October 4, 2004

The Rise and "Fall" of the Black Berry

The Washington Post and the NY Times had two articles about Research in Motion's (RIM) BlackBerry.

Although both articles had different points of view, both were right.

RIM's Black Berry is a corporate killer app and used by so many businesses. Some companies buy them for all their managers and the devices are as common place as a phone in many companies. On the other hand, for the consumer and "average" user the BlackBerry is not all that popular. I encourage you to read more about my analysis of phone vs PDA here.

The NY Times writes that one reason why the BlackBerry is so popular is ...corporate customers are happy that employees cannot download software into their BlackBerries. "It's an appliance," Mr. Rubin said. "There aren't all those goofy games."

Washington Post writer Rob Pegoraro writes BlackBerrys and Bluetooth share an embarrassing trait -- these two uses of wireless technology have remained stubbornly irrelevant to many mainstream users, despite the benefits they might offer and the hype they often get in the press.

Many busy executives have become utterly dependent on the always-on e-mail access provided by Research In Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry handhelds, but these devices' high costs and business-oriented features haven't constituted an attractive bundle for people who mostly use their cell phones to talk.

NY Times writer Ian Austen writes About a year ago, PalmOne was poised to challenge the dominance of the BlackBerry, the wireless e-mail device made by Research in Motion that has become the gadget of choice among celebrities and politicians.

PalmOne seemed to have all the advantages. It had a customer base in the millions while BlackBerry users numbered in the hundreds of thousands. When it acquired Handspring, PalmOne acquired the Treo, a device that combined a BlackBerry-like e-mail device with a Palm-based hand-held computer, giving it all the extras that the Blackberry lacked, like games, cameras and music players.

But somehow, the message did not make it through to BlackBerry's loyal fan base. Not only have sales of PalmOne's Treo lagged behind those of the BlackBerry, things have never been better for R.I.M.

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