The (Big) Problem With RIM 341
An anonymous reader writes "Research in Motion, by all accounts, had a terrible week. But things might get even worse. The Canadian technology company posted dismal quarterly earnings numbers, missing revenue and sales targets, while margins continued to shrink. Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis conceded the PlayBook had been thwarted by a lack of apps and content, not necessarily by a weak platform. Like Apple with its iOS, and Microsoft with Windows, creating a successful platform will be dependent on the eco-system it supports, but RIM hasn't shown ability to foster that."
Speculation has begun as to whether or not RIM will wind up having a PlayBook firesale in the same vein as the TouchPad.
Market fragmentation (Score:4, Interesting)
Where RIM is failing here again is just trying to get their own system out. There's just too many platforms. Hell, even on PC's most companies only make their products available for Windows and maybe OS X. They cannot compete with iOS at this point, and while a little bit better, Android has the same kind of fragmentation problems (though to a lesser degree). In my opinion RIM should go with Windows Phone 7. As RIM is mostly used by business people, they would even get Office and Exchange directly to it. Perfect for businesses.
predicted this a few years ago (Score:5, Interesting)
I had a curve 8330 and predicted this years ago.
They had a funny policy of only releasing security fixes for their OS, meanwhile leaving out features that should have been in it from the beginning.
Simple things like being able to autosplit text messages, it couldn't do, simply capped you at 160 characters.
Or even being able to adjust the vibrate functionality on a text message notification to buzz once for half a second, had to buy an app for that. Shortest vibrate was 2x 1 second vibrations. Very annoying. Oh, and it couldn't vibrate and ring at the same time for a call. It would start the ringtone and in 5 seconds start the vibrate and kill the ringtone, then just continue vibrating for the duration of the call. Had to buy an app to fix that too.
I don't recall the rest of what they left out. I remember there were at least like 4 things that the OS desperately needed but that they wouldn't put in.
I believe their reasoning was "that way they'll buy the next phone hoping it's better with its newer OS", forgetting the part where if your current customer is annoyed with you, the last thing they're going to do is go buy something else from you. So then I got an android...
No apps? RIM's fault. (Score:4, Interesting)
For years RIM charged $200 to register as a developer before you could make any apps. Just a few months ago they announced they are "waiving" the fee.
You spent years "waiving" potential developers to other platforms. No one wants to spend $200 on a weekend hobby, and that's what most apps are.
There are a lot of issues (Score:4, Interesting)
I own a PlayBook. The first thing I wanted to do with it was connect to my work computer (Windows) and remote desktop. Well, PB doesn't support PPTP or L2TP/IPSec, so that won't work. Furthermore, it doesn't have a remote desktop app, further making this impossible. I then tried to connect it to a BlackBerry (I don't own one, but a co-workers does), and it failed. The only way to make it work was to re-flash the device with the same ROM (not a new one.. I don't know why). So, then I could read e-mail, right? Yes, but you can't open attachments... wtf?
I think the above is a good summary of the overall impression people get from BlackBerry. Have you ever tried to use their desktop software for syncing music/etc to their phones? It's ridiculously awful. I actually laughed out loud when I saw it, as it took about 5 minutes just to detect the device and communicate with it. It just leaves a really bad taste in the mouth.
Which brings me to my last point, which is the development environment. For PB, it's not existent.. it's command line. Sorry, but that's not acceptable. I mean, sure, when you first release the device, but now there's still nothing? At least make an eclipse plug-in. For BlackBerry.. well, I've made a few apps for 4.6.0 and above, and it was tragic at best. There are many simple things that are just not available (some graphical markup language anyone?) - the fact that I have to write my GUI in code just reeks of outdated. And then something like connecting to the internet requires re-implementation of connection detection every time.. there's nothing built into the framework to just abstract dealing with the connection away.
I've read quite a few BB developer forums, and they are all fairly negative, or very frustrated. How can they expect a great app eco-system, when they obviously have absolutely no care in the world for their developers?
Problems with RIM and the Playbook from an owner (Score:5, Interesting)
I ended up with a Playbook from winning a contest just about a year ago. I was super excited to get one -- all the specs were great and it seemed like a winning device. The conference I was at had only one, and they kept it behiend a glass case. They wouldn't let any of the devs touch it, but they handed out Playbook Emulators (software) that you could build apps against. Over the course of the next 4 months, the API changed soo many times, and the Emulator was so buggy that it was almost pointless to develop against it.
From that point, it was 6 months before I got the real device in the mail.
A lot of promises that made the device a best-seller still haven't materilized.
- It was said it was going to ship with the ability to run Android and old BBx Apps.
- It was said that devlopers could develop apps in native QNX. Such an SDK has still not been released, except for a few select partners (I've been a BB developer for YEARS, and thought I could make this list... I guess not).
