RIM: One Year Later

Thorsten Heins, RIM CEO

What's up with RIM lately? A year ago, the company was pronounced dead. The revenue was collapsing, the company was losing market share, and the press was having a field day with delivering disaster stories about the BlackBerry maker. When Thorsten Heins was named the new CEO in January 2012, I was cynically thinking that here was another of those German technology company CEOs who will show us how to run a business the "proper way". Just remember Michael Spindler at Apple, Eckhart Pfeiffer at Compaq, and Leo Apotheker at HP!

However, Mr. Heins has so far proven me wrong. While it is way too soon to speak about a turnaround, he has clearly managed to calm the company down. The revenue has stabilized, the string of bad news about various mishaps and calamities has seized and the press is yet again buzzing with excitement about the next model of BlackBerry. As a result, the stock has bounced back from the summer lows.

Living in Waterloo, Ontario, where RIM is the largest employer in the region, I can also see that the doomsday scenarios haven't come true. There has been no massive exodus. The housing market is relatively strong and houses are selling fast. No thousands of “For Sale” or “Going Out of Business” signs. When recruiting, I see more resumes with RIM experience than a year or two ago but there are no RIM bread lines at the local Starbucks. After the layoffs last year, most of the workforce has been quickly absorbed by the more than 850 high technology companies in Waterloo; my employer OpenText among them.

The RIM stock has bounced back from its low levels 

Sure, RIM is far from being out of the wood works. The company continues losing market share and several of the big RIM customers have publicly jumped the ship. The BlackBerry PlayBooks has been officially declared a flop and working on a BlackBerry phone comes today with the same image as driving a Ford Crown Victoria. The pressure is on. All eyes are now on the soon to be released BlackBerry 10 which will be the most significant innovation since RIM switched from a 2-way pager to the BlackBerry smartphone. All the chips are on one number: the BlackBerry 10. It has to be a success - RIM won't get a third chance.

So far, the BlackBerry 10 looks solid. There is plenty of buzz about it and the "leaked BlackBerry 10 picture" campaign is working like a charm. The technology blogs are loving it and reporting about it daily. Most of those reports are very positive. While I am not much into following celebrities on social media, I noticed that RIM has engaged them as well - just the other day, the marathon champion Paula Radcliffe tweeted about her BlackBerry 10 crush. If the BlackBerry 10 fails, it won't be RIM Marketing's fault.

BlackBerry 10 (Photo: closari on Flickr)

RIM is now finally doing the right thing to address their key weakness - the shortage of applications. Last weekend, RIM was running another “portathon” and actually offering cash to developers for porting their apps to the BlackBerry OS. While $100 per application might not be much, I suspect it is more than what some of those apps earn in their lifetime. This is something that even Microsoft has yet to learn. In fact, the battle for the 3rd place mobile OS - after Google Android and Apple iOS - will be fought between RIM and Microsoft and the outcome is wide open today.

The bottom line is that RIM managed to get itself a little bit of a reprieve. This is no time to declare victory, but if the new product hits the mark, there is a sufficiently large and loyal customer base that will embrace it. Let’s hope the BlackBerry 10 delivers!

App Store Comparison - iPhone vs Android vs BlackBerry vs Windows Phone

Recently, I wrote about my take on the smartphone market. My conclusion was that the key factor to success is the availability of apps, noting that iPhone is way ahead of the game with Android following closely behind while Microsoft and BlackBerry are nowhere. But as soon as I published my blog post, Microsoft announced that they now have 100,000 apps in their app store. And I started doubting myself...

100,000 apps sounds like a pretty good number. I only use about 100 apps on my iPhone and so 100,000 is a lot to choose from. But there was this nagging feeling that the number of apps available is actually a pretty meaningless number. What I really care about is my apps. The apps that satisfy my needs. But which apps are those?

