[Merged] Blackberry Storm - RIM's New Touchscreen Blackberry

[Scooterman1]

Any kind of competition to the iPhone will only help us consumers. Especially since we don't have simple things like cut 'n paste. There are numerous advantages to us with competition.

 

[QCassidy352]

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Sounding even better - http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/patterson/28399

This is going to be huge. I'll finally be able to use my phone as a modem, listen to my music through my bluetooth headset, watch mobile TV (maybe even my Slingbox), download apps over 3G (with the proper initial free demo), AND I'll be able to use it abroad without being raped by AT&T. I finally feel the handcuffs comming off - Stevie Boy's losing his grip alright. Bye bye Nazi regime . It's a shame too, Apple's got one amazing peice of hardware on their hands - it's too bad their greed is starting to overpower their product.

I stopped paying attention at the use of "Nazi regime" to describe the state of the iPhone. If you want people to pay attention to you, you might try more reasoned argument and less absurd hyperbole.

 

[kayno]

[snip]

2) The iPhone is not an enterprise device. RIM is a company that always specialized in the enterprise market. They've always had an advantage, and it did nothing for them when the iPhone came out.

3) Enterprise customers didn't like it, so they didn't buy the iPhone to begin with. Chances are they went back to their old Blackberries when they returned the iPhone because it didn't do what they wanted it to do. There's absolutely no reason for an enterprise consumer to buy the Blackberry Storm when their old Blackberry does the same exact thing as the Storm. Enterprise consumers use their Blackberries for email. They don't putz around surfing the Internet with their Blackberries, they don't play video games on their Blackberries, they don't take pictures with their Blackberries. It's a communication device to facilitate business wherever the enterprise consumer may be. More frills to a device already perfect for enterprise won't make consumers buy it.

4) As for it being a "brand name," Blackberry is just as much a brand name as Motorola. Or Nokia. Or Pantech, Samsung, LG...there's a load of brand names that are just as popular, if not more, than the Apple iPhone and RIM's Blackberry. If a kid doesn't want the iPhone, he doesn't give a rat's ass about the frills of the Blackberry. The iPhone has much more appeal to a kid than an enterprise customer. Therefore, the kid will want an iPhone because it plays games and plays loads of music and does it all flawlessly, something Blackberries typically cannot do. If a kid doesn't want the iPhone, chances are he won't want a Blackberry. I look around my campus in college and I see kids either with iPhones or a simple clamshell-style phone from Motorola and LG and Samsung. They all do the same damn thing, just with more frills. No kid wants a Blackberry because it's main focus is the enterprise consumer and caters exactly to what the enterprise consumer wants. The iPhone caters to the common consumer who just wants something fun to play around with.

See? And I did all that without going to a business school or having an MBA.

Oh, and by the way: the Zune was born to be a failure because everyone loved the iPod too damn much.

I take it you are a common college student with no idea what goes on in the enterprise.. Well sonny.. there are few things you need to learn.. the Iphone 2.0 is and enterprise device.. Companies like mine and many other fortune 500 are either utilizing or working towards it. The reason you might think business people use their phone only for emails is cause, up ontill the iphone there wasnt a phone that allowed you to browse the internet "twice as fast, half the price" but seriously browse the "real internet" with 3G speeds and such. Up untill you become a corporate person, you would never know what corporate people are like.. u make speculations based on a stereotype... My company does not have one blackberry in it.. over 2000 employees..

The iphone is not a kids phone.. i dont think there are 10,000,000 million kids out there with enough money to purchase an iPhone as the recent sales numbers for 2008 show.. What you mean is that the iphone caters to everyone including the corporate world.. because guess what.. the corporate world loves the iphone.. We love it.. we love it.. we love it..

You would have had more pull if you had an MBA.. cause you probably would have a more informed opinnion if you did..

 

[kayno]

This is my take on the Blackberry Storm.. It will not steal any customers.. all it would really do is stop the real blackberry fanatics from being stollen by the iPhone simple and short (customer retention).. If you never owned a blackberry i dont see you getting this one.. I see you however considering an iPhone if anything at all..

 

[Anuba]

You can say the same thing about Japanese re-engineering and look what they achieved, please instead of just ignoring something look at it from a rational business perspective and you'll see Iphone is in trouble.

Uh... why is it that the iPhone is always "in trouble" when some other phone is released? At what point was the target ever a 100% market share? It has already met the goal of 10 million by the end of 2008, with nearly 3 months left to go.

Also, Blackberry is pretty much unheard of outside of North America and the UK. iPhone is sold in 60 countries and counting.

 

[kdarling]

Also, Blackberry is pretty much unheard of outside of North America and the UK. iPhone is sold in 60 countries and counting.

Hmm. I recently have noticed a lot of news about Blackberries in France, India, etc.

RIM is second in global sales behind Nokia. Apple is not even in the top five.

