Comment by mixdup
I would kill to see the presentation from RIM
This is to Nokia's credit. It didn't work out, but they also weren't arrogant like RIM or Microsoft
I would kill to see the presentation from RIM
This is to Nokia's credit. It didn't work out, but they also weren't arrogant like RIM or Microsoft
Losing the Signal: How BlackBerry’s bid to one-up the iPhone failed: https://archive.ph/IgW6s
> In the summer of 2007, however, Lazaridis cracked open a phone that gave him pause. “They’ve put a Mac in this thing,” he marvelled after peering inside one of the new iPhones.
> Lazaridis shared the revelation with his handset engineers, who had been pushing to expand BlackBerry’s Internet reach for years. Before, Lazaridis had waved them off. Carriers wouldn’t allow RIM to include more than a simple browser because it would crash their networks. After his iPhone autopsy, however, he realized the smartphone race was in danger of shifting. If consumers and carriers continued to embrace the iPhone, BlackBerry would need more than its efficient e-mail and battery to lead the market. “If this thing catches on, we’re competing with a Mac, not a Nokia,” he said. The new battleground was mobile computing. Lazaridis figured RIM’s core corporate market was safe because the iPhone couldn’t match BlackBerry’s reliable keyboard and in-house network delivery of secure e-mails. But in the consumer market, where the Pearl phone was competing, RIM needed a full Web browser. BlackBerry was a sensation because it put e-mail in people’s pockets. Now, iPhone was offering the full Internet. If BlackBerry was to prevail, he told RIM’s engineers, “We have to fix everything that’s wrong with the iPhone.”
I know people who were at RIM at the time, including someone who was in the room when they passed around the first iPhone they got a hold of. They firmly believed the iPhone was dead on arrival both because the product was "terrible" (no keyboard, no battery life, etc. etc.) and, more importantly, because they were so confident Apple would not be able to pull off the networking required and people wouldn't be able to use the device at all.
People forget just how powerful RIM was in the business world, and the keyboard WAS a real stickler (even today, you can go to any large conference and ask "who here misses the blackberry keyboard" and you'll get a decent show of hands).
It was a real issue and a real opportunity - I remember for years after the iPhone came out the blackberry die-hards were insisting that they'd easily be able to make something that was "iPhone like with a blackberry keyboard" - but during those years more and more people started carrying two phones, an iPhone for home and a blackberry for work.
That was the beginning of the end.
> I remember for years after the iPhone came out the blackberry die-hards were insisting that they'd easily be able to make something that was "iPhone like with a blackberry keyboard"
Part of the problem is that there were not enough of them to sustain a company the size of RIM. The vast majority of the market did not care and instead valued the other side of the tradeoff, the things you can do with a touch screen but not with a physical keyboard.
I think even when companies project arrogance from their c-suite, it’s more to keep the market happy and calm nerves. I’d be shocked if RIM wasn’t also sweating bullets internally after that iPhone presentation. They weren’t morons, and saw what happened with iPods.