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I love my pearl, love that I can buy canadian. Love that it is the best product on the market for what it can do.
The pearl is a very successful product for blackberry, and yet, my brother said 'it doesn't have a full keyboard', and that is why he bought a curve instead.
An 'ipod without a scrollwheel' is an ipod touch. The scrollwheel no longer (and some would argue never did) define what an ipod was. Will the standard ipod with a scrollwheel exist when the iTouch can hold 150gb?
A 'prius with terrible mileage' does that mean that GM shouldn't build the volt? because they are known for building gas guzzlers?
These are all the reasons why blackberry MUST build the Storm. They have to learn for themselves what their customers think they want. If the storm is a flop because it doesn't have a keyboard, then Blackberry learns that. I suspect it will be a flop (relatively speaking) because of an inconsistent interface, rather than the lack of a keyboard.
Credit to Clayton Christensen here, but it isn't your customers who will tell you how to grow your business, it is the people who WANT to be your customers who expose the potentials for growth.
Blackberry needs to respond to the strengths of the iPhone, and I think they have taken a good first step (with the clickable screen), this is still an immature market and apple once again managed to secure a very strong lead by both understanding consumers needs, and seeing the opportunity far enough in advance that they took a few years of testing to ensure the product was ready for the masses.
I find it unfortunate that the Storm will be percieved as a bit of a 'me too' product, and I think the G1 is suffering the same fate, as the quality in both products just doesn't seem to match the iPhone.
But thankfully for Google/htc and Blackberry, the phone market is a fickle one. How long ago was it that everybody HAD to have a Razr? 48 months?
Blackberry needs and I believe will take what they learn from the Storm, and come out with some exceptional products enabling them to extend their line beyond just 'Blackberry a cell-phones with a keyboard'.
... which is why I would focus more on why the strategy was bad rather than the excution. I don't know enough about RIM and their product development process and cost structure to really know whether slicing and dicing is an efficient strategy (as Howard mentioned in his comment). But my guess is that Blackberry would have been better served to focus on creating their market and evangelizing their product rather than attempting to steal Apple's and create a me-too product like every other manufacturer.
I agree with you but have to raise a constant issue I have: the trackball. I am on my 4th blackberry having completely worn out the trackball. I had at 8830 with the trackwheel that never had any problems and when I was upgraded, I got stuck with the trackball.
Being that I'm not 40 years old, I can't wear a pda holster and have to keep it in the backpocket in my jeans. I can feel it on this phone that I'm about a month away from having to replace it (topping out at about 2 months usage). I only use blackberries because of the keyboard but the trackball is forcing me to have to reconsider.
cheers
I think Verizon wants you to use 3G and cripples WiFi on the Pearl and Curve (just like Storm has no WiFi)... at least WiFi doesn't show as a feature on their Web page. Lame...
Curious how well UMA calls work over WiFi, if it's just like making a regular call, if you can receive calls... will start Googling..
I've had it on my two curves and I use it all the time in my house where I
don't get good cell reception
I think the report on the NYT was a little hypercritical of the Storm. At least RIM is creating options with the device, and increasing it's consumer appeal with nifty new toys. The iPhone is a great handset if you like the way it is, and Apple won't be letting you change anything major any time soon. The touchscreen option will draw in a lot of consumer users, and that's a good thing. Some things will work very well for certain people, and some won't.. But at least you have the choice to get what works for you.
I too, have a Curve and think it's one of the three best handsets on the market, along with the iPhone and Nokia E71. I tried a touch screen LG Dare for a bit, and where the phone really fell short was in the things that make the other handsets work well. The address book was lousy, and the email was not integrated into the handset, but was an external client. There were a few other areas it was weak, but excelled at IM, and had a great mp3 player, camera, and VZNavigator experience. The keyboard itself on the Blackberry is a big part of the draw of the device, but what really makes it shine is how well everything else works to create a highly usable device. If the LG Dare ran Blackberry software, and kept it's keyboard, it would be just fine for me. They'll work out the kinks in the Storm, and it will be just as usable as a Curve in the future. But, the option is yours, and therein lies the true value of the Storm
I now have an iPhone, and immeadiatley I felt the pain of not having that keyboard there. Yes, it is better than a regular phone, but no contest to the old fashioned keyboard from blackberry. Function really kills form in this area.
