[officemonkey]

The difference between the Blackberry my work gives me and my personal iPod touch is staggering.

  * Web browser is pathetic.  
  * Pandora and Tunein apps are wonky. They stall for no reason, and turn on after you pause them.  
  * Kindle app is a pale imitation.  
  * Facebook app is so bad, you're better off using the mobile facebook on the web browser.

The only thing I _like_ about my Blackberry is the physical keyboard and the email/text/bbm environment. It's clean, functional, and the best of breed... for 2005.

RIM might be a big player on the international scene for a cheap smartphone (especially if they do i18n right) but they're not going to recapture the iPhone/Droid market without a major overhaul.

[Zenst]

The RIM service/backbone is as you say there email/bbm enviroment and why they have not tried pushing those services out onto other platforms like iOS and Android and WM7-8 is too me one of the biggest mistakes RIM has made in the past 6 years. Competing is after all more than about going head on upon all fronts, especialy when there skills and niche were in area's were they could of competed per service upon those platforms and be earning alot more on the service front than they are now and have kept the company at the forfront of peoples minds publicly as well as fiscaly. They could of also made more money by selling dedicated box's for corporate companies instead of offering software than ran upon others as the only option, a whole area of expansion they missed out upon and another area were they could of made great grounds and added another foothold into company affairs. I do wonder that if RIM had released nothing new over the past 6 years if they would be any worse of than they are now and that in itself is perhaps the most worrying aspect about were they are now. Maybe now they plan to attain a position which is were they already currently are from what I can tell, then perhaps things can start looking up. They will survive, but in what form over time is upto them. They may start becoming a cheap option for Facebook to move into other mobile revenues and that in itself for most Blackberry users would probably be recieved by mixed feelings.

In a World were a qwerty keyboard is needed RIM do the job, but we live in a World that has moved on from the calculator device mentality and today a pocket calculator has to make phone clalls organise the shopping and take the picture for the front cover of Times magazine and if it does not then the fact that it can still add and subtract and the like is completely ignored. But RIM had and still have the opertunity to move there great email system as a application onto other platforms and flourish nomater how well there handsets sell and how small there margins upon those handsets get. There reliance upon there own handsets to sell there services is one they need to break away from and whilst it is late in the day they still have that opertunity, how much of a risk would it be for them to take it.

[icefox]

Which Blackberry did your company give you? Starting with BB6 the in house browser was replaced with one based upon WebKit. If you have an earlier device you got the one made in Java that was made in house that wasn't as good.