones are actually pretty darn good devices, with good hardware and really nice software, backed by millions of marketing dollars, and they are still struggling. What does that say about Rim and BB10?

>You need to understand that QNX was purpose built to run on embedded platforms...re-purposing it into a mobile platform for the 2010s and 2020s is not an easy move

Oh I get it, and that's my point. It was hard. It was hard enough that it's taking them until Q4 2012 to release QNX phones. Which means they don't have a current-gen phone to compete with the latest offerings of Apple, Samsung, and Microsoft. Which means their current, dated OS is a dead platform that doesn't stand up to competition - predictably they are losing users and developers in droves.

Given all that, don't you think that maybe buying QNX wasn't a "masterful stroke"? Do you think consumers care about QNX the embedded OS or the fact that RIM is working really really hard to get QNX on mobile phones?

>BlackBerry is still the only platform lauded by the US government for its secure mobile needs. RIM would like to maintain that.

Who cares. They can't live only off of government contracts, they need the consumer market.

>jumping on the Android bandwagon is the stupidest fucking choice any company can make right now, and I'm not even going to detail why

Samsung is making money. Amazon is making money. Using Android doesn't guarantee success but it would have given RIM a battle-tested modern OS to release their next generation of phones and tablets last year or two years ago. Don't get me wrong, I don't fault them for trying to build their own OS, because it wasn't clear 2 years ago that this was a bad decision, but with the benefit of hindsight QNX has been a total and utter disaster for the company. The one device it launched with has been a financial failure.

[HorizonXP]

>It doesn't hold up. I suppose if you like a keyboard with a small screen it may be superior, but the 9900 runs a deprecated, dated OS with no app support.

I was referring to hardware build quality. Nowhere did I say that its software is comparable, and I actually made those points about legacy BBOS myself. Apologies if I didn't make that clear.

>Their problem is lack of vision. Regardless, they may or not have bad marketing, but every phone they released in the last 2-3 years has been subpar - no amount of marketing would have fixed that.

+1 on I said it was a two horse race. Apple is the biggest individual manufacturer and Android has a bigger market-share. At the same time, MS is trying to wedge themselves. Actually, MS is a good example of how incredibly tough it is to break into the market. Windows phones are actually pretty darn good devices, with good hardware and really nice software, backed by millions of marketing dollars, and they are still struggling. What does that say about Rim and BB10?

+1 on this, but does that mean that they shouldn't try? Should MS just stop trying?

> Samsung is making money. Amazon is making money. Using Android doesn't guarantee success but it would have given RIM a battle-tested modern OS to release their next generation of phones and tablets last year or two years ago. Don't get me wrong, I don't fault them for trying to build their own OS, because it wasn't clear 2 years ago that this was a bad decision, but with the benefit of hindsight QNX has been a total and utter disaster for the company. The one device it launched with has been a financial failure.

I'll answer your previous points here.

I think we're flipping back and forth between legacy BBOS and QNX. There's so many acronyms, it is difficult to keep it straight.

BBOS is for all intents and purposes, in maintenance mode (i.e. dead). QNX/BB10 is the new hotness. RIM has spent considerable effort to get their developer community moved over to the new platform, and it is working. At the same time, they're trying to bring back the developers they haemorrhaged, and bring in new ones. This seems to be working as well, but again, we'll see when the device launches what kind of apps we see. Apparently, App World is the fastest growing app store, with a ~264% jump in apps available. That's from RIM, so understand that it likely has some "spin" attached to it. :-P

Android does not fit the goals of RIM. QNX/BB10 does. RIM would rather focus on giving prosumers and enterprise users the tools they need to get things done (i.e. BlackBerry people do, another marketing angle from RIM). That means better battery life, easy and complete multitasking, with software that has an intuitive workflow so the user can accomplish what they need to, when they need to. RIM has significant engineering prowess and know-how that is miles ahead of what Apple or Google can achieve. To simply throw that away to latch onto Android? For what? Short-term profits? Samsung and Amazon make money, sure. Samsung makes it because they're selling handsets hand over fist with something like 40% of the Android market. Amazon makes practically nothing from devices and has resorted to making profits from its App Store. Amazon's model could be sustainable, but Samsung's likely isn't. Moreover, how much room is there for another Samsung in the Android space? None. None of the other manufacturers have a marketshare greater than 10%. You're talking about HTC, LG, and Motorola, all big name manufacturers, being squashed by Samsung.

I would argue that's a tougher way to compete, than to differentiate yourself with an entirely new OS.

My final point: startups fail all the time. You either recognize those failures and pivot, or you die. RIM is trying to pivot. Is it too late? Maybe. But let them try.