- There were BB phones that were supposed to be released immediatly after the Playbook that ran QNX. This would allow devs to target one SDK / App development model for both phones and tablets. We have not seen anything about a new QNX phone yet.
- It was said that there would be a version that had GSM/CDMA capabilities coming... It's been bumped off their road map. You can either use WiFi, or tether to an existing BB phone.
- There is no 'smartphone' stuff in there. No Calendar, no Mail, nothing. You can tether to an existing BB phone and emulate some of those things, but if your phone is off, or out of range you loose those apps. Who pays hundreds of dollars and can't check your mail on a device!
- There has been a real lack of business apps. Still no SSH app, still no RDP app. No email, no word processor, etc. These are the things people will notice when they check out the devices in the store. If the developer eco-system wasn't supporting these types of apps, RIM should have whipped them up to fill in the gaps. They didn't, and they still don't exist.
- They've scared off most developers because of the way they run their program. You have to register your device with your program and download a developer 'token' that is only good for 30 days. Every 30 days you need to re-register your device to be able to deploy apps to it. Additionally, you have to bake those tokens into your app, which means that your apps can really only be tested for 30 day windows. To get your tokens approved it can take DAYS. Submitting stuff to the App World is a similar process as Apple, except you get more feedback when your apps get rejected.
Now, all that being said, hardware wise I think the device is REAL nice.. One of the best tablet screens I've ever encountered. I love the gestures (the borders of the device are touch sensitive, and most of the gestures you use with the device orgionate from there). The web browser is really solid, and the multi-tasking works very well. Because of the screen, it's one of the few devices I can read a full newspaper on without having a lot of strain on my eyes. The OS is also beautiful too -- and much better laid out than iOS or Android. The battery lasts about 8 hours of continious use, which is great for a device like that.
That being said -- I don't use it every day. I don't even use it every week because the lack of apps to do my work. At this point, it is a glorified web browser and that's about it. Give me the ability to do my day-to-day job (like I can on the iPad or Samsung tab), and it would be the device to carry around. But not until then.
Re:Market fragmentation (Score:3, Interesting)
The same could be said about nokia
That's 100% true. If we continue the PC market analogy, Windows 7/8 looks exactly like IBM's OS/2 and I don't see how Nokia coming in with new proprietary phones can save Windows any more than IBM's MCA saved OS/2. I'm sure that in 15 years there will be loads of MS fans whining about how much better Windows 8 was than than iOS 5 and Android 4, but it was just discriminated against by Apple / Android / whichever wins in the competitive market. As with Windows Mobile, there will be a bunch of anoraks running around telling us how it's the only system which gives you full flexibility and completely ignoring
Re:i have to admit (Score:4, Interesting)
I didn't understand this myself for ages, it's only in the last couple of years I've figured it out.
The selling point (not just with RIM but with any smartphone/sync combination) is a lot more than just email. There's a whole lot of little things which on their own sound utterly inconsequential - but in actual fact add up to enough that for many people they represent real value:
1. Push email. I know about the IMAP IDLE command. Few smartphones implements this; those that implement IMAP in any form frequently do such a ham-fisted job of it you wonder why they bother.
2. Calendar sync. What exactly do you carry around with you that can vibrate or make noises on schedule to remind you of an appointment and can keep your appointments in sync with a central server so others looking to schedule meetings can ensure they choose a convenient time? You and I have maybe a couple of meetings a week, usually at fixed times and they're often not terribly consequential. Missing one is fairly unlikely (because they're at fixed times) and usually of little consequence. The sales manager (whose job basically consists of "Go to meeting, talk about our product and try to sell it, lather rinse and repeat up to several times a day every day for months on end") doesn't have that luxury.
3. Contacts sync. You and I lose our contacts list on our phone, it's mildly annoying but we're probably organised enough to remember to sync it with out computer occasionally so we can always reload it. Worst case, we lose a handful of contacts - but we're probably not using the phone enough to care about a handful of ultimately inconsequential numbers. The people who are buying these phones: A. aren't that organised and B. depend so heavily on their contacts list that without it they are in serious trouble. Salesmen are again the most obvious example of this.
Arguments 2 and 3 also go some way to explaining the continued popularity of Outlook/Exchange. You care to explain to the sales director that as his laptop has been stolen, the information about upcoming meetings and his contact list has gone with it? Bearing in mind that as soon as you've left the room, that sales director is going to have a very difficult meeting with his manager. I guarantee you the second thing out of his mouth (straight after "Oh dear, it looks like the meetings at which I was hoping to secure £several million worth of sales are scuppered, because I can only remember details of one or two of them. We're going to look pretty bad when I don't even show up.") will be "This never happened at my last company where we had Exchange. If I lost a phone or laptop there, it would be replaced and the replacement would get all this information."
Re:Market fragmentation (Score:4, Interesting)