Does RIM's "Huge Loss" Signal Wider Handset Market Deterioration? 278
zacharye writes "RIM was expected to deliver a nightmarish, -30% year-on-year revenue decline into the May quarter — the company issued its latest profit warning just four weeks ago. Yet it ended up missing the lowered consensus estimate by 10%, generating just $2.8 billion in sales. The reasons for RIM's decline are well-known and will be rehashed again over the next 24 hours. But the size of the F1Q13 sales miss raises another question: apart from Apple and Samsung, is the handset industry drifting into serious trouble?"
No (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at apple's profits.
And please stop the sensationalist question mark titles.
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The handset industry is facing the same problem as the PC industry did during the 80's and we will end up with 2 or 3 large players.
Re:No (Score:4, Insightful)
We only have a handful of large players in the handset industry right now.
If it's like the PC industry, we'll get exactly what we want for dirt cheap from any one of a 1,000 different manufacturers operating on razor-thin margins.
That'd be nice, and I'd like to see Google take their Motorola Mobility purchase and kick off that trend right now.
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Only with the added burden of no software flexibility and way more DRM + lock down.
Can I build my own handset? (Score:2)
We only have a handful of large players in the handset industry right now.
If it's like the PC industry, we'll get exactly what we want for dirt cheap from any one of a 1,000 different manufacturers operating on razor-thin margins.
If it's like the PC industry, we geeks who build our own rig want to build our own handsets
When can we do that?
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Ever heard of GNU Radio? Get cracking.
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The GNUphone! [newstechnica.com]
So... (Score:5, Informative)
HP/Compaq, Lenovo, Acer, Asus, Dell, Samsung, Sony, Fujitsu... who among these would you call small players? A small player in my mind is a store chain that sells rebranded or white label computers, not an asian mega giant.
Just because YOU don't shop around, doesn't mean nobody else does.
Re:So... (Score:5, Informative)
HP/Compaq - their PC division makes so little money they thought about getting rid of it.
Lenovo - usually loses money every now and thn thy make a slight profit.
Acer - hasn't done well since the netbook craze.
Dell - Is seeing revenue and profit decline and trying to move away from PCs to services.
Sony - reported billion dollar losses.
Does that seem like a healthy industry?
Re:So... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:So... (Score:4, Informative)
How is this any different from the phone industry?
Samsung - makes 26% of the industry profit because they can manufacturer their own components.
Motorola Mobility - hasn't made a profit ad a standalone entity in two years.
HTC - very slim profit. 1% of the industry profit.
Sony/Ericson - losing money.
RIM - losing money.
Nokia- losing money.
LG - losing money.
Only three mobile companies are making money - Apple 66% + of the industry profits, Samsung most of the rest with HTC making 1%.
Re:No (Score:5, Interesting)
The handset industry is facing the same problem as the PC industry did during the 80's and we will end up with 2 or 3 large players.
oh you mean just like happened to handset industry in 1996? and again in 2000? and again in 2004? and 2008?
hint: handset industry is in perpetual trouble, always been, always will. the bigger players manage with their momentum over the bad times, like motorola & samsung have done(even moto ended up getting chopped up, since last time they had a hit was with the original razrs) and how nokia is doing now after almost a decade of good times. it remains to be seen if blackberry is too big to fail or not in this regard.
the difference to pc industry is obvious though, you can't as easily just buy the parts and throw them together - another difference is IP rights, which basically bar any new entrees to the market(only small niche players are tolerated without getting sued by the big 5) even though anyone can buy the devices from the subcontracting factories.
and rims huge loss just signals rims situation - they hit their market peak. their actual problem was that they were never a global player and another problem is that they kept just hiring more and more people during their good times - that's another thing these companies do, they hoard engineers on the good times even if they don't have anything worhwhile for them to do - so expenses balloon when their profits balloon and then if they have a period of not having a hit phone in the stores it's doomsday instantly.
also - bb only ever had a lead in very few countries. they were never a truly global contender - however they did have growth until now.
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, RIM's loss was mostly from writing down old stock. It's a paper loss, making up for paper profits which never really happened.
Their position isn't good, but it's not as horrible as the half billion loss indicates.
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Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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I don't know about the rest, but I do not think MS didn't attempt to branch out. They may have no class to their software or devices, which doomed their attempts, but they were and still are trying.