RIM even has about 6 million push subscribers (not just owners) outside of the USA.

 

[Anuba]

Hmm. I recently have noticed a lot of news about Blackberries in France, India, etc.

RIM is second in global sales behind Nokia. Apple is not even in the top five.

RIM even has about 6 million push subscribers (not just owners) outside of the USA.

What do you mean "not even"? They shouldn't be in the top 5. Apple has one phone model and they've been at this for a year and a half. Nokia and Sony Ericsson have been making cellphones for 20 years and released hundreds of models. Blackberry has been around for 9 years.

It seems as though everyone thinks the iPhone has flopped if it doesn't do to the smartphone market what the iPod did to the portable music player market. Newsflash: They never expected it to. The iPod was launched into a young market that was basically up for grabs. The cellphone market is old and swamped with products, it's gonna take years and years and a much broader product line before Apple can become one of the big league players.

 

[kdarling]

What do you mean "not even"? They shouldn't be in the top 5. ...

What in the world are you going on about? You said:

Also, Blackberry is pretty much unheard of outside of North America and the UK. iPhone is sold in 60 countries and counting.

That sounds like you were claiming that Apple would outsell RIM overseas because it was supposedly in more countries and better known. Is that not what you meant?

 

[gh0001]

Storm may be the best BlackBerry ever, and many VZW customers considering switching to AT&T for iPhone will choose to stay with VZW, especially for business people. But, what really makes iPhone stand out is its open software platform, which allows for an eco-system for 3rd party applications to thrive.

while Storm is impressive, I don't see it bringing any fundamental change in BlackBerry's software platform.

 

[redman042]

I get the impression that people think that the tactile response on the BlackBerry Storm will make typing on the virtual keyboard just like typing on a physical keyboard thus giving the user the best of both worlds. I fail to see how that will do anything but make typing on the touchscreen require more work. From what I understand, they entire screen will depress and click - but what good is that for virtual keyboard buttons? The major benefit of a physical keyboard is that you can feel the individual buttons to distinguish one key from another so you know you are hitting the 'k' and not the 'i'. Tactile response just confirms you have pressed the key, but on a touchscreen you can tell you have pressed a virtual key if you have, well, touched the screen.

On the other hand, I see how much functionality that can have by distinguishing touches from presses (or "mouse-clicks"). Think about how easy Copy/Paste would be to implement if the iPhone had that. Touch and drag to use the magnifier. When you are ready to begin text selection - click - and voila, start dragging around the magnifier and it selects the text. Click again to finish. Not too bad.

That's been on my mind for some time as well. The clicking will help typing a little, but without being able to feel the separations between the keys, it's not really all that different from typing on an iPhone with the click sounds turned on. Like you I realize the click screen is more about navigation, but then again, didn't the CEO of RIM say he came up with the click screen because "many people can't type on glass"?

 

[kdarling]

That's been on my mind for some time as well. The clicking will help typing a little, but without being able to feel the separations between the keys, it's not really all that different from typing on an iPhone with the click sounds turned on.

And yet the reviews all say that it's easier to type on, so there must be something to it. From what I read, apparently it's the fact that you don't have to worry about accidentally hitting a key (or lifting your finger on a key) that you didn't mean to type.

We'll all get a chance to try it soon... hopefully without failing prey to the usual "I couldn't figure it out in a few minutes" mistake that others make about touch keyboards

It's amazing all the different virtual keyboards that are being tried out on touchscreens now. My favorite is a new one where you only lift your finger between words. Otherwise you just swipe your finger over the letters in sequence without lifting. The software figures out what word you meant. No typing at all. Just keep sliding between letters. Clever as all get out. Trying to find video again. Demos show incredible input speed.

 

[kdarling]

But, what really makes iPhone stand out is its open software platform, which allows for an eco-system for 3rd party applications to thrive.

I'm sorry, but what does that mean? "Open software"?

Third parties must submit to Apple, and share any revenue.

The iPhone's SDK has a lot of functionality locked out of it. A LOT. Including things that Apple reserves for themselves, like background apps, timers and even being able to trigger an action from a Settings page.

As for cost, RIM has free software tools and you can do anything you like on them, with at most spending $25 for a signing key so they can trace bad apps back. (Same idea that Apple decided to use, only they charge $99 a year and you can't distribute to anyone you want.)

 

[ryanwarsaw]

Well the new BB might terrorize the current android. Even if the BB turns out to be much better what is the problem with that?

 

[MBHockey]

The first post of this thread is a terrific example of why (most) business majors are useless.

 

[Adjei]

Last I read, over half of RIM's sales were now to more normal consumers... that is, people who said they didn't buy it just for business purposes. Yeah, I was surprised too.