[tsurantino]

I really like your insight but I'm kind of curious as to how spectacular this marketing would need to be.

I saw a preview of BlackBerry 10's new phone but it doesn't seem like a particularly new or revolutionary offering. It makes minor, necessary adjustments but it seems as though they are late by at least 2-3 years. I see friends with BlackBerry's right now and I think that they are archaic. Granted, I am in a younger, consumer market, but there's something there.

I'd like to argue that RIM's brand is now very similar to MySpace. They might fix their product, rebrand themselves or reinforce their current, enterprise brand to push into markets again, but they are crippled by their recent lack of success, bad press and steep decline. Thus, no matter how good they get as a product, by being so crippled by the intangible effects of the brand decline, I doubt whether BlackBerry can assume their position again. Like MySpace, they may keep fixing their product, but they will keep losing users because everyone else is already using something else that's marginally better/comparable.

I appreciate your input on this. Your insight has been fantastic.

[HorizonXP]

I agree with most everything you've said, but as I commented to another user, let's see what happens in 6 months before we write them off completely. Many of the same things were said about Apple too.

[damncabbage]

> OH GOD HAS THE MARKETING BEEN BAD! Atrocious.

Particularly in Australia, where it's just comically terrible (and the subject of a lot of ridicule):

http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/1/2990708/rim-wake-up-campaig...

[barkingllama]

RIM will remain the choice of companies and governments strictly due to BES; no other OS offers such direct central control over the users' devices. Companies (mine in particular) are struggling to cope with Apple and Android devices in the enterprise, and Windows Phone 7 only slighty better.

[rdl]

I wouldn't bet on this forever. There are increasingly good tools to manage at least iOS devices in enterprise environments, and the platform security features of iOS are nearly as good as Blackberry. In the BYOD world (which is growing), you can deal with less management of devices (enforcing some minimum standards), then layering stuff like Good on top of them to secure business applications.

In the BYOD world, very few people will be bringing Blackberries to the party.

[HorizonXP]

Yup, agreed, and RIM seems to be reinforcing that effort with BlackBerry 10. Moreover, they're branching out across platforms with their Mobile Fusion efforts. They know that going forward, BYOD is going to happen, and IT admins will want to manage the access those devices have. It's RIM's hedge against the failure of BB10. If BB10 fails, they can at least pivot into an mobile enterprise services company.

[oz]

Thanks for your insightful comment. I'm glad to hear this, as I am a BB fan as well. I haven't often used the other platforms, but what I've read in online reviews, the BB is still the king of email. I literally get email faster on my blackberry than in Thunderbird or the Google Apps web interface. Battery life is also stellar.

I'm looking forward to BB10, and plan to buy one when they are released in October. I hope they make the ship date.

Regarding the Playbook botch, I read recently that the reason why the Playbook had to be tethered to a phone to get email and BBM was because the RIM infrastructure only supported mapping an email account to one PIN. Have they corrected this? I understand if you're not able to comment for legal reasons.

Can you tell us more about the advantages of QNX over iOS and Android? Have you tried the Cascade SDK? Did you get your hands on the Dev Alpha?

Oh my god. I just realized what it feels like to be a fanboi. Oh well, RIM needs love too!

[HorizonXP]

Again, I do not work for RIM, I'm merely a developer.

I've used a Galaxy Nexus for the last week or so, and my parents have iPhones. E-mails and notifications arrive on the Galaxy relatively quickly, I would say almost on par with the BlackBerry, with a very slight edge given to BlackBerry. To be honest, if RIM wants to maintain their existing BES/BIS infrastructure, they're going to have to give more compelling reasons than just push notifications, because it's a problem that is almost solved on other platforms. However, as a developer, to integrate the notifications into your own app, it's easiest on the BlackBerry, and more powerful. That may be good enough reason, especially for enterprises.

You are correct about one BES/BIS account only being able to be associated with one PIN. Remember, this is something that was developed nearly 10 years ago. They could never have foreseen the day when people would need multiple devices. Remember, 10+ years ago, convergence of devices was all the rage.

That said, it was a bit shameful that they couldn't make that change, but it is somewhat understandable. I think RIM didn't foresee the need for native PIM apps on the PlayBook, because they figured most everyone would just use web-based clients if necessary. I'll be frank, I have a BlackBerry, so I used the Bridge apps, and I continue to use them.

The multiple PIN situation is, I believe, solved. If you look at the SDK documentation, there are numerous references to PPIDs and PINs. Basically, a user has one PPID which is unique to them, but they can have multiple PINs, each representing a different device.

