Ask HN: So what happens to RIM/BlackBerry now?
The enterprise product that I work on requires compatibility with Black Berry Enterprise Server.
I'm sitting there for several minutes trying to activate my test BB unit and I started to wonder why we bother with it at all, other than the currently existing customers who use BB. I got up and talked to my VP of engineering and he shared similar doubts, namely when iPhone goes to Verizon.
With ActiveSync and the iPhone and possibly Android if they ever calendering to work, why does anyone bother?
What are your thoughts on RIM's options and future, HN? I'm just curious, as an exercise. :)
I know a lot of BlackBerry users who have tried iPhones and the like but still swear by the BlackBerry for the physical keyboard.
Surprisingly (and anecdotally), a lot of university-aged people are buying BlackBerries as personal devices. That one baffles me.
Whether RIM can sustain either of these markets is beyond me, though.
Until there's an Android with a physical keyboard my wife loves as much as the one on her 9700, I will be the only one in my house who refuses to use a Blackberry.
i wonder why n900 isn't catching up. it's a truly developer-friendly platform while also being a quite user-friendly smartphone (just avoid the xterm icon) and has a decent qwerty keyboard (much better than anything rim offers, imho) .
May I bring your attention to this : http://comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2010/4/comSc...
Top Smartphone Platforms 3 Month Avg. Ending Feb. 2010 vs. 3 Month Avg. Ending Nov. 2009 Total U.S. Age 13+ Source: comScore MobiLens Share (%) of Smartphone Subscribers Nov-09 Feb-10 Point Change RIM 40.8% 42.1% 1.3 Apple 25.5% 25.4% -0.1 Microsoft 19.1% 15.1% -4.0 Google 3.8% 9.0% 5.2 Palm 7.2% 5.4% -1.8