Re:No (Score:5, Funny)
seeing MSFT throw the Hail Mary... they sat on their laurels.
For some strange reason, there were no chairs left.
Re:No (Score:4, Interesting)
I understand the need to weave a narrative where the winners all deserved their success and the losers all deserved their failures, but reality is rather more nuanced. (The need for winners to be good guys and losers to be lazy seems a strongly American phenomenon.)
(1) Almost all major tech companies *do* try lots of different products outside of their core competencies. Almost all fail. As long as you don't notice Microsoft's hundreds of failed innovative product attempts, it's easy to claim their sitting on their backside. Also remember that outside of one's area of specialization, the odds of success are pretty much the same as anyone's: 1 in 1,000.
(2) RIM was busy serving their customers, and more to the point, probably serve their customers better than any competitor. They're having their lunch eaten because their market is ceasing to exist, being replaced by inferior (for their market's very particular uses) technology. Being able to play Angry Birds is NOT an improvement to businesses or governments productivity. Unfortunately for RIM, it turns out company productivity is not the final metric for phone selection...
The point is that while the tech winners inevitably are very hard working, most of the losers are as well, but failed to have the butterfly on the other side of the globe flap their wings the right way. It's amazing how these narratives are always clear only with hindsight.
Company A wasted their money and reputation n projects outside their core competencies and deserved to fail! Company A failed to anticipate the changing markets and deserved to fail!
Very, very few companies ever get more than one big success, and that's one more success than you or I have ever had. No need to disrespect them because they failed to get a second. (Or in MS's case, a fourth (DOS, Windows, Office)).
Re:No (Score:4, Interesting)
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_Law_of_Headlines and you will understand the reason for the question mark.
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Look at apple's profits.
The question asked was: "Apart from Apple and Samsung, is the handset market in trouble?" It seems that Apple makes huge profits, Samsung makes good profits, and the rest doesn't. If you say that total handset profit = profits of handset makers making profits, minus losses of handset makers making losses, then Apple and Samsung make over 100% of the total profit.
Now Samsung doesn't do anything that others couldn't do, so this seems to be just a matter of better execution and marketing.
Obvious? (Score:5, Interesting)
How a successful company managed, through horrible fore-sight, atrocious product management and lousy business management, to squander an insurmountable lead in the enterprise market is amazing.
On to the story at hand: there is no doubt that the wider handset market is in all kinds of trouble. Apple clearly makes most of the profit, and Samsung picks off what is left. What does this leave the other players? Nothing. Clearly there is no competition in the iOS market, and Samsung has a huge lead (and massive fab capabilities). Unless one of the other players steps up and makes a handset that, you know, you'd actually want, then they're dead.
End of story - this isn't that complex. Make a product people want. The competition has showed you the way....
Re:Obvious? (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't disrupt a market by being a follower. Being a follower is always a volume business, you are just there to run a numbers game.
In apple's case they re-wrote the rulebook and turned the first question abotu every product into "But is it better than apple's offering". Once a single player is in that position t becomes very hard to unseat them by simply copying. You need to change the rules again to win that game.
Microsoft Deserve credit too (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft expanding their ActiveSync license program as well I would contribute to helping the iPhone succeed. Suddenly you didn't need to invest in expensive BES licensing costs, windows licensing and hardware costs just to connect a phone to a mailbox. When that happened I wondered just exactly how Blackberry would react to the market, and well they didn't.
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You never needed to though. I don't see why you couldn't just enable IMAP on your e-mail server. It has explicit push these days, it always had IDLE which the iPhone is just fine with (uses virtually no energy).
ActiveSync is just another one of those botched protocols that makes sure nobody else can play unless MS lets them. ActiveDirectory is another example, Kerberos, LDAP over proprietary links. ActiveX, again similar to a Java application but it runs only on Windows platforms and is horribly insecure.
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Before ActiveSync, you needed a hodge-podge of protocols and services to sync your e-mail, calendar, contacts, todo lists, etc, etc, etc to a phone. Walking people through that over a phone was not a lot of fun. Especially since every phone supported things just a little differently. And you had to open up a slew of ports on the firewall.
After ActiveSync, you only needed 1 protocol to sync all of the above, the phone calls became a lot simpler, and only 1 port needed to be open on the firewall.
Yeah, it's
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Not only Google, but lots of other Mail servers also license ActiveSync.
