despite the idiocy of the its two co-CEO's recent comments (what conversations they must have!), RIM is still doing OK and has real potential. but it also has big problems.
its latest quarterly report show sales and profits remaining very good. not booming like Apple, but steady - better than the other smartphone OEM's. RIM reports 5 million new subscribers - but does not say how many past subscribers it also lost to iOS and Android, probably a big number too. so its net subscriber growth is unknown. but the new subscribers account for the good dollar sales numbers.
RIM's big strength is that it is THE keyboard smartphone. consumers who put physical keyboards at the top of their priorities are always going to seriously consider low-priced RIM products. and that will always be 10%-20% of the market. its other big advantage is its entrenched enterprise market leadership. business IT always resists change, and despite the publicized opening of some big corporations to iPhone and the revival of Windows Phone 7, BB remains the standard issue business phone today around the world.
the tough challenge for RIM will be migrating these existing customers/market to its new OS, which it apparently realizes it has to do to remain viable for the long term. all the hype/spin we got from these two CEO's was a smokescreen to hide the risks. dual core! full web! well, at least they didn't say "open!" but for consumers, RIM needs something "sexy" to sell.
if RIM thinks Flash is going to give it some consumer market advantage, they are badly mistaken. Android already has that "partnership" with Adobe staked out. and trying to be a multimedia device is never going to really work for RIM - the competition (Apple and imitators) is way too far ahead with their media ecosystems for RIM to ever catch up.
what RIM needs to do is focus on its keyboard advantage and come up with the best all-purpose texting/messaging/mailing/video calling etc. smartphone for consumers who really want to do only that. the obvious play here is a totally unified in-box and "partnership" with FaceBook. RIM needs to sell a "FaceBook phone." there is a significant market now of FaceBook addicts who would buy one.
Add this all up and RIM can hold 20%+ of the market long term. do those two CEO dudes see this? probably not. they probably think they are more important than FaceBook.
... Research in Motion ... co-CEO Jim Balsillie asserted ... that the upcoming PlayBook 7-inch tablet is way ahead of Apple's iPad.
"I think there's going to be a rapid desire for high performance. And I think we're way ahead on that," Balsillie continued during Thursday's earnings call. "And I think CIO friendliness, we're way ahead on that."
"I think the PlayBook clearly sets the bar WAY higher on performance, and you're going to see more," said Balsillie. "I think the BlackBerry is still number one in social collaboration."
Summing up his response, Balsillie reiterated that he thinks RIM is "just well ahead on the PlayBook, well ahead internationally, and extending very very well."
In an October survey of business IT Buyers looking to buy a tablet, 80 percent said they would choose the iPad, compared to just 8 percent for the RIM PlayBook.
Balsillie's confidence is totally justified. He has every reason to believe the PlayBook will trounce the competition. At the end of the day, people care most about: CIO friendliness, social collaboration, high performance, and not needing an app to access the web. Balsillie hit the nail on the head here, people. Wait... I think a pig just flew past my window...
AppleInsider-After Research in Motion beat Wall Street expectations with its quarterly earnings Thursday, co-CEO Jim Balsillie asserted on the company's earnings call that the upcoming PlayBook 7-inch tablet is way ahead of Apple's iPad.
After reading thru some of the comments (I especially like the "Balmer-Lite" comparison), the one thing that seems to slip Balsillie's virtual BS is one small FACT....PlayBook hasn't even shipped yet! That makes Balsillie a STAND-ALONE idiot. He doesn't need Balmer's help anymore.
That reminds me of the wag that reported after all the Apple Store break ins that several Microsoft Stores had also suffered break ins ... people were leaving their PCs there and escaping.
I recognize Balsillie's symptoms from having dealt in a previous life with increasingly desperate executives, who stand on the podium to hurl a verbal Hail Mary in the hopes of saving a fourth-and-long situation in the last minutes of a losing game. Late-Stage Bloviation is nearly always terminal. It usually takes a bit longer - three to five months usually - before an impatient board of directors pronounces last rites on the executive afflicted by the syndrome.
Yes! The final act will be at a RIMM shareholders meeting -- where the co-Buffoons will dance across the stage, throwing Hershey's candies into the audience while crying out "Kisses for Everyone".
I think that this act was first performed by the former Branch Manager of the IBM Baltimore Metro Branch.
Mmmm... I wonder if RIM has a company song such as:
They have better offer something besides Adobe Air / Adobe Flash for developing apps. That is all they would talk about during their presentation. It sounds like that is their development platform. If you watch the demonstration, the UI often didn't respond to his touches.
Not picking on you Dick but lets not adopt this meme of using juvenile names for competing products and leave that kind of nonsense for haters.
