Blackberry 10 May Not Be Enough To Save The Company

If you have used a Blackberry phone from years back, you known and understand all the great features that it contained. This was the phone used by business and the government for many years for all the security and business features contained in it. And for everything that the company had going for themselves, it seems they took their eye off the ball and did not keep up with all the growing competition. For almost 2 years, the primary focus was on the Blackberry PlayBook at the expense of their extremely popular Blackberry phones. And even the name change from RIM to Blackberry for the company has not changed the direction things are heading.

If you remember back a few years, the Blackberry PlayBook was the first to gain US Government approval for a tablet. Even though consumers where not grabbing the tablet in large numbers, the US Government saw the security values which were built into the product. But that approval was then overshadowed by the loss of sales for US Immigration & Customs Enforcement to the Apple iPhone last year. That was the beginning of a trend. And now, there is a report that the US Department of Defense is moving away from Blackberry devices and towards Apple devices. This further adds to the problems being seen for Blackberry and their future.

And it is not just in the US where the problems are being experienced. Last month, information was revealed that the Canadian Government had issued a warning about the Blackberry communications as not being secure. This involved the Pin to Pin communication and the warning indicated that this was not a secure method of sending a message. And this is coming from the country where Blackberry is based.

The Blackberry 10 OS should have arrived in 2011, but here we are in 2013 with its arrival in an extremely competitive market. Blackberry has allowed for others to take over their place as the leaders in the mobile device world and did not keep up with the needs of consumers. Relying on Government and Corporate sales was not the thing to do and that has caught up with them. With the Blackberry 10, they may now finally be going after the consumer market in a big way. And the addition of running Android apps on Blackberry devices is a great way to greatly expand choices for Blackberry owners.

But the question remains as to whether they can begin to take back market share losses from the past 3 or 4 years. Going from the 20% range in 2009, I have watched them decline into the 1% range. And that is with the addition of Microsoft Windows Phone into the mix and the rising of Samsung as a world leader in mobile devices. Given their current position, future predictions have them taking until 2016 to reach 5% worldwide. That is a very slow growth to continue to remain in the less than 10% group of worldwide devices. With all the other competition, will Blackberry be able to come back?

Is It Too Late For RIM And Blackberry 10?

Continuing delays to Blackberry 10 push it to 2013.

RIM has been having problems for the past few years and those problems are continuing. In the chart from Statista, you can see the current and estimated trend for sales of the Blackberry smart phones. And it is not a pretty picture, that is for sure. Even though they have had a management shake up, it may well be too late for the company to turn things around. In the recent release of fiscal information, RIM appears to have slowed the slide in revenue losses which is a great thing to see. But will that be enough to see a turn around in the company and return to its previous competitive levels?

At the moment, the odds are against RIM being able to accomplish that. And a turn around hinges completely on the release of Blackberry 10. Since it is not going to arrive until some time in 2013, the fiscal pressures on the company are going to continue. We can expect them to continue to slash costs through a variety of methods, including layoffs which demoralize the company. It is only their strong markets in Southeast Asia which are keeping them afloat right now. Sales and market share are strong, but that is not going to last forever. Their services arm brings in good revenue, but that is partly based on retail customers purchasing Blackberry smart phones.

More than 5 years ago, RIM was the only game in town and controlled the market in smart phones. Then Apple came along and that started the end of RIM's dominance in smart phones. And it did not have to be that way. For the next several years, RIM kept churning out the same type of phones and really did not offer anything new and exciting. And Apple became the one setting the bar for everyone else to follow, which RIM did not do. At some point a few years back, the company decided to dedicate its focus on a tablet which is the Blackberry PlayBook we all know. During that time, they ignored their smart phone line pretty much.

They purchased QNX Software and most people expected them to incorporate that into the smart phone line, but instead they put it into the PlayBook. And they still have not incorporated it into the previously popular Blackberry smart phones. While there were expectations of Blackberry 10 showing up at the beginning of 2012, that was changed to be the end of 2012. The latest is that it will be sometime in 2013. Things seem to be sliding way to far and with over a years delay, the market is going to have some major shifts in technology and the types of smart phones that people want to have.

There were leaks about the Blackberry London in 2011 and it looked to be a great looking device. But it is tied to Blackberry 10, so it gets delayed as well until next year. At a time when RIM should be releasing new products, they continue to do the road shows about the coming products. At some point, they have to deliver on products as people get tired of the continuing promises. At the moment, they are repeating the errors of the previous co-CEO's who spent close to 6 months talking about the coming Blackberry PlayBook. They cannot repeat the mistakes of the past.

RIM must release some new and innovate products in the next few months or they are going to move into the irrelevant category as a company. Next year is too late because of all the next generation phones which are expected to be shown in the first quarter. RIM is losing the battle for corporate America because of the lack of new Blackberry products. Without that, they will never reclaim the glory days in North America.

What do you think?

RIM Fighting A Losing Battle For Blackberry Survival

The rise and fall of RIM looks to be moving towards an end.

More than 5 years ago, RIM was the mobile phone provider and the one that everyone was striving to become. With the release of the Apple iPhone, the shift away from the Blackberry phones began. Even though RIM could have maintained their market share, an apparent decision was made to focus on the Blackberry Playbook at the expense of the Blackberry phone market. By not taking the approach of being a dynamic company and focusing too heavily on corporate companies and the public sector, RIM missed out on the market.