Blackberry should have licensed it 5 years ago, and made BES an alternative and easy add on for more features. Having it in BBOS 10 is a day late and a dollar short, it will not save them.
Re:Obvious? (Score:5, Insightful)
My two cents worth.. RIM should dump plans for BB10. The world doesn't want another mobile OS, regardless of how good it might be from a technical POV. RIM should slot itself in with Android or perhaps Windows, but then differentiate itself with its software and services offerings (e.g. BBM, BES etc). If you offered me a truly enterprise-capable Android phone I would rip it out of your hands! Sure, margins will be thinner and the glory days will be behind them.. but they would probably survive, and that gives them time to look at the next way of disrupting the market.
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Re:Obvious? (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple is not dumbed down, they merely made efficient what was a blob of unconnected crap. If by locked down you mean it won't turn into the cesspool of malware that swirls around MS products and starting to be so for Android, then yes it is locked down. The alternative is to have a phone no one wants because its too easily rooted. Hell, even MS realizes this with their new tablet thingy. Apple is only overpriced to people who only evaluate hardware. MS and Linux have taught you to disrespect software and the investment it takes to write it well and have it work properly with a hardware box.
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Compared to native code, obviously.
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...and all the people who don't want an all singing all dancing toy of a phone for a large amount of money, buy one of the others ... note: this is the majority
Apple make money on phones the same way they make money on Desktop computers, a prestige product for a prestige price, large profit with (relatively) low volume
They are not volume box shifters, and never will be
No competition (Score:5, Insightful)
Who can make a phone with all the patent traps?
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The people with the patents. The joys of government enforced monopolies.
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Re:Obvious? (Score:5, Interesting)
Nokia will be an even greater case study.
Re:Obvious? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah what really gets me is that they had a headstart with their maemo tablets long before the iphone came out. These were "only" lacking the phone component, but were arguable intended to fill the same "niche" as the iphone, and yet they never really put any effort into making them really good. They could have been where apple is now, but instead we get more Microsoft crap. Way to go Nokia.
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When Nokia made them, people weren't stupid enough to want tablets. Especially when they cost $500+.
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Funny how the market doesn't agree with you.
In the end sales happen to matter, and WP7 doesn't have them.
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You must be a sales guy.
The number of sales is not necessarily a good proxy for the relative quality of two product, as there may be other factors that are generating the result. In the case of phones, Apple's whole ecosystem of 3rd party apps is a huge factor in phone buying decisions, as is their careful choice to make the phone itself "jewelry" as well as a useful phone.
Those two factors alone have carried the iPhone pretty far, and their momentum will probably carry them for some time even if they make
Re:Obvious? (Score:5, Insightful)
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From observing a number of industries over the years, I've come to the conclusion that mature markets seem to gravitate towards 3 major players (usually the third one is far behind the first two, sometimes there is one clear leader and two far behind it), and a bunch of also-rans that
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What are these mature markets with few players? Not the car industry for one, not the cheese industry, not the toilet paper industry, not the whisky industry. I bet I could name more mature industries with many players than you could with industries with few players. This is beyond the phone, computer, OS industries.
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But those are all industries much less encumbered by patents. Tech moves fast enough that patents generally don't expire until after they're useless anyway, hence the trend towards only a few big players.
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Of course, if they take on huge amounts of debt in a hopeless attempt to 'turn the company around,' then that will count as failure. But up to now they've been a highly successful company.
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Re:Obvious? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think RIM's lead worked against them - it made them complacent. By the time they realised they couldn't afford to be complacent, the rest of the world had noticed it some years earlier.
Let's look at a rough timeline:
- RIM release the first Blackberry along with BES.
- Microsoft think "What a good idea". They integrate some of the more basic features of BES into Exchange under the name of ActiveSync, and improve it considerably as the years go by. Why does Microsoft do this? Simple, it's a popular feature and they can use it to persuade companies to upgrade their existing Exchange infrastructure rather than buy BES. All they need to do is find some handset vendors to license the client-side to.
- RIM doubtless looks into this, concludes that ActiveSync is nothing like as sophisticated as BES (it isn't), and that nobody else has released a handset that does a half-decent job of managing email anyway (they haven't).
- Apple release the iPhone. It's a swishy piece of kit - far prettier than anything RIM have ever produced, and much more pleasant to use - but ultimately not terribly sophisticated. RIM ignore it.