I've tried the Cascades SDK, and I do have a Dev Alpha. The Dev Alpha is just a smaller and faster PlayBook, with a bunch of new APIs added and a cell radio (I'm simplifying of course). It's a great little device that has made development much easier. That said, a lot of us are really looking forward to OS updates as there are a bunch of niggling quirks. It's very alpha...

I've tried the Cascades SDK, but I haven't done much work with it because I've been focusing on PlayBook apps right now using Qt. Actually, Cascades is built on Qt, and it's wonderful to work with. It truly makes development quick, fun, and easy. You can make some beautiful apps.

Actually, a friend and I have just finished porting PySide to the PlayBook, so you can use Qt in Python. Yes, you can write native Python apps on the PlayBook and the Dev Alpha. It is NOT officially supported, but it is there. I've taken advantage of this in my own apps.

This post is already quite long, so I won't get into the advantages of QNX over iOS or Android. To be frank, my RTOS course was over 6 years ago, and I'm by no means an expert. I would likely botch the discussion.

[freshnote]

I hear people say the BB is faster at email, but by how much? A few seconds? Even if the difference is a few minutes, it doesn't compensate for BBs many other shortcomings.

Is there something I'm missing?

FYI, I'm a long time iPhone user.

[rcfox]

If you're in a important conversation and have a few minutes delay between each response, you're wasting a lot of time.

Switching to an instant messenger isn't always an option if you're in a corporate environment. You don't want your conversations sitting on a third party server.

[HorizonXP]

This is precisely what makes BlackBerry and BES so appealing for enterprises. Also, I think e-mails are actually faster on BES than on BIS.

Little known fact: did you know that BES allows you to access your company's entire address book on your BlackBerry? When I was a co-op, it meant I could e-mail anyone in the company just by looking up their name. Sure, LDAP allows you the same capability, but on most platforms, that means you need to expose it publicly. You could secure by forcing use over a VPN, I suppose, but that's extra overhead as well, which is somewhat precious on a mobile device. It's less relevant nowadays, but it's a really cool feature that RIM has had for nearly a decade now that few consumers even know about.

I would argue that most BlackBerry users do not have they devices setup to take advantage of all of their capabilities. And to be honest, that is a huge failure of RIM's marketing and publicity teams.

[freshnote]

On the extremely rare occasion I find myself waiting for an email, I take a deep breath and get back into the present moment.

[moolcool]

I can see it being sound from a technical perspective, but what about market? Do you think people will adopt BBX? WebOS was also technically sound, but was a total failure thus far.

[HorizonXP]

You're 100% correct, it boils down to execution. RIM's (and arguably WebOS') biggest issue is the lack of apps, and they've been doing all they can to engage developers to fix this.

Things like the seeding of devices, free BB10 phone when you develop a BB10 app, App World certification, and $10k revenue guarantee are all inclinations of this desire to get developers on board. They've committed nearly $100 million to developer support and resources.

And it doesn't just end with money. I can engage and communicate with many people within RIM's developer relations team, at any time I want. I have a few on BBM, but that's rarely used as it's quite invasive and personal. I can e-mail any of them, or message them via twitter. Heck, I can e-mail or tweet the VP of Developer Relations (Alec Saunders) right now if I needed to, and expect a response within a week. You can e-mail him too if you want, he doesn't make his e-mail address unknown, he openly advertises it.

And I'm not special by any means. There are more successful developers out there, and less successful developers as well, and we all have the same resources at our disposal. RIM is doing its best to not be a faceless corporation to its developers. Speak to any BlackBerry developer right now, and they're all super excited about the platform. But we are not naive. We know this can go sour, very quickly. RIM has an uphill battle to fight, and we're placing our bets that they're going to win. We could lose, or hit the jackpot.

[ojbyrne]

Your "reverse takeover" phrase made me think of Apple and NeXT, which worked out rather well. Perhaps the same will happen at RIM.

[DeepDuh]

The thing is that Apple's turnover in the beginning of the 2000s was following a period of stagnation in PC innovation. Microsoft simply did not have to innovate in the OS department and for that reason, they didn't really at least since Windows 2000, arguably even earlier if you only consider GUI innovations.

RIM however needs to turnaround in a market situation where the two hotshots, Google and Apple, have been pushing the envelopes year after year in order to keep ground, while a third contender (Microsoft) is already lurking and waiting for the slightest weakness of the other two. With such a powerplay I don't see how RIM could make it work, sorry.

[HorizonXP]

This is great analysis and insight that I hadn't thought about.

Microsoft is definitely a beast, lurking, waiting, and ready to pounce. Their offering is extremely compelling, and is a threat to every player in the market.

We'll see what happens. No one can argue that these aren't interesting and exciting times.