Well, I recently published a post about my favorite apps on the iPhone. I have distinguished between the coolest and the most useful apps. That’s a good list to start. In the article, I have mentioned a few solid alternatives and so let’s add them to the list too. I should also add a couple of service apps for services I use a lot like Marriott and Air Canada. They didn’t make the list but let’s see. And for a good measure, let’s add some of the event specific apps to the list. What could be more important right now than Wimbledon, Tour de France and the Olympics?

That results is a pretty good basket of meaningful, useful apps. There are 30 of them in total and I have all of them on my iPhone. No basket is perfect or entirely rational but a sample basket is useful. Just ask the Dow-Jones. So let’s take a look at how the other smartphones scored. I have checked the app stores for Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone. Here are the results:

The results? As expected, Android scored relatively high and by far the best. With 23 out of 30 apps available on Android, Google is not on the same level as Apple but certainly in contention. Microsoft Windows scored 16 out of 30 apps which was disappointing. That said, most of the big providers such as Netflix, Audible, Shazam or Evernote have made it as far as supporting Windows by now which is encouraging. But if you are looking for any more specialized apps for your Windows Phone, forget it.

BlackBerry, as expected, is far behind and considering that they are in the process of switching operating systems to QNX, the apps shortage is not going to improve anytime soon.

So there you have it. The next time any of these vendors start throwing around numbers like hundreds of thousands of available apps in their apps store, remember that such numbers matter little. What matters is - do they have the apps I need?

The State of the Mobile Market

The latest marketshare data for the mobile devices market has been released recently and I thought that it might be a good time to take a look at the mobile market today and tomorrow. First, lets take a look at the data that comes from comScore, combined with the latest Nielsen report and with data from iSuppli and a few other sources. The most widely reported information is the smartphone market share which looks as follows (comScore):

Basically, there are three vendors left today - Google, Apple, and RIM - with RIM losing market share while Google and Apple are growing. A forth vendor, Microsoft is fighting what seems to be a loosing battle to connect with the leading group. According to many analysts including Gartner and IDC, we will see some massive changes in the near future. The research firm iSuppli recently published a report that suggests that the Windows Phone will not only knock off the fast-fading RIM from its 3rd spot but it will even steal the 2nd spot away from Apple:

So why are all the analyst so bullish on Windows Phone when Microsoft has been losing marketshare so far? Well, the next data point may suggest an explanation:

As we can see, the smartphone penetration is still relatively low but growing very quickly. The overall market growth for mobile devices is at 10.8% according to iSuppli and both Nielsen and iSuppli expect that 60% of devices sold in 2015 will be smartphones. That means that there is plenty of marketshare to grab amid the double digit device growth, the rapid growth of smartphone penetration and the decline of other vendors.

Not a bad market to be in, is it? No wonder the vendors are so desperate to grab a piece of this pie. Today, Google and Apple have a clear lock on the top two positions while RIM keeps sliding and Microsoft is nowhere - at least so far. There are rumors about a Facebook phone and HP still has to make up or re-make up their mind about what to do with webOS. Here are some thoughts about the respective players:

Google
Google has grabbed a ton of market share thanks to all the Asian manufacturers such as Samsung, LG, HTC, Sony, etc. They all needed an operating system and since Google Android is free, the choice was easy. So far so good except that there are three big problems looming ahead. First, as a result of the open source model, the Google market has become massively fragmented and application developers struggle to support all the device types. Second, Google acquired Motorola which will make it difficult to keep the competition honest between its own devices and the other vendors. Third, Google is hardly making any money on Android - in fact they are paying hefty patent fees to Microsoft for each device - which makes it a hard business to sustain for a publicly traded company.

Apple
Apple may have lost the top market share spot to Google but honestly, Apple is running circles around everybody. Leveraging their unique value proposition of a tightly integrated system consisting of hardware, software and content, Apple is just piling up profits and making everyone else look bad. Make no mistake, the market share loss in units has nothing to do with market share in revenue and profits where Apple is standing head and shoulders above the rest of the industry combined. The decline in units market share is not a result of an inferior product or any systemic problem. It is more the result of the fact that many users are upgrading their feature phones and opting for the cheapest smartphone available without caring much about the operating system. Those users are clearly not Apple’s target customers. Apple is after the more affluent user who will not only shell out a premium price for a premium brand but who will also keep contributing to Apple’s profits through ongoing purchases on iTunes.