- Microsoft release Exchange 2007. ActiveSync is greatly improved. RIM ignore it.
- HTC release the HTC Dream - one of the first Android handsets. Android's prettier than Blackberry, and a sight easier to use. But RIM ignore it.
- Apple license ActiveSync and include support in an update to the iPhone OS. RIM ignore it.
- Google license ActiveSync and include support in Android. Phones that support Android 2.0 or later get Exchange support.
- RIM buy QNX with a view to rewriting their OS. Corporate acquisitions typically involve months of due diligence before they're announced to the public; it's safe to assume that RIM were looking into this some time before Android 2.0 was released.
So where does this leave RIM? It's Q2 2010, they've obviously decided that long-term, they want a new base for their smartphone OS. At this point they're probably at least three years behind Apple and two years behind Android. Pretty much all they can do is maintain their existing product line while putting together what will be their next major OS upgrade and hope to hell they can keep their heads above water for as long as it takes to get something released. Will they? It's looking doubtful.
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You forgot the part where they spend untold amounts of capital and time on going into a market that they know nothing about, and fail miserably: the PlayBook.
If they would have stuck to what they know (phones) then they might still be relevant. Everyone likes to think that a tablet is just a big phone, without the phone. It's really not.
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With the right management RIM can be turned around, but it needs someone with a 'vision' of where things need to go.
If you look at Apple's history they ended up in a similar positions, since they had become complacent about the merrits of their operating system, while Windows slowly edged past them. It was only when Steve Jobs came back did things start turning around. The difference between him and many current CEOs is that he was neither a lawyer or an accountant. Too many companies seem to be run by peop
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In many ways RIM is repeating another company's history: Palm. Whoever is in charge needs to avoid making those mistakes, otherwise it simply will be a collection of IP bought by a new bigger player.
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Apple makes a lot of money selling expensive prestige handsets, just like they made a lot of money selling expensive prestige PC's the actual volume is irrelevant to them
Samsung make a handset with most of the same features and ease of use but it is cheaper
Blackberry was the Microsoft of the market, enterprise focused, with little innovation until they realised they were losing market share
There are the usual other players in the market who have always struggled to make money but still manage to, just like
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Seriously? You'd be satisfied with a phone that lasts a full day? I just recently was in supermarket reading e-mail in the checkout queue and a guy was speaking with the cashier about phones and the cashier asked if he's doing something wrong because he bought a smartphone (looked like a HTC or smth) and it lasts at best a full day even if he just calls. The other guy who seemed to be a phone guy or smth said that's normal and that his lasts approximately a day if all goes well, but if he uses it more he ha
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You really think "unlocking the boot loader" really matters to anyone but a few geeks?
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The new generation has not got SD cards or removable batteries. "Apple dont have removable batteries or SD cards, and Apple is selling like hot cakes, so we will copy them!" I wish to God Apple HAD patented non-removable batteries and no SD card!
I had a BB9000
Just because you build it doesn't mean they'll ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Why would you buy a Yugo if for $10 more you can own a Lexus?
Because one may no longer drive [ebay.com] a Lexus?
Or, just as a statement, Yugos may become fashionable again? (those bastards with disposable income... one can't predict what they'll have in mind next).
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At the least, you deserve a funny mod.
Funny or not, what I suggested doesn't contradict your line.
What I said amounts to: for them to survive, they'll need to find a niche; either dirt-cheap to make (e.g. the "senior/elder mobile phone" is so basic most probably it costs pennies to make, but is still sold in the $40-80 range) or to sell it as a fashion item at truly ballooned prices. Being "smart" or "enterprise targeted" won't do it any more: too many other brands are already smart enough and "Bring your own device" + "cloudification" move i
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Pretty sure they're viewed mostly as "Toyotas with a higher price tag" in the US as well, except for the people that buy 'em of course. Not that there's anything wrong with Toyotas, though. They're certainly doing better than our nationalized automakers.
No, just the mediocre handset industry. (Score:5, Insightful)
Just bring out a decent product. Nokia's N9 with zero marketing, blocked in all major markets and Nokia's own CEO briefing against it still managed to sell millions of units.
Because it's a superb smartphone with a superb OS.
RIM will bounce back if BB10 is as good as it's supposed to be, on decent hardware, in multiple form-factors.
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BB10 has been delayed again. :( I'm optimistic about the platform, if it ever arrives. Qt, HTML5, Android player, QNX. Woo developers from 4 platforms webos (HTML 5), Symbian & meego (Qt), Android (app player).