I think there were more than a couple Apple fans calling for more restraint regarding idiotic jokes about the iPad name. If the thing is called a playbook, lets just call it that.
So having read the previous interview with Lazaridis and now being confronted with the oddly unfocused musings of Balsillie, I have to wonder how RIM ever managed to build a successful business in the first place. They speak like they're brain damaged. I mean it, not evasive or corporate speak or blustery or disingenuous or any of that, but cognitively impaired. Where you stare a sentence and try to imagine the cloudy, cross-wired processes that led to that series of words.
Maybe they have handlers that make the real decisions and they mostly keep these guys sedated in a back room? It's just horrifying.
They should both be tested for ibogaine abuse.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Underhill
Pressure makes people say the funniest things.
So does ibogaine.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Goocher
Balsillie's confidence is totally justified. He has every reason to believe the PlayBook will trounce the competition. At the end of the day, people care most about: CIO friendliness, social collaboration, high performance, and not needing an app to access the web. Balsillie hit the nail on the head here, people. Wait... I think a pig just flew past my window...
They have better offer something besides Adobe Air / Adobe Flash for developing apps. That is all they would talk about during their presentation. It sounds like that is their development platform. If you watch the demonstration, the UI often didn't respond to his touches.
You see a lot of PlayBook demos where the tablet is lying on a flat surface rather than being held.
Also you see demos that seem not to sense many of the gestures.
I think that some of this has to do with the following:
1) the demonstrator is pointing (positioning his finger) over something on the screen, but not actually touching it.
2) the entire face surface is 'hot' (touch sensitive) even the bezel surrounding the display area.
3) The GUI uses touches on the bezel for system functions -- pull down a menu, switch between apps, send an app to the background, terminate (throw away) an app, etc.
As a result, I think the PlayBook designers have painted themselves into a corner:
-- you cannot comfortably hold the device in one or two hands without touching the bezel
-- touching the bezel may cause an undesired result
I suspect that this is unsettling to the user to the point that he is afraid to touch the surface for fear of unwanted results.
Instead, the user adapts -- and carefully positions his fingers over the surface, then makes very deliberate touches to the surface.
The user has to think about what he wants to do, then take 2 specific actions (position, then touch) to accomplish the task -- never quite sure of what will happen. It is rather stilted.
...That's what I call User Friendly... In fact it is 1 GHZ, Dual Core, 1 GB RAM User Friendly.
It is ironic that on the iPad the OS gets out of the way between you and your stuff, while on the PlayBook the the UI inserts itself, in a very unsettling way, between you and the OS.
Not picking on you Dick but lets not adopt this meme of using juvenile names for competing products and leave that kind of nonsense for haters.
I think there were more than a couple Apple fans calling for more restraint regarding idiotic jokes about the iPad name. If the thing is called a playbook, lets just call it that.
I agree, and I apologize!
But I reserve the right to identify a buffoon when I see two!
You see a lot of PlayBook demos where the tablet is lying on a flat surface rather than being held.
Also you see demos that seem not to sense many of the gestures.
I think that some of this has to do with the following:
1) the demonstrator is pointing (positioning his finger) over something on the screen, but not actually touching it.
2) the entire face surface is 'hot' (touch sensitive) even the bezel surrounding the display area.
3) The GUI uses touches on the bezel for system functions -- pull down a menu, switch between apps, send an app to the background, terminate (throw away) an app, etc.
4) Or perhaps the UI is simply a scripted mock up.
that's has not yet been introduced or offered for sale yet is "way ahead" is akin to advertising a product for sale at next to nothing ..when you don't have any in stock to actually sell.
Wouldn't RIM's presence and expertise in serving IT/Enterprise be an advantage over iPad/iPad2?
It certainly should! RIM has a proven reputation and contacts within IT.
What RIM lacks is a product.
It is not clear:
-- when the product will be available
-- if the product will be competitive, when available
-- if the 7" form factor meets enterprise and IT needs
-- if the SDK and app development enviroment is robust enough for enterprise and IT needs
-- if there is sufficient potential to attract 3rd-party developers
-- if enterprise and IT can afford ti wait 3-9 months on the promise iof a solution for their needs
The iPad is what is -- a known entity. Apps are available and being developed today. Will the PlayBook offer enough advantage for enterprise and IT to change their budgets and current plans?
Comments
its latest quarterly report show sales and profits remaining very good. not booming like Apple, but steady - better than the other smartphone OEM's. RIM reports 5 million new subscribers - but does not say how many past subscribers it also lost to iOS and Android, probably a big number too. so its net subscriber growth is unknown. but the new subscribers account for the good dollar sales numbers.