Microsoft
Unlike Google who’s Android is basically a less polished version of Apple’s iOS, Microsoft has built a very distinct and compelling mobile operating system. But adoption is so far eluding Microsoft for several reasons. The vendors selling Microsoft Phone devices are the same lot as those who sell Android. Android is free and Windows Phone is not and so guess who they push more? The second issue is that Microsoft has bet the farm on their Nokia partnership which was a smart move except that Nokia didn’t ship any Windows phones until the end of last year. The third and by far most important issue is the lack of developer support. Apple and Google have attracted many developers quickly leveraging superior tools, compelling business models and - in the case of Google - the open source effect. Microsoft has shown little love to developers so far. Unless Microsoft addresses these issues, they will always continue battling at best for the third place.

RIM
Well, it has been widely reported that RIM is in trouble and just replacing the CEOs is not going to fix that. RIM’s greatest problem is the lack of innovation. The good old BlackBerry may work fine and be more secure than iPhone but it is no longer hip enough even for the executives at stodgy brick-and-mortar companies. Today, RIM needs a purpose, a focus, and a compelling way to differentiate. Leaking pictures of phones that could ship in two years and be almost as cool as the iPhone is today is not going to do it. Even if those new RIM phones were available today, it would hardly make much difference. Besides needing some innovative and competitive products, RIM also has to address the developer support just like Microsoft.

HP
To be complete, I should also mention HP as the only other remaining MOS vendor. Or did they announced that they have killed webOS? Yeah, whatever. I will write another post when I meet a user with a webOS based smartphone.

Quo Vadis, RIM?

Everybody is talking about RIM today and I simply have to comment. I have written several articles about RIM in the past. Over a year ago, I have suggested the 10 Reasons Why Microsoft Should Acquire RIM. A few months back, I have also wondered why does RIM keep chasing the consumers instead of focusing on their traditional strengths in the enterprise. RIM is the largest employer here in Waterloo, ON and so I do care.

RIM is in trouble and there is no way to hide it. Having discovered the killer mobile app - email - a decade ago, RIM has completely missed the notion that we could use the BlackBerry for more things than just email. Apple entered the market back in 2007 and completely transformed it with some 400,000 apps available for the iPhone. The result is a dramatic loss in market share which is now inevitably followed by revenue shortfall.

Here is RIM's problem: declining marketshare.

The question on everyone's mind is what will happen next with RIM. I see three possible scenarios:

1. Turn-around
In this ideal scenario, RIM will find a way to compete with compelling devices but that won't be enough. RIM will need to attract developers and get quickly to some 100,000 apps. That won't be easy since the developers have to divide their precious resources between supporting iOS, Android, RIM and now Microsoft and HP are also vying for their attention - and with much deeper pockets. And even the application support may not be enough. RIM will need to add some exclusive or at least unique and compelling content and services. The mobile battle ground is no longer about devices but entire eco-systems. Apple has got music and movies, Google has search and ads, and even Microsoft has the Xbox games. What will be RIM’s angle? My suggestion would be enterprise content and enterprise apps but that hasn’t been RIM’s focus lately.

2. Acquisition
The voices suggesting that RIM will be acquired were loud yesterday. The Wall Street Journal even declared Microsoft the most likely suitor. While I suggested that a year ago, I don’t see that scenario as likely in the next 12 months. Microsoft is right now in a committed relationship with Nokia and that relationship would have to fail before Microsoft could pursue RIM with a straight face. And honestly, I don’t see that happening anytime soon. Microsoft built an awesome and differentiated mobile operating system and appears to be quite determined to make it a success. However, they still have to get those 100,000 apps - here they face the same challenge as RIM.