I do like my iPhone better than my 7290 for obvious reasons, but for a lot of people, that keyboard is just right for them (and then again, nowadays I'm only typing 140 characters ;) )
Content in the cloud. I hate syncing to iTunes and would pay to store and stream my music content. I suppse I could use lala for this.
Worked with my employer's mail servers - not Apple's fault. Auto update applications. It would be cool if I could define a set time for the iPhone to auto update apps while I slept.
Better 3g coverage in California. Again not Apple's fault. I wish I could rent movies over the air. I think we're getting there with the recent ability to get pidcasrs over the air but AT&T might have a problem with it from a bandwidth perspective.
Skype from the iPhone. I don't want to jailbreak the phone and use Fring to skype but it is flawed.
If I think of any more I'll me back :)
I find iPhone and Curve extremely complementary, but I hate carrying them both around. I just rock the holster and explain to fashion police that I'm married.
In RE to contact look up, would race you on the iPhone any day. With favorites, voice recognition apps (which blow the vr on bb away) and the ability to simply click a letter on the side and role to the contact name I find it a lot faster than bb but it may be a tasted thing.
Bottom line: All of these activities at best would take up a couple minutes each day of my life. I spend a lot more time on my i-Phone using apps and core functionality that the bb can't do than these sort of abilities but I'd definitely add them to the "wish list"
The new apps Google has for BB are really sweet; they give an Exchange-like experience for free.
(as in beer...)
typical problems at all high growth companies with distracted leadership.
big proboems remain ahead for them based on their slice and dice sxtrategy
Wonder what your thoughts are on blackberry app development for data products. I’m aiming at a HF and IB audience, and BB seems the obvious device to develop for. How big a hurdle is it to get business people to download apps to their BB? (ie non-techie Sr partners)
I read your post back in July about the data driven nature of the BB and don’t see that changing for the foreseeable future. However you also mention that only one of your top 15 apps doesn't come with the phone, and you’ve commented in the past on the lack of a real app ecosystem for the blackberry.
Would greatly appreciate your feedback on individuals and companies you think are doing a good job in this space?
Kind regards,
Russell
Ps the Walstrip blackberry Olympics was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. What happened to the rematch? You mentioned it happened but I never saw it to online in video?! For all those who missed the first event I highly recommend it even though our hero Fred gets squeezed in the obstacle course. http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2007/02/blackberry_spee...
technicality
I think an app ecosystem for the blackberry would be great
iPhone was a disaster that lasted 2 weeks. Cool apps, great toy....but a terrible messaging device which is what it's all about.
I have yet to meet anyone that went from Blackberry to iPhone and stuck.
model I got for free and unlocked for $49
i went from a blackberry curve to an iphone. and i stil use the iphone as my main squeeze.
I sit corrected and say you are the exception that proves the rule.... :)
You don't count if you carry two phones. There absolutely no reason, in this day and age to carry two phones with one in a belt holster!
If the storm could deliver, I would love all the functionality of a blackberry curve along with a big screen, it just seems to be missing the sweet spot.
I'll second Fred, lots of kids in Manahattan use BBM.
The arguments about keyboards and the like sound line the old arguments about a mouse driven operating system (Mac) and a text based OS (MS-DOS). I remember all of the arguments about this and they were irrelevant to who won the OS wars. Apple now has over 65 million customers with credit cards for iTunes. he growth rate is crazy. Even more than this is the growth of the app store. Today there are over 10,000 apps for the iPhone and Touch. http://148apps.com/10000/
I have a blog post about this and why software developers will not continue to develop for the Blackberry. Much like developers stopped developing for the MAC years ago.
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2008/11/28/roger...
I think I'm going to spring for the Storm, the big screen is just too nice to ignore.
The way I see it, I consume more than I contribute to the web thus, the browser is more important than the key board. However, i do understand the importance of email and SMS and I/we definitely contribute/input a lot to that...
Thoughts?
It's not great, nowhere near the safari browser on the iPhone
But it gets the job done for me whenever I need it
wise I'll probably go with the "trendy" iPhone....I love my Google Reader.
Cheers Fred.
I'll try it again
http://bit.ly/TX9P
Looks pretty sweet
The big screen makes all the difference in the world. I'm all about reading RSS feeds with Viigo ( http://www.viigo.com/home )