The Torch looks quite nice with its slide out keyboard - HP Pre 3 heir?
Nevertheless, their website shows a hardware keyboard in portrait Torch 9810, substituted for a software keyboard in landscape Torch 9800 - the software keyboard doesn't seem sufficiently wider due to the wasted space around th
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And I wonder what would have happened if Nokia actually stood behind the N9, and didn't declare it dead before putting it on sale?
As it is, while there may be plenty of hobbyists doing N9 development, Nokia's situation makes it nearly impossible for any actual mobile-software business to justify investing so much as a dime in the platform.
Eheh (Score:2)
The beauty of MeeGo is that it is Linux, you already got a ton of software, real software not fart apps and they are FREE! Developed by developers who have a heart for their application, not a desire to charge big bucks for inferior software people have gotten for free for decades. Reall, 1,59 for for a video player that doesn't even support basic formats? No thanks.
Re:Eheh (Score:5, Informative)
This is a weird argument. I had a N900, with all the advantages you describe here: Linux, real software, free. However, since I have a Galaxy Nexus with Android, I have the feeling the overall quality of apps is *way* better. And guess what, many of the good ones are free (as in beer) too. When choosing between paying some money for an app that does do what I want, compared to a app 'from a developer with a heart of his app' that looks ugly and stays in beta forever, I'd pay.
Besides, developing for Android is a lot nicer than for the N900. I don't know how far MeeGo/Moblin/Maemo has become in the last year, but I really like Android from both a user's and developer's perspective.
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Different strokes for different folks.
Efforts to hybridize Android and traditional linux include
(a) Ubuntu mobile
(b) Porting wayland to android
(c) hardware virtualization in the Cortex A15
So it has traditionally been the Google way via the 'Play' store, or the GNU way via X11 and a package manager but one day Android apps will run seamlessly alongside desktop apps.
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Even so.. there's a brisk trade in N9s on eBay, and if you really want to see something ex
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It's easier to polish an OS which does a quarter as much.
If the N9 is so irrelevant, how did it sell millions in spite of being suppressed by Elop?
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If it becomes available in time. I own a bold, a 9900. Released in August, it took 3 additional months before AT&T (in my experience, a frequented-by-business carrier) had it. It doesn't sound like much, but there was pretty much no reason for it to be delayed. Free money left on the table; we had at least 3 people migrate to iPhones in that time.
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No, just RIM (Score:4, Insightful)
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That's why I dumped my N900 for an iPhone.
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Games maybe but movies on a phone, seriously?
Youtube clips are one thing but why would any one want to spend 90 minutes+ watching a movie on a tiny screen with a race between the film completing and the battery dying?
I guess you might use a phone as a replacement for the kids in car dvd player but you are seriously risking vomiting in the back seats. I loved to read as a kid but focusing on a paperback while travelling would make me queasy.
Games are a different matter as they fill "waiting time".
One thing w
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Wouldn't you be better off to use a tablet for that? Firstly the bigger screen makes it more comfortable, but you'd also not have to rush the battery as an iPad for example can last ca 10-11h playing movies so a 4h commute would leave you with a good 6h of work time left on the tablet possibly as you don't use it the whole time you'll have plenty even to watch another movie in the evening in bed :)
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RIM not industry (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a RIM problem, not an industry problem. RIM's sales are way down because their technology is outdated and they can't get their shit together. If it were an industry problem we'd be seeing reduced volumes and purchase prices across the board. By that measure Huawei's success is a more accurate harbinger of what's to come.
Can't help but think that RIM's current situation is a lot like what Apple faced with Copland back in the mid-90s. After several years of trying to build their own next-gen system they gave up and purchased NeXT, which we now know as OS X. After numerous OS delays and corporate near-death experiences they finally launched OS X Public Beta in 2000. Given that 90% of current Mac users never touched Classic, there is little shared memory for the bloated, buggy mess that was Mac OS 6-9.
RIM was in the same place two years ago, with a nasty software stack and no ecosystem. They responded by buying QNX. Even with the latest delays they are still going to from purchase to market faster than Apple did with OS X. Same fundamental problem, same solution, dramatically different outcomes.