There are, of course, other possible suitors who could be interested in RIM. Cisco could use it to boost its unified communications agenda - and to add some additional load on those routers.  Oracle has surprisingly not articulated any mobile strategy so far and buying RIM would be a shot in the arm, particularly given Oracle’s laser focus on the enterprise. IBM has also been waiting on the sidelines and could use a mobile platform. And even Google could acquire RIM, swap the OS and use it as a foray into the enterprise market. And let’s not forget other big players in the IT market: Dell, Intel, Lenovo, etc. I just hope it’s not going to be Computer Associates or some cable company.

3. Demise
The 3rd, least attractive scenario is a slow - or maybe not that slow - demise. Vicious cycle of falling market shares, declining revenues, and lay-offs could lead to RIM following in the footsteps of Palm. Sure, even Palm got eventually acquired by HP but at the time, Palm was already pretty much irrelevant. And if RIM doesn’t make some radical changes, this scenario could really happen.

I sincerely hope it won’t come to a demise of RIM and that RIM turns things around. RIM is a great company and the world will be a better place with an independent player keeping the big vendors honest. Acquisition by the right company would not be a bad outcome either. I still believe that Microsoft would have been the best fit but as I explained above, this scenario is less likely now than it was when I have suggested it in April 2010.

It sure will be interesting to watch this market play out.

BlackBerry Playbook - The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

I finally got to test the released version of the RIM BlackBerry PlayBook and here are my impressions of the PlayBook - the good, the bad and the ugly.

The Good

The PlayBook is a 7 inch tablet device with a new operating system by RIM. I am a fan of the 7 in format as I already determined when I  tested the Samsung Galaxy. The 7 inch format is big enough to get a decent browser experience and to be able to type and yet it makes the device immensely more portable. The device has two cameras and an HDMI slot, although I didn’t find any SD card slot to my disappointment.

The PlayBook has a very sharp looking display. The resolution is 1024x600 which is more dpi than the iPad with 1024x768 given its smaller screen size. I like the user interface of the new PlayBook OS (QNX) which makes the app interaction very easy - it is much more obvious about which apps are currently running compared to the iPad. Talking about the UI, I have to mention the Flash support which is something iPad doesn’t do. That said, I am not so sure lately I really want Flash to survive, given the abundance of invasive Flash adds. I do realize though that the advertisers will find another technology to annoy me with their ads if they don’t have Flash.

The PlayBook user interface is awesome

Finally, I like the standard set of applications that come with the PlayBook. Besides the usual suspects such as browser, music player, picture viewer etc., the PlayBook also comes with a set of office applications called Word To Go, Sheet To Go, and Slideshow To Go. I’ve tried to open up a couple of Office documents and I was positively surprised to see a pretty decent fidelity of a PowerPoint deck - something the Keynote app on the iPad still struggles with. That said, don’t expect to be able to use a complex Excel spreadsheet with pivot tables.

The Bad

There were a few things I didn’t like about the PlayBook. First, the device is surprisingly heavy. With 425 g, the device is too heavy to hold comfortably in one hand for a long time - i.e. when reading a book. The iPad weighs 607 g which is much more but given its size, the weight is not that surprising. The Samsung Galaxy weighs 385 g which is less but even that was too much for reading when I tested it. The Kindle only weight 241 g which is why it is such a successful reading device.

I was impressed by the fidelity of PowerPoint decks opened on the PlayBook's native Slides To Go app.

Many people have reported about the hard to use power switch. It is really, really hard to engage - the designers clearly haven’t tried the button themselves. That said, you don’t need the power button much - a simple sweep on the screen wakes up the PlayBook from hibernation. I did like the volume buttons that some of the reviews criticized. My iPhone and iPad have them too and I use them all the time.

While the PlayBook hardware appears very slick, the software was clearly a bit rushed. The PlayBook has no native calendar or email client. To use email, the PlayBook has to be tethered to a BlackBerry (smartphone) via a bluetooth connection which I wasn’t able to test since I traded my BlackBerry in for an iPhone not long ago. This limitation will likely go away in some future update but right now, the tablet’s usefulness is limited without email which is my number one application on the iPad.