RIM's big strength is that it is THE keyboard smartphone. consumers who put physical keyboards at the top of their priorities are always going to seriously consider low-priced RIM products. and that will always be 10%-20% of the market. its other big advantage is its entrenched enterprise market leadership. business IT always resists change, and despite the publicized opening of some big corporations to iPhone and the revival of Windows Phone 7, BB remains the standard issue business phone today around the world.
the tough challenge for RIM will be migrating these existing customers/market to its new OS, which it apparently realizes it has to do to remain viable for the long term. all the hype/spin we got from these two CEO's was a smokescreen to hide the risks. dual core! full web! well, at least they didn't say "open!" but for consumers, RIM needs something "sexy" to sell.
if RIM thinks Flash is going to give it some consumer market advantage, they are badly mistaken. Android already has that "partnership" with Adobe staked out. and trying to be a multimedia device is never going to really work for RIM - the competition (Apple and imitators) is way too far ahead with their media ecosystems for RIM to ever catch up.
what RIM needs to do is focus on its keyboard advantage and come up with the best all-purpose texting/messaging/mailing/video calling etc. smartphone for consumers who really want to do only that. the obvious play here is a totally unified in-box and "partnership" with FaceBook. RIM needs to sell a "FaceBook phone." there is a significant market now of FaceBook addicts who would buy one.
Add this all up and RIM can hold 20%+ of the market long term. do those two CEO dudes see this? probably not. they probably think they are more important than FaceBook.
... Research in Motion ... co-CEO Jim Balsillie asserted ... that the upcoming PlayBook 7-inch tablet is way ahead of Apple's iPad.
"I think there's going to be a rapid desire for high performance. And I think we're way ahead on that," Balsillie continued during Thursday's earnings call. "And I think CIO friendliness, we're way ahead on that."
"I think the PlayBook clearly sets the bar WAY higher on performance, and you're going to see more," said Balsillie. "I think the BlackBerry is still number one in social collaboration."
Summing up his response, Balsillie reiterated that he thinks RIM is "just well ahead on the PlayBook, well ahead internationally, and extending very very well."
In an October survey of business IT Buyers looking to buy a tablet, 80 percent said they would choose the iPad, compared to just 8 percent for the RIM PlayBook.
[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]
Balsillie's confidence is totally justified. He has every reason to believe the PlayBook will trounce the competition. At the end of the day, people care most about: CIO friendliness, social collaboration, high performance, and not needing an app to access the web. Balsillie hit the nail on the head here, people. Wait... I think a pig just flew past my window...
After reading thru some of the comments (I especially like the "Balmer-Lite" comparison), the one thing that seems to slip Balsillie's virtual BS is one small FACT....PlayBook hasn't even shipped yet! That makes Balsillie a STAND-ALONE idiot. He doesn't need Balmer's help anymore.
How can you state that any unshipped product is way ahead of anything especially when it is a glorified vehicle for adobes AIR platform. What a twat.
I think you meant twit.
That reminds me of the wag that reported after all the Apple Store break ins that several Microsoft Stores had also suffered break ins ... people were leaving their PCs there and escaping.
I recognize Balsillie's symptoms from having dealt in a previous life with increasingly desperate executives, who stand on the podium to hurl a verbal Hail Mary in the hopes of saving a fourth-and-long situation in the last minutes of a losing game. Late-Stage Bloviation is nearly always terminal. It usually takes a bit longer - three to five months usually - before an impatient board of directors pronounces last rites on the executive afflicted by the syndrome.
Yes! The final act will be at a RIMM shareholders meeting -- where the co-Buffoons will dance across the stage, throwing Hershey's candies into the audience while crying out "Kisses for Everyone".
I think that this act was first performed by the former Branch Manager of the IBM Baltimore Metro Branch.
Mmmm... I wonder if RIM has a company song such as:
http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/ex.../hailtoibm.wav
Lift up our proud and loyal voices,
Sing out in accents strong and true,
With hearts and hands to you devoted,
And inspiration ever new;
Your ties of friendship cannot sever,
Your glory time will never stem,
We will toast a name that lives forever,
Hail to the I.B.M.
Our voices swell in admiration;
Of T. J. Watson proudly sing;
He'll ever be our inspiration,
To him our voices loudly ring;
The I.B.M. will sing the praises,
Of him who brought us world acclaim,
As the volume of our chorus raises,
Hail to his honored name.
http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/ex...music_IA1.html
But it is more likely a success than the PlayJob.
Not picking on you Dick but lets not adopt this meme of using juvenile names for competing products and leave that kind of nonsense for haters.
I think there were more than a couple Apple fans calling for more restraint regarding idiotic jokes about the iPad name. If the thing is called a playbook, lets just call it that.
