Why RIM matters

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Abhishek Puri: Jan 17 2013, 03:59 IST

Tags: Research In Motion | BlackBerry | IPhone

Research In Motion (RIM) was on a roll when BlackBerry (BB) held its sway in consumer and enterprise segments. People coined the term “crackberry” for its strong adherents. However, consumer market was shaken up with Apple’s iPhone. Backed by brilliant marketing, engineered shortages and stunted product (so that subsequent models could be sold as improvements), it captured the imagination of masses. It was revolutionary in concept because it featured touch interface with its own app store that supplemented its core feature set. The fawning media set the bar higher for other claimants in the space.

RIM suffered loss of market share to Android, primarily in North America, where its epitaph was nearly set in stone. Interestingly, they grew in terms of subscriber numbers rest of world. RIM, at one time, considered switching to Android, but developed its own operating system from ground up as a differentiator. With its war chest, RIM acquired, UNIX like operating system (OS), QNX which has proved its worth as an embeddable, resilient and highly scalable kernel. It is currently deployed in mission critical systems like medical devices, high speed trains, semiconductor manufacturing, nuclear power plants and automobiles where fail safe components are essential.

Why RIM matters now? BlackBerry smartphone is likely to be proverbial dark horse in RIM’s ecosystem. Once you realise the beauty of underlying OS, you can appreciate RIM’s recent spate of acquisitions in human computer user interface (Astonishing Tribe), calendar/memo applications (Tungle.me) and video/picture editing (JayCut). With QNX as core, for example, medical systems,

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Sak | 17-Jan-2013Reply | Forward

Of late RIM has lost huge ground to Apple & Google. To comeback successfully it will need a lot more than a good or a great product. It will need something path-breaking. Something that is cool and has never been seen or done before. Something which is practical at the same time. Basically it needs to out-think Google and Apple. Its a steep slope to climb but not impossible. RIM have done the right thing by not rushing with the launch of BB10. Now just hope they have a winner on their hands and they market it well!!