The Ugly

In the end, it is all about the software - most notably the apps. And that’s where the PlayBook has its work cut out. The BlackBerry has been only slowly trying to catch up with Apple and Google in apps availability but the PlayBook OS (NQX) is distinct from BlackBerry and there are only a handful of apps available. While the PlayBook has in theory most of the apps one would need for work - let’s ignore that email issue for a minute - the fun apps are in very short supply. From the list of my most useful iPad apps, I was able to find a browser, a basic RSS reader, a note-taking tool, Twitter client, and I’ll throw in a Facebook client which iPad doesn’t have. From the list of my coolest iPad apps, I didn’t find a single one.

The Trump Card

The key to the PlayBook’s success will be RIM’s ability to attract developers. Right now, I am a bit skeptical. However, there have been some reports about the PlayBook’s ability to support Android apps in the near future. Should that come true - and should the apps run in a realistic mode with full capabilities - RIM might pull a great coup and address the lack-of-apps issue overnight. But until that happens, the PlayBook’s outlook is questionable.

My son is testing the 'play' part of PlayBook. He enjoyed the Flash support.

The Summary

The PlayBook is a beautiful, well designed device.  Assuming the apps will become no issue, it will be a solid option for many users, particularly those using it primarily for business. Besides the native office apps, PlayBook also leverages RIM’s security infrastructure and offers a much more secure option than Google or Apple. But the apps are a major issue today and with pricing on par with iPad ($599 for a 32 GB version), the PlayBook is hard to justify in comparison to the iPad.

Struggles of a Professional iPhone User

A few weeks ago, I have made the switch from BlackBerry to iPhone. I’ve owned an iPad for almost a year now and there appeared to be no hope that most of the cool apps that iPad offers would ever appear on the BlackBerry OS. I was also getting increasingly disenchanted with the poor browser experience, with the lack of an iTunes-like tool to manage my content library (not that I am enamored with iTunes - a pretty poor program if you ask me) and with a variety of performance issues and freezes that plagued my BlackBerry lately. And so when the renewal time came up, I have made the switch into the promised land of Apple. 

iPhone Calendar

I should mention that I am at this point an all-in Apple user, having embraced at home everything from iMac, iPad, iPod, iTunes, AirPort, Time Capsule, AppleTV to now also the iPhone. I expected the iPhone to be inferior for making actual phone calls but who cares - the last thing I want to do with a smartphone is make phone calls. But actually, the iPhone makes phone calls just fine. I have, though, discovered numerous challenges that I honestly miss from my BlackBerry: 

1. Calendar
The calendar is pathetic which I knew from using it already on the iPhone. It does not not support the Exchange categories and so my iPhone calendar is monochromatic in contrast to the colorful experience in Outlook. That’s rather odd considering that this is an Apple calendar - as if the cool hip Mac guy swapped cloths with the chubby dull PC guy. I’m also having issues with the calendar not caching properly which means it always tries to rebuild itself by downloading all data from the server. Pretty annoying actually - even though this issue could have to do with our IT architecture rather than with my iPhone. 

2. Appointments
The most glaringly missed feature, one that suggests that Steve Jobs is secretly carrying a Blackberry under his black turtle-neck, is the inability to simply click on a phone number in a calendar appointment to dial it. Conference calls are apparently not something iPhone users are expected to do. This is such an appalling omission that I must suspect that Apple developers never actually used the iPhone 4 for anything but to track the performance of the Apple stock. 

3. Appointments (again)
The calendar does not allow some of the basic functions - I cannot forward an appointment, I cannot suggest an alternate time, the calendar message gets truncated and I don’t see a setting to prevent that. BlackBerry did these things and I need to use them daily. And while I’m complaining about the appointments, here are three requests I have for Microsoft: I want to be able to decline an appointment (saying clearly ‘no’) while keeping it in case my other engagement gets canceled which keeps happening all the time. I also want to see an ability to prioritize my appointments. And finally, I also want to have notes associated with calendar appointment before, during and after the appointment.  

