Quote:
Originally Posted by stevew
Ummmm -ya sure. RIM will go the route of Palm shortly...
Get a grip.
RIM is here for a very long time to come.
They are cash rich and have an excellent product/platform. They will eventually get more in touch with their audience and become the top dog once again.
Have you forgotten what happened to Apple in the late 90's and how they were bailed out by Microsoft? They almost died...and now today...look where they are, or were you not not paying attention back then?
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You seem to misplace or ignore a LOT of FACTS!
1. Completely different industry: Apple was completely into PC, Desktop Publishing, Education, and Music market. It wasn't considering phones then.
2. Apple had and still has a PLETHORA of HUGE patents and innovated developers and hardware design team; always had. You remember the TAM right? It had an LCD for a desktop 10yrs before ANY of the competition.
3. Apple had its founding CEO return after being kicked out - the SOLE reason why Gates made the decision to invest NON-voting shares for 5yrs HOLD; it sure helped that Microsoft was under 27 US State Monolopy/Anti-Trust court case and HEAVILY threatened to be broken up into 2+ company's and it was VERY close to getting there in less than 12mths time at the point of investment. Jobs had been showered, kicked to the curb and almost completely broke & in debt ... BUT he recruited an incredibly talented team at NeXT learned from scratch while the Desktop Workstation market began to take hold.
4. Apple's CORE Mac OS X is the basis for their smartphone with HUGE patents for Accessibility - they LEAD in this space; despite what you may think with Windows and available hardware (brail, etc).
5. Apple had a HUGE tri-fector partnership for their core chipset: IBM+Motorola+Apple (Apple being more the design & ROM which eventually evolved).
IF RIM had to be registered as Bankrupt or purchased in 2yrs time at their going market (US/Worldwide) drop rate (revenue dropping too), and along with perceived lack of security importance (yes its not as important even for the largest USA national bank) - I'd say that RIM would NOT exist the same then as their core business today. I'd be willing to say that RIM would be Canada's next big Nortel Networks Patent sale.
I don't want RIM to loose and this 9900 is looking sweet everyday - but with a model like the NOC costing them so much to maintain along with all the crap they put up with governments with their OWN terrorist security issues/fears ... you gotta wonder how much more can they take?
On the positive I do think that this 9900 will debut quite well - almost as well received as the original Bold 9000 did if not more.
EDIT: One very important thing to note is that AutoText feature may no longer be unique to the BlackBerry ... "Shortcuts" is what its called in iOS5 Beta2.