[username42]

Mayer seems to view Yahoo primarily as a place where you can find all sorts of stuff on one giant app. “Once the user’s in that app experience, the easiest thing to do is stay in that app experience,”.

I think this is a very insightful analysis. I think there are people that like the "yahoo" way of presenting applications. It may look old fashion to others, but there is a market. If it was not the case, yahoo would already be dead. If yahoo changes its mind to do the same as others, they would lose their soul and die. We have similar experience with RIM that left professional phones with keyboard to become an Apple follower. RIM is (almost) dead.

[GVIrish]

I don't think that's a good analogy, RIM was failing because they stayed the course for too long. As soon as the iPhone came along Blackberry should've jumped on the touchscreen bandwagon. Instead they clung to their keyboard phones for too long and lost many of their regular customers to iOS and Android.

They still had a sizable lead in enterprise but even there they didn't fix some of their fundamental usability issues in a timely fashion, so a lot of enterprise customers started shifting towards Android and iOS.

Blackberry's problem is that it too them far too long to respond to a sea change in their market. Had their first true flagship touchscreen phone come in 2009 instead of 2013 they might still be a big player.

[speeder]

I think you are missing the point very hard on why RIM failed.

I am one that would own a RIM phone, IF, IF, and only IF they had made it easy to code applications for it like Apple and Google did for their phones.

RIM noticed now and BB10 is seemly really interesting, but now they are too late, there are no apps on their phone.

And I say that, because I ABSOLUTELY HATE touchscreen, it NEVER do what I want, I own a Xperia Play, and many times I prefer to use the Playstation controls to control the phone, the touchscreen is unstable, finnicky, don't work when it is raining, or when my hand is wet, or sweaty, and so on...

[username42]

RIM should have sticked to keyboard based phones and use their energy on developping the application market. I do not disagree with you, but I think they could not develop their application market because all their energy was devoted to their paradigm change.

[edanm]

Not sure if I buy this history.

Most BB users I know absolutely loved the keyboard, and thought it worked much better than a touchscreen. It was also considered by many business users to be the only phone useable for business use because you could actually type quickly on it.

Those users also abandoned the phone, but I don't know if it was because of the touchscreen.

[aestra]

You can have a keyboard and a touchscreen at the same time. I actually loved my keyboard/touchscreen android phone. I still want a real keyboard. I miss it.

I think the reason they failed was "app store." Also they had a really crappy interface compared to iPhone and Android.

[sospep]

>> You can have a keyboard and a touchscreen at the same time. I actually loved my keyboard/touchscreen android phone. I still want a real keyboard. I miss it.

I can't imagine that a BBRY Q10 running BB 10.2.1 would not have more appeal than the android keyboard/touchscreen that you had.

[aestra]

Right. Which is what I meant. I meant the problem wasn't "touchscreen" but "interface" in general as well as lack of "apps."

[sospep]

RIM(Research in Motion) was renamed/rebranded as BBRY(Blackberry) in 2013

BRRY(the company) is NOT dead.

They are still very much alive and still making and selling smartphones and other products/services.

IMO, they are doing a much better job of making them(smartphones), then they are of selling them, and if they continue on that trajectory they could well end up ... dead ... but

FWIW - Let's not put the body in the cooler until were sure that its actually not breathing.

[cma]

Google/Android left phones with keyboards to become an Apple follower (along with their own innovations) and thrived. RIM didn't die because they tried, they died because the new stuff they put out was crap.

[twoodfin]

But where is this "giant app"? The Yahoo app for iPhone looks like just a news feed.