4. Email Search
Where is the search button in email? Seriously? Is there some kind of magical four-finger flick motion I need to learn to evoke this basic function? C’mon, Apple! 

5. Contacts
My iPhone doesn’t allow me to look up people numbers in our corporate Exchange directory. Why not? Does Apple expect me to download the entire directory to the iPhone and maintain it by hand? Steve Jobs must apparently not be calling many people at Apple. Also,  phone numbers stored in incomplete format such as (519) 123-4567 cannot be dialed when roaming. Your number has to be in the complete format with a country code e.g. +1 (519) 123-4567. That limitation is regrettable and odd given that the OS knows when I am roaming and what my default country is and could thus easily complete the number automatically. 

6. No super-apps
I always thought that the super-app concept from BlackBerry was a little bogus - it touts cross-integration between apps that makes so much sense that I couldn’t imagine it would not be there. Well, I can imagine it now since the apps on my iPhone are completely isolated from each other. The concept is pretty straight forward - for example, every time I see a person in an app, I should be able to access that person’s profile straight from within the app - I should be able to call, email, IM, or whatever other means of communication I have. Similarly, I should be able to share (via email, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) any content asset from within any application. These things are inherent to the BlackBerry OS and yet they don’t exist on the iPhone.

7. Multi-tasking
Apple’s claim that multi-tasking is supported since iPhone 4 - true, as long as one of the tasks is listening to music. Something as basic as checking the calendar while on the phone is not possible. This one threw me off as I always thought that all those teenage consumers - the primary target audience for Apple - are heavily into multi-tasking doing chats in 10 sessions at a time while talking on the phone, tweeting, facebooking, and doing homework all at the same time. They might but not on the iPhone. 

These are some of the examples of functionality I miss from my iPhone. They are basic level features used daily by every professional in business. My experience is re-affirming to me what I have already suspected - Apple does not care for nor understand the business user. They will keep piling up awesome features for playing music, movies, talking to friends, taking pictures and all the other things consumers do and love but the business users are not Apple’s priority. 

I still think that the iPhone is a superior device and I am going to stay with it for now. I am locked into my 2 year plan anyway - courtesy of my customer-loving wireless service provider. But the lack of support for business users is a huge opportunity for RIM which has a massive head start in this space. This is where they grew up and this is where they should dominate. Their marketing messages should be focused on the business user rather than chasing consumers (which I wrote about in December 2010). Business users like me should be told to keep their BlackBerry but nobody is telling them that.

Web Experience Management in the Mobile Era

I had the opportunity to participate in an interesting conversation during a customer visit a few days ago that I think deserves a blog post. The customer - a company in the consumer packaged goods market - is facing an interesting challenge. They have today approximately three dozen web properties and each one of them is being translated into dozens of languages. If you do the math, that makes over 400 sites. This is already a pretty complex scenario that requires a web content management solution.

However, that this is only the beginning of the problem. So far, all the web properties have been designed for the desktop browser which is really easy. Desktop browsers are all the same when it comes down to user experience. However, the company is already gearing up for the mobile era. In fact, they told us they expect that the desktop will be relegated to a niche and that the mobile device will take over. They expect that the mobile device will become the primary user experience.

But this is where the problem lies. Mobile devices are by far not as homogeneous as desktops today. In fact, they may need to support at least six mobile operating systems - Apple iOS, Google Android, RIM BlackBerry, RIM PlayBook, Microsoft Windows Phone 7, and HP webOS. Each of the mobile operating systems has its own quirks and limitations - i.e. some support Flash and others don’t.

On top of that, each device has a different form factor and screen resolution. For example, the iPad is bigger than the iPhone, though both use the iOS operating system. The iPhone ‘retina’ display can handle a higher image quality than a similar device using Google Android even though both screens have the same size.

This multitude of operating systems and form factors leads to an explosion of different permutations in user experience - there are literally hundreds of them. And dealing with them is the job of the web content management (WCM) system.

