Blackberry's space and Apple's space
 

In truth I feel that Blackberry and Apple have different spaces, and you all know the tool vs. toy argument, business vs. consumer, blah blah blah.

Although between the two, I would say Blackberry has been more aggressive going into Apple's space via the Storm and the general consumer space with the Curves, Pearls and Flips.

Apple's space remains limited to those who deem it acceptable to use a touch screen phone. Apple will never intrude into the hardware QWERTY space without an Iphone that features a fixed qwerty keyboard. But Apple's dogma of conceptual purity will surely prevent such a product. Their strategy is to make the iPhone and even the iPod Touch more and more acceptable to businesses and corporations, and maybe so, through a PDA sort of way. That's squarely aimed at the HP iPaq business.

What happened in the market is that RIM laid waste to the candybar qwerty market. In so doing just blew away Palm's and Motorola's market on qwerty phones. The biggest casualties are Win Mo phones especially. Bolds and Curves just ate up through the Treos, Q9s and Blackjacks. HTC accounts for over 50% of WinMo phones, and only one of them is the bar qwerty type.

What Win Mo lost in market share in the qwerty side is made up in the touchscreen side, especially through the HTC Touch, Diamond and Touch Pros. Other Taiwanese manufacturers like Glo-Fish has a similar pattern. In a way, although Win Mo qwerty phones are still being introduced, like the HTC Snap, much of the Win Mo efforts are directed at the touch screen side and therefore Apple's space. The biggest loser has been Nokia's N-series, whose emphasis in multimedia places them right in the tracks of Apple's train.

One does has to consider how much the hybrid---touch screen with slider qwerty---pose a threat to both spaces. This isn't just in reference to HTC's phones using that factor with Win Mo like the Touch Pro or Moguls, but also mid end phones with proprietary OSes, the spiritual descendants of the Sidekick. This factor isn't going away, and it may become more popular. Nokia has just moved into this space with two models, on the E series and another on the Xpressmusic side. I suspect RIM is looking at this direction, with probably a Storm kind of variant with a pull out keyboard.

I think RIM's future strategy lies on three horns.

1. Increase and maintain dominance of the candybar qwerty market.

2. Increase the beach head on the touch screen market.

3. A response to the hybrid touchscreen with slider qwerty market.

This is apparently a big segment as everyone is doing a purely touch screen smart phone now, even RIM. And don't underestimate Apple's anticipation of what the consumer wants. The iphone has only been out a short time and its pretty much re defined the smart phone market.

This is more a problem with Win Mobile, which hasn't really been improved in years, then RIM's "superiority" in the segment. Up until a few years ago, it was Win Mobile, Blackberry OS, Palm OS and Symbian. Palm OS was ancient and Symbian wasn't big here in the states. Given the choice between WM and BB OS, it was pretty much a sure win for RIM. Times are changing, as the Android and the Palm Pre enter the market, the Blackberry OS is going to start looking like DOS compared to the other, more modern and more capable mobile OSs.

RIM needs to really innovate if they wish to survive. I look at the new models coming up and I really just see the same old, same old with some new minor features. Palm was like that, where each new model was pretty much the same as the old. It nearly sunk them and it is still too early to know if they will indeed come back. RIM is heading down this road and as Palm well knows you can go from #1 to the very bottom is a very short time.

Aye...I just saw the Google Android demos. And it was eye opening...

I hear ya all too well on the Palm comparison. Would be the ultimate irony indeed if RIM, in the future, is forced to put one of the open OS in their phones to stay competitive.

I totally agree. Blackberry and Apple have different markets, however we are beginning to see a lot more adaptation into other markets from both phones, starting and heading towards opposite ends. Blackberry, being originally intended for the business person, is beginning to produce more stylish and media friendly phones, and the addition of AppWorld is a step toward the iphone market. And of course we cant forget about the Storm. Apple on the other hand developed their app store quite a while ago, which offers updates and applications that better suit the business person. Both companies offer games and other means to customize the phones as well. It will be interesting to see where the next Blackberrys and new iPhone take us as far as integration into new markets.

Unless Apple partners more with Microsoft to get access to Mobile Device Manager or gasp Blackberry to be a BES capable device you will not see iPhone adopted in large enterprise that have strict security concerns. We initially supported it but due to encryption regulations and the need to archive and review SMS messages (both are not available on iPhone) we have sense suspended any additional iPhone users and those that stay on the device are limited to Web access email / PIM only.

Blackberry is the standard to which any other device will be judged in enterprise. It's the gold standard and has all the management one would want when having to support mobility. I think they have made great strides in consumer adoption and their marketing and newer devices reflect that.

iPhone to me is the evolving iPod family and the biggest seller lately seems to be the Touch. Blackberry is the evolving phone .. really two different segments that are bleeding into each other but each have weaknesses.

I use both and iPhone is a great weekend device when I want to look up things, listen to music etc. Blackberry is day to day get work done device.

WinMo is pretty much dead. I still get the latest models from our carrier partners and it's a mess how in all these years they can't make a usable device.