This has been a slow and long process and is best shown by an infograph of their time line over the last 5 years. In 2007, they were the most profitable company in Canada. How things have changed for them since that time. They have had multiple layoffs at the company with the last one being 30% of the current workforce. How can a company survive after letting that many employees go? Then there is the continuing exodus of management. This is a huge brain drain and is continuing.

Future for RIM - Delay of Blackberry 10
It does not look like there is much of a future for RIM as there is no positive reports coming out. The biggest news being reported is the delay in the release of Blackberry 10. That is to be some time next year. This is another delay. It was delayed until the end of 2012, which many already felt was too late to save the Blackberry line. With this most recent delay, can the company survive? The Blackberry London phones look exciting, but they are not going to show up until Blackberry 10.

Future for RIM in India
India has been one of the remain strongholds for the company with continuing strong sales there for their Blackberry Phones. But even that appears to be slowing down. In a recent report, India's slowing economy is impacting Blackberry sales. Having been dominate in India, to now lose that market strength comes at a time when RIM needs every sale they can get. Other phones are now becoming popular in Asia as well, leaving RIM with a shrinking market.

Developers moving away from RIM platform
There are numerous reports of RIM seeing the departure of app developers from their platform. While disputing the app developers loss, it appears that it is indeed happening and spells another new low for the company. At a time when they need some positive news, this comes as another problem area and spells a darkening future.

RIM loses court case in California
To add to the mess which RIM is facing is a jury decision against RIM where they have been ordered to pay 147.2 million in a patent infringement case. This could not have come at a worse time for the company. Given the financial condition of the company and the value of the stock, this spells big trouble if they are not able to get it reversed.

RIM could be purchased
While RIM wants to remain independent, the future of the company in some form may require them to be purchased. They may be able to sell more of their patents to help prolong the company until Blackberry 10 comes out. But given the number of times it has been delayed, this is not a sound idea unless they know for sure that it will be a specific release date. There are many companies being listed as potential buyers, but that is all speculation. RIM is known for their Blackberry Enterprise servers and the associated technology could interest several companies along with the supporting infrastructure all over the world.

Will RIM survive beyond 2012?
At the moment, the answer to that does not look positive. News continues to stream out indicating big problems for them this year. With the delay of Blackberry 10, they are facing some big challenges and more than likely are not going to survive. This did not happen this year, but has been building for years because they did not make the adjustments to compete with the iPhone and other manufacturers of touch screen phones. The public has driven the market from phones which include fixed keyboards to touch screens and RIM has not kept up with that.

The Blackberry Storm was their attempt to move in that direction, but it did not get very far. As a former owner of the Storm, the idea was a good one, but the implementation just didn't seem to make it. This was partly because of bugs at launch which should have never been there. Unless there is a release of a startling new product from RIM by the 4th quarter, it would appear they are not going to survive long enough to return to past glory with the Blackberry 10.

Mobile Fusion From RIM Might Save Company

RIM may have just pulled a rabbit out of the hat to save themselves.

So much of the news regarding RIM has been down right bad and the future for the company was looking very bleak. Their decision to focus on the Enterprise business first and then the consumer business has been seen as the exact opposite of what they should be doing. Smart phones have been a consumer driven business for the past few years and where the money is at. Apple has proven that beyond even their best expectation. With all changes at RIM and the really bad quarterly report, it really did look like it was too late for them to turn things around.

That is until today. RIM has come out with something which can be considered bold and it is called Mobile Fusion. This is something they have been working on for a long time and have done an outstanding job of keeping things secret about it until they were ready to roll it out. This single product which is for their Enterprise clients let's IT departments manage Blackberry devices. But it is so much more than that.

This lets IT departments manage phones which employees have selected to use at work. This means they can control Apple iPhone's and the wide selection of Android phones which are out there. All of this from a single program and not multiple programs to be maintained. This is big news for the corporate world. There are options for the pricing on this of either $99 per user or $4 per month per user. This provides further potential business for RIM and there is integration with Mobile Fusion and Blackberry Enterprise Servers which is a critical feature. All of this fits nicely around security which is a key concern for the Enterprise business that RIM is committed to supporting.

"For businesses and government, managing a mix of mobile devices on any scale is chaotic," Alan Panezic, vice president of enterprise product management and marketing at RIM, said in a statement. "BlackBerry Mobile Fusion allows organizations to manage a mixed environment of devices in the most secure, simple, and cost efficient manner possible. It also means that businesses and government do not have to move to the lowest common denominator on security for all the devices they need to manage."

Blackberry Balance In a product talked about last year, the Blackberry Balance for their smart phones fits in nicely with the new model of letting employees have their own phones with a business side to them. The Blackberry Balance set up allows personal and business communications to be isolate from each other and if necessary, the business side of the phone to be wiped by IT personnel remotely. This protects the company and allows employees to use their phones for personal use. That is common place in business, but few smart phones have the ability to isolate each side so securely.

This one would have been great to release in the fall of last year and could have potentially held on to the value of the company. We can assume that it was not ready for full release until today and this information is going to be talked about for a few weeks to gauge the impact to the market. It would appear that this looks like it is the exact thing that RIM needed to do for integration of various mobile devices to operate under the security umbrella in corporations. We can expect to see them improving this as the tablet market continues to grow.

It looks like RIM may have just snatched victory from the jaws of defeat.

You can read information from the Blackberry Business Blog.