The WCM system is able to identify the device and deliver the right content in the right template. That means that each content asset has to be readily available in a multitude of formats and resolutions. In addition, all images need to be re-sized, re-formatted and adjusted for the target devices. Video has to be converted and re-sized as well.That’s the job of a digital asset management (DAM) solution. These are the cornerstones of proper web experience management in the mobile era.

The key is not to cut any corners. The customer’s goal was the best possible user experience and they understand that the right user experience requires the right content in the right format and form factor. But they also understand that performance is an essential part of user experience and delivering content with the highest possible speed means to deliver it in the optimal resolution.

Mobility is the new frontier for web experience management. Mobility adds a tremendous reach. Just think about all those countries that never had the opportunity to deploy a desktop based infrastructure and that are now going directly to mobile web. But to do mobility right, user experience has to be a priority. And with the multitude of sites, languages and devices, that could be a daunting task without the right tools.

Mobile Device as a Primary Interface?

So, you don't believe that mobile devices are becoming e primary user interface? Well, here is an interesting data point:

This is Alain, my co-worker, who's office is next door to mine. And since I got a tiny little Canon for Christmas that I can carry on me at all times, I've snapped this picture of him. It's an increasingly common scene. He's working on his BlackBerry while sitting at his desk. There is a laptop in front of him but he's using it only for specific tasks. Most of his routine work is done on the mobile device. 

Now, add an iPad or a Galaxy into the mix and the number of tasks performed on a mobile device increases significantly. What's amazing is that the picture has not been taken on the road but in the office. On the road, we have often no choice but in the office, we do. Yet Alain works on a BlackBerry and I am typing this blog post on an iPad.

That's a pretty good indication of the things to come, isn't it?

Why Chase the Consumers, RIM?

BlackBerry has been declared the loser in the raging smartphone battle. Apparently, Research-in-Motion (RIM) has been losing market share to Apple and Google even though it continues growing. I am impressed that our neighbors in Waterloo keep on fighting as witnessed by the very positive preliminary reviews of the PlayBook tablet device. But one thing continues puzzling me: Why is RIM so determined to fight for the consumer market? Virtually every marketing message the company has been sending this year is about the consumer. They even had the rapper will.i.am as a keynote speaker at the Wireless Enterprise Symposium (WES) this year. No joke - I was there.


BlackBerry has had a complete monopoly on the enterprise smartphone market. Having cracked the code on the first real killer application – e-mail – RIM has dominated the enterprise. And it still does to a large extent. The BlackBerry provides a significantly more secure and enterprise ready platform. Why else would the US military and even the President exclusively use the BlackBerry? It offers a far better bandwidth management (that means lower communication costs, dear CFOs) and the BlackBerry Enterprise Server, which has been already deployed in every enterprise, is RIM’s greatest asset that allows better management of the devices. Apple and Google don’t have anything like that.

But instead of focusing on the enterprise, RIM has been fighting Apple on its home field – the consumer space. And the results are not convincing. Sure, I keep hearing about teenagers loving the free BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) but the tough reality is that I keep seeing more and more iPhones in the enterprise. And that’s a big mistake on RIM’s part. They should not have allowed Apple and Google to enter the enterprise. They should have kept hammering home the message of security, bandwidth cost and manageability which would allow them to keep the intruders at bay. Why, I ask?

RIM might possibly believe that people will want to use only one device and that their consumer preferences will be the decisive factor in selecting which one. I don’t agree with that assumption. I believe that professionals will use the best tool to do their jobs and accept its consumer capabilities – albeit inferior - or that they will simply carry multiple devices.

If I was Mike Lazaridis for a day, I would refocus my development and my marketing on the enterprise. Make the BlackBerry the best device for PowerPoint; add decent Office applications; provide a Bluetooth sync for desktop folders; turn it into a single sign-on token - whatever it takes in the enterprise. And, work with enterprise software vendors such as Saleforce, SAP, Oracle, and [yes, of course] OpenText to make sure their software for BlackBerry is the best and first on the market.