Re:RIM not industry (Score:5, Interesting)
RIM was in the same place two years ago, with a nasty software stack and no ecosystem. They responded by buying QNX. Even with the latest delays they are still going to from purchase to market faster than Apple did with OS X. Same fundamental problem, same solution, dramatically different outcomes.
OSX might have saved Apple from extinction, but it wasn't enough to make them thrive. The Ipod did that.
Qnx might save some residue of RIM but if they want to thrive again, they will need a fresh beachhead in a new market.
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While there is talk of efforts within Apple to homogenize the platforms eventually, the full stack of libraries and features is significantly different between OSX and iOS despite each having a kernel based on the same ancestry.
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You seem to be making the common mistake of conflating an operating system and a distribution (as people general do, not only with linux).
From a CS point of view, the operating system is the program, which manages all ressources of a computer, including CPU, memory and I/O-devices and distributes the resources to the applications. That means that the Operating System is the kernel, the init process and the device drivers -- and nothing else. GUI is an appliction, command line interface is an application, se
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I'm happy to be told that I'm technically incorrect on this, but I've always considered the base libraries and other ubiquitous parts of the software stack (those parts that are assumed to be present in some version from a clean install, which for iOS includes GUI libraries but for Linux distributions does not) to be part of what sits under the umbrella of "OS".
Perhaps platform is the term I should be using.
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You seem to be making the common mistake of conflating an operating system and a distribution (as people general do, not only with linux).
You seem to think that a significant number of people care about the distinction. They care about the apps and the content and the integrated platform. The distinction between the pieces used to make the integrated platform is about as interesting to them as the details of electricity transmission: as long as it works when they turn on the switch, they don't want to know anything else.
More formally, the apps are programmed against an API. The implementation of that API is only partially done by the kernel (
Re:RIM not industry (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:RIM not industry (Score:5, Insightful)
there is little shared memory for the bloated, buggy mess that was Mac OS 6-9.
bloated? Until recently I had a G3 that would boot both. OS9 started in about 10 seconds - OSX took about 2 minutes. OS9 was comfortable inside 16MB. OSX preferred about a quarter gig on that system. Everything about the UI was much faster on OS9.
Rail against its non-modern architecture all you want, but it doesn't make sense to call it 'bloated'.
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Can't help but think that RIM's current situation is a lot like what Apple faced with Copland back in the mid-90s. After several years of trying to build their own next-gen system they gave up and purchased NeXT, which we now know as OS X.
Actually, Copeland made it to an alpha release, and it wasn't that bad. Jobs' Reality Distortion Field convinced Apple management that buying NeXT (and bailing Jobs out of a $400 million hole) would produce an OS sooner. In fact, it took years longer than Jobs said it would.
The big problem with Copland was that it wasn't fully backwards compatible with the previous System 7. Historically, Apple hadn't seen that as an issue; when a new OS came out, developers were expected to convert their applications. T
Re:RIM not industry (Score:5, Interesting)
New applications, those written with Copland in mind, would be able to directly communicate with the system servers and thereby gain many advantages in terms of performance and scalability. They could also communicate with the kernel to âoespin offâ separate applications or threads, which would run as separate processes in protected memory, as in most modern operating systems. However, these separate applications could not use non-re-entrant calls like QuickDraw, and thus could have no user interface. Apple suggested that larger programs could place their user interface in a normal Macintosh application, which would then start "worker threads" externally.[13]
How is that "not that bad"? Not to mention that devs complained that it crashed constantly, had no symmetric multiprocessing support etc. etc. It MAY have developed into something useful, but Apple was bleeding cash so badly at that point there was no way they could have survived until it did(sort of like RIM). NeXT by comparison was far, FAR more mature and stable. Apple was able to adapt NeXT OS to meet their needs much faster than they ever could have with Copland, and it had a much better architecture to boot. Some people seem to have a reality distortion field about Jobs's reality distortion field.....
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From a different post:
With CliffNotes supplied by Isaac Asimov, whose psychometrics first foresaw the distortion in the personal reality field.
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What saved Apple from bankruptcy was the iMac. It ran classic mac os, and yet made Apple huge amounts of money, which it needed to continue operating long enough
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Did OS X actually bring-in a lot of new users? Or were they brought-in by the hardware, apps, or advertising, and just happen to use OS X, and would just as easily have used OS9 without complaint? Being an early adopter of a all-new OS is anything but fun.
Can't speak for anyone else of course, but for me OS X brought me in to buying their hