Tag: rim

Android is *still* blowing everyone away

Posted on

Remember when we told you that Android was Blowing Everyone Away back in May of this year?

They were on the up, with about 37% of market share, RIM was in freefall (down to 25%) and Apple was doing “ok”, fairly steady at about 25%. Well, now Business Insider have updated that graph for November – 6 months on:

As BI note:

Android now has 52.5% of the global smartphone market. No matter how you want to slice it, that’s amazing. It’s stealing share from every other smartphone operating system other than iOS, which is basically flat.

Which begs the question, when you look for your next phone – why would you look at anything except Android?

RIM, you’re dead to me now

Posted on

Reblogging this post from Jim Kerstetter, a senior executive editor at CNET News on the recent Blackberry problems.

I can’t believe you did this, RIM.

I’ve stuck up for you for years.
When the iPhone came out, I said, “Looks great, but what kind of security does it have?”
When Google and its posse of handset makers started selling quite lovely smart phones, I said, “OK, sure, but what about network reliability?”
And when Microsoft came out with its new Windows Phone stuff, I said, OK, I didn’t really say anything at all.

I’ve endured taunting by my wife, as she caressed her precious iPhone. I’ve tried to explain to my daughter when she asked why my phone doesn’t have cool games like her mother’s phone, that my BlackBerry is a work tool, you see, and I have no time for such things. I’ve even endured the giggles of coworkers who can’t believe I’m such a fuddy duddy, sticking with you. “For God’s sakes,” they say, “embrace the future.” And when things got rough with the other families, I even sent you to Vegas to learn the casino business.

But this gaffe, this is too much. I woke up yesterday and did the first thing I always do: I went to my BlackBerry to check my e-mail. This simple act is, mind you, very important to me. Has a big story broken overnight? Is there a crisis I need to deal with? I’m sure I’m not the only person who does this every morning.

And you know what I saw? That’s right, nada, nothing since about 5:30 PT (I’m sure other people experienced slightly different outages). I waited. I saw your apologies on Twitter and on your site. And on TV. I appreciated that you care. Really, I did. I’d have appreciated it a lot more if you didn’t go down for more than a half a day, of course.
Here’s the thing about BlackBerry users: We’re people who, at least when it comes to our phones, appreciate function over form. We’ve stuck with our little, not terribly stylish bricks because they worked. They didn’t drop calls at bad moments. The e-mail came in and was easy to access. The point was simplicity, lack of worry. It just worked.

Can I really say that now?

Last night, before I went to bed, I saw my e-mail reappearing on my phone and hoped, really hoped, that even more new e-mails would be there in the morning. They were. Thank you for that. And I’m sure a few million government employees, along with President Obama (I think), were happy to walk into the office this morning a little better informed about what their day was going to bring.
But this may have put me over the edge. You broke my heart, RIM. You made me look all kinds of foolish. Saturday morning, I’ll be looking for a new phone. I won’t be visiting the BlackBerry section.

(Emphasis by me)

Just the right amount of humour and personality in there to make us understand that this has affected him personally, rather than it being just another tirade over the server problems which took the BB network down for a couple of days earlier this week.

But Jim hits the nail on the head with his observations on Blackberry users. It’s function over form. The function? Well, it’s BBM (for the young guys), it’s the “free” internet for the older ones. The form? Well, it’s non-existant:

A lack of new products, a lack of innovation, a particularly pathetic tablet offering, a lack of decent apps and some strong competition from Android and Apple that RIM seem to have no answer to and it really looks like they could be headed the same way as Nokia.

As Jim says:

The point was simplicity, lack of worry. It just worked.

Now that one advantage has been lost as well.

And when you add in the disrespectful lack of information given to their customers during the crash, the cross-platform loveliness of Whatsapp (iMessage – yeah, whatever) and the ever-decreasing costs of data, it’s suddenly looking very ropey for RIM.

So, BB users: Are you happy to stick with BB? If so, why?
Or are you, like Jim, ready to move on? Now or at the end of your contract?

Android is Blowing Everyone Away

Posted on

That’s not my line up there in the title, it belongs to Business Insider, who published this astounding graph on their site yesterday.

In my line of work, I’m well used to looking at graphs and attempting to observe subtle differences and trends within the data.
This isn’t one of them though, is it?

And while the blue Android line is rising, the green BB is in freefall, which should come as no surprise to anyone. (Least of all anyone who has talked to my wife).

Byebye BB?

Posted on

This has been doing the rounds all over the internet since it came out last week, but it needs to be here too, just in case anyone missed it:
Gizmodo’s Ten Reasons Why BlackBerry Is Screwed.

While BB came out as the coolest brand amongst the youth in South Africa in the recent Sunday Times Generation Y survey, it seems that the South African Youth is sadly not really in touch with reality (who’d have believed it?). While BB holds the lion’s share of the smartphone market in SA, it’s all beginning to unravel worldwide.

A lack of new products, a lack of innovation, a particularly pathetic tablet offering, a lack of decent apps and some strong competition from Android and Apple that RIM seem to have no answer to and it really looks like they could be headed the same way as Nokia.
As the article points out, when BB are losing their stronghold on the corporate market, something is obviously going very wrong.

As for the stat that more than 50% of all current BB users want to change to a different smartphone platform on their next upgrade, I can well believe it: exactly 100% of the current BB users in this household would rather be on anything other than her BB.