So having read the previous interview with Lazaridis and now being confronted with the oddly unfocused musings of Balsillie, I have to wonder how RIM ever managed to build a successful business in the first place. They speak like they're brain damaged. I mean it, not evasive or corporate speak or blustery or disingenuous or any of that, but cognitively impaired. Where you stare a sentence and try to imagine the cloudy, cross-wired processes that led to that series of words.
Maybe they have handlers that make the real decisions and they mostly keep these guys sedated in a back room? It's just horrifying.
They should both be tested for ibogaine abuse.
Pressure makes people say the funniest things.
So does ibogaine.
Balsillie's confidence is totally justified. He has every reason to believe the PlayBook will trounce the competition. At the end of the day, people care most about: CIO friendliness, social collaboration, high performance, and not needing an app to access the web. Balsillie hit the nail on the head here, people. Wait... I think a pig just flew past my window...
Test Goocher too.
They have better offer something besides Adobe Air / Adobe Flash for developing apps. That is all they would talk about during their presentation. It sounds like that is their development platform. If you watch the demonstration, the UI often didn't respond to his touches.
You see a lot of PlayBook demos where the tablet is lying on a flat surface rather than being held.
Also you see demos that seem not to sense many of the gestures.
I think that some of this has to do with the following:
1) the demonstrator is pointing (positioning his finger) over something on the screen, but not actually touching it.
2) the entire face surface is 'hot' (touch sensitive) even the bezel surrounding the display area.
3) The GUI uses touches on the bezel for system functions -- pull down a menu, switch between apps, send an app to the background, terminate (throw away) an app, etc.
As a result, I think the PlayBook designers have painted themselves into a corner:
-- you cannot comfortably hold the device in one or two hands without touching the bezel
-- touching the bezel may cause an undesired result
I suspect that this is unsettling to the user to the point that he is afraid to touch the surface for fear of unwanted results.
Instead, the user adapts -- and carefully positions his fingers over the surface, then makes very deliberate touches to the surface.
The user has to think about what he wants to do, then take 2 specific actions (position, then touch) to accomplish the task -- never quite sure of what will happen. It is rather stilted.
...That's what I call User Friendly... In fact it is 1 GHZ, Dual Core, 1 GB RAM User Friendly.
It is ironic that on the iPad the OS gets out of the way between you and your stuff, while on the PlayBook the the UI inserts itself, in a very unsettling way, between you and the OS.
Not picking on you Dick but lets not adopt this meme of using juvenile names for competing products and leave that kind of nonsense for haters.
I think there were more than a couple Apple fans calling for more restraint regarding idiotic jokes about the iPad name. If the thing is called a playbook, lets just call it that.
I agree, and I apologize!
But I reserve the right to identify a buffoon when I see two!
You see a lot of PlayBook demos where the tablet is lying on a flat surface rather than being held.
Also you see demos that seem not to sense many of the gestures.
I think that some of this has to do with the following:
1) the demonstrator is pointing (positioning his finger) over something on the screen, but not actually touching it.
2) the entire face surface is 'hot' (touch sensitive) even the bezel surrounding the display area.
3) The GUI uses touches on the bezel for system functions -- pull down a menu, switch between apps, send an app to the background, terminate (throw away) an app, etc.
4) Or perhaps the UI is simply a scripted mock up.
Finally the big boys start to respond. Let's see how Apple holds up against business-grade competitors!
Second best joke in the thread, good one
... co-CEO Jim Balsillie asserted on the company's earnings call that the upcoming PlayBook 7-inch tablet is... "tool familiarity"
I want this 'sillie's job. What a complete dumb ass.
What baloney
Finally the big boys start to respond. Let's see how Apple holds up against business-grade competitors!
Given that Apple has folks like Lexus and Mercedes in the clutches, I think it won't be a huge fight to stay neck in neck with the Playbook
And since RIM is playing the 'designed for business' card, the iPad will easily take the general consumer sales
Wouldn't RIM's presence and expertise in serving IT/Enterprise be an advantage over iPad/iPad2?
It certainly should! RIM has a proven reputation and contacts within IT.
What RIM lacks is a product.
It is not clear:
-- when the product will be available
-- if the product will be competitive, when available
-- if the 7" form factor meets enterprise and IT needs
-- if the SDK and app development enviroment is robust enough for enterprise and IT needs
-- if there is sufficient potential to attract 3rd-party developers
-- if enterprise and IT can afford ti wait 3-9 months on the promise iof a solution for their needs
The iPad is what is -- a known entity. Apps are available and being developed today. Will the PlayBook offer enough advantage for enterprise and IT to change their budgets and current plans?
So, not totally scientific, but a 40% increase in sales has yielded only 14% increase in profit.
RIM says it will no longer report subscriber growth in future quarters.
At least there are a few people paying attention to what really matters!