RIM Tosses the Coin the Next Year: What are the Variables Related to its Success?

RIM, the Blackberry making company has been beleaguered consistently by other vying parties’ successes, for at least past two years now. The company is counting on the Blackberry 10 for its future growth, survival or reincarnation; however you want to put it. The introduction of Blackberry  10, both as a new platform as well as the handsets, has its fate depending upon the way this launch is managed taking into account several variables that need to be dealt with. Among these the chief factors include dealing with developer indifference and fragmentation. It is these issues more than Blackberry’s much touted hebetudinous appearance in terms of catering to consumer trends or responding to market standards that are most likely to turn this company’s comeback into a don’t-comeback.


About the launch

According to a report by Pocket-Lint, RIM is planning on releasing six new handsets running Blackberry 10 in the first quarter of 2013. Of these six, at least one will be completely touch screen and another a combination of Qwerty keyboard and touch screen. The huge bet on which RIM is going all in is releasing six Blackberry handsets, while it could be a smart move on their part to have diversity it could also thin out sales by confusing buyers. It is a bet considered while compared with the idea of launching lesser, may be two handsets, which speak out for themselves that they have been an output of real hard work by being exemplary ground breaking devices. The launch of these devices has also been postponed which has disappointed BB fans but according to Gartner’s principal mobility analyst for Western Europe, the delay might actually work for RIM in the sense that they might be able to conjure up more attention and response at that time rather than the end of 2012. The competition in the fourth quarter this year is already going to be fierce with Nokia revealing its Windows 8 based Lumia handsets and Apple launching iPhone 5, perhaps BB is better off with the delay till the first quarter of 2013.

Pressing issues concerning the success or failure

As aforementioned, more important issues for RIM include having the developers’ on its side. Retaining the developers works alongside fragmentation. RIM has been known to be stronger among enterprise users rather than consumer buyers. However, developers are important for any smart phone manufacturing company these days. The company has been attempting to seduce them with financial incentives but it is doubtful whether or not could it be considered enough. Cozza reinforces that RIM will become a victim of the tyranny of majority and be marginalized if there are no improvements shown towards its ecosystem and the developers side.

Fragmentation: Another nightmare on RIM street

Other than being ditched by the developers the other issue that should haunt RIM is fragmentation, this problem is mostly attributed to Android. The enterprises that have Blackberry mobiles already in use could be using a mix of different handsets from Blackberry 5 to 7. A point that could be raised here is that the next year when the new Blackberry series gets rolled out for entrepreneurial use alongside its ancestors, running on different platforms, the new QNX based OS is a different technology requiring a different BB Enterprise server. As RIM puts out the new server at the same time and assures the customers about the compatibility of the update with the older devices as well, some people might be raising their eyebrows to such claims.

Nonetheless, if these two chief areas are covered and RIM manages a grand well managed launch of its new BB series with actually some features that could make various consumer ranges want to meddle with these devices, RIM does have a chance. Hopefully the changes made to their ecosystem, if any, will not make it any more prone to the attacks of the constant menace that cell phone spy apps, Keystroke loggers, etc. have been, at least to other open platforms like Android.

Author Bio:
James Clark has been playing with his words and spinning out one informative piece after another on spy software for blackberry along with iPhone spy for a while now. His work is about all things technology related, especially when it comes to Mobiles.