I read many other forums and do a lot more research before posting than most. The Bold has had some build issues, but as I said, I haven't seen any rampant 3G issues in Canada, as some predicted. This seems to indicate that the 3G problems were with ATT, not the Bold itself.

So why then has Orange in the UK decided to stop selling the device because of quality issues it wants RIM to fix, I can't post the link but you can find it on the macdailynews site.

 

[kdarling]

So why then has Orange in the UK decided to stop selling the device because of quality issues it wants RIM to fix, I can't post the link but you can find it on the macdailynews site.

That's fine, but the original posting I replied to said:

It's not a iPhone hardware problem it's at&t 3g. All at&t 3g phones have this problem... And you might want to do some research on the BB bold because from what I was reading the people in Canada that have the Bold on Rodgers were having the same problems with drop calls.

My response was that there didn't actually seem to be any comm problems in Canada with the Bold, even though there were predictions that it would.

Nothing about build quality or anything else was mentioned at the time. You brought that up and that's okay, but it's a different topic and has nothing to do with my replies about dropped calls or 3G.

 

[Hutch1]

It's Rogers not "Rodgers".

I hav enot had any issues with 3G on my iPhone, it does seem that a preponderance of the problems are in the US with AT&T.

 

[Rybold]

It's Rogers not "Rodgers".

I hav enot had any issues with 3G on my iPhone, it does seem that a preponderance of the problems are in the US with AT&T.

I live in the US and I have AT&T and I have Not had any problems with AT&T's service. I think the people who are complaining live out in remote areas and have to drive for an hour to find civilization.

 

[jaggunothing]

Just got to understand the intricacies of BB service here in India, even if you are subscribed to an exorbitant (by Indian standards) BB plan, one needs to opt for another EDGE plan to make 3rd party apps get internet access in the device. 2 of my acquaintances who went through the ordeal have sent cancellation request for BB

I was following their thread and lol in another forum, since all their needs could have been easily taken care by buying a "dumb ass" iPhone. So much for high funda Business phone

 

[kdarling]

Just got to understand the intricacies of BB service here in India, ...

Not to mention that the India government wants to be able to read everyone's mail, and was demanding that RIM give them their encryption algorithm. Anyone know if they ever got it?

 

[n8236]

L2Parapgrah

 

[Chicagomac08]

take a look at the market

After reading about the RIM Storm and analyzing factors even as an iPhone owner and mac user I conclude that unless Apple greatly improves its software offerings and hardware offerings RIM Storm will take a huge dent in Iphone sales and possible shift the Iphone product cycle analysts have created before. Blackberry in the north american markets is ubiquitous and is known for its high tech high quality phones. With its strong command of the corporate sector markets the blackberry storm is RIMs most successful attempt at making gains in the prosumer market (if you guys don't know what prosumers are I don't have enough energy to explain and just look it up). The iPhone's strength was its all in one platform in hardware and software as well as being an advanced touch screen multimedia device. But as seen we consumers have many complaints, lack of video recording, lack of voice dialing ,poor camera extremely buggy new software, lack of turn by turn gps, an NDA and an arbitrary app approval system. Mac's main problem is that up until now it didn't need to listen to consumers because it was truly the only one of its kind, HTC diamond or samsung instinct are not truly the same style of phones as RIM or apple are due to price range as well as technology factors. RIM has an advanced operating system that is has been with for a long time with already a large base of programmers for it. Now the main thing many mac fans (idiots who don't understand consumer behavior) will say that the hard drive difference makes iphone and storm different and the iphone superior. But honestly most consumers consider these memory cards not that much of a hassle. Apple for awhile has been able to rest on its laurels but now not anymore. Android doesn't have the same competition abilities as RIM due to the fact its at the mercy of phone makers. Blackberry will sell at least 4 million storm in its first year in the US markets alone as now companies can have an executive multimedia phone, outside of the North American Markets 5 million mostly in western Europe and India. Blackberry users who came to the iphone will leave again and people who were turned off by bad press of the iphone will see the storm as better choice. Apple has a choice to compete by improving processor speeds as well as more physical features to compete or it will find itself in 2nd to a well established storm system.

RIM is plummeting and AAPL is all good. RIM may be bought out and who knows what that might mean.

I wouldn't worry to much about it. Apple and the iPhone will come out of this just fine.

 

[QCassidy352]

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AAPL is fine? Not my shares of it!

 

[mrtune]

RIM is plummeting and AAPL is all good. RIM may be bought out and who knows what that might mean.

I wouldn't worry to much about it. Apple and the iPhone will come out of this just fine.

???? HUH ????

Last I checked AAPL has gone down almost 50% in a matter of months, just like a whole slew of other tech companies have.

If I had money in AAPL I'd be crying and hoping they come out of the financial crisis this country is in with the same stock from a few months ago.

 

[Applepwns]

Blackberry Storm

Anyone excited? since i hate at&t this is my alternative and its starting to look better than the iphone.