Yes, BlackBerry needs to do a better job at playing music and movies. It needs to provide a far better browser and it needs to aggressively recruit application developers. But fighting Apple on its own turf is like David fighting Goliath without the sling. Differentiation is the name of the game and BlackBerry still has differentiators today. But time is running out and I don’t see BlackBerry displacing any iPhones anytime soon.

Image: Will.I.am as a keynote speaker at WES 2010 (source: Flickr, Official Blackberry Images)

OpenText Is Everywhere - Even On a PlayBook

OpenText announced a new release of Everywhere last week at Content World. And since there was a lot of buzz about a lot of things at Content World, I want to add a few thoughts and comments about this mobility announcement. No, I won't talk about the usual features and benefits of mobile applications. Instead, I took a look under the hood of the product.

This is the second product release of OpenText Everywhere. Its primary focus is on expanding the capabilities that expose the functionality of the underlying ECM Suite with focus on process automation, social interactions, and content access. It is also adding support for Apple’s iPhone and iPad devices, alongside the previously provided support for RIM’s BlackBerry. And in his keynote, OpenText’s CTO Eugene Roman demonstrated an early version of OpenText Everywhere running on RIM’s PlayBook. That was apparently the first time the PlayBook has been shown outside of keynotes delivered by a RIM executive. Yes, OpenText and RIM are both headquartered in Waterloo and so there is an obvious connection there. (Note: The support for Playbook has not been formally announced yet but rather eluded to in a fairly public forum).


The thing that makes Everywhere distinctive is its design. Instead of trying to be a mobile rendition of an existing desktop application, it has been designed natively as a mobile enterprise application. Here are some examples of what makes it enterprise-ready:

- Bandwidth-Management: Managing bandwidth utilization is critical and not just because of performance. Bandwidth on a mobile device costs money. And when you are on international roaming, it costs a lot of money. To avoid spiraling communication costs, the mobile applications has to be designed as much less “chatty” – something that is often not a big concern for desktop applications. When accessing a 20 MB PowerPoint presentation, you don’t really want the file downloaded to your iPhone – the roaming charges could be excessive. OpenText Everywhere solves it by converting the presentation on the server-side into a set of images rendered on the fly. OpenText owns this rendition technology since the 2008 acquisition of Spicer and this technology is now embedded into the OpenText Everywhere application.

- Connectivity: Many of my iPad applications are useless if I don’t have any connection. All I get is an error message which might be OK for a free consumer application but an enterprise application needs to be productive even if when I am on a plane with no connectivity at all. OpenText Everywhere makes this possible to work offline and it queues up my activities for when I reconnect. In addition, Everywhere allows to be configured to work over Wi-Fi or 3G to better manage my connectivity.

- Security: Security is paramount for enterprise applications and it is a major concern for mobile devices accessing your confidential data. Today, IT has to support a multitude of devices with different security capabilities while some are corporate while others are employee owned. OpenText Everywhere leverages the existing security infrastructure of the device for encryption and the ability to wipe clean a lost device. This is much easier with BlackBerry than with other devices but that will be the topic of a future blog post. OpenText Everywhere has been also designed to support existing security policies such as use of a directory-based authentication and the leverage of the highly secure and compliant infrastructure provided by the ECM Suite.

- Usability: A mobile enterprise application cannot be just a scaled down version of a desktop application. To gain user acceptance, the applications need to be designed specifically for the mobile device and ideally leverage functionality of the application the employees use regularly. That means it must not attempt to squeeze the same amount of information and the same number of buttons on each screen. To do this, OpenText Everywhere has been designed with the device in mind and it takes advantage of the unique facilities of each device (e.g. touch screen vs keyboard) and push notifications – again, these concepts don’t really exist on the desktop. As a result, for example the Everywhere screens for search results and ‘my assignments’ list look and behave differently than on desktop – they are optimized for the task at hand and for the device.

I see more and more of my co-workers using mobile devices as their default tool. While mobile enterprise applications are still in their infancy, I expect that the mobile interface will be the default user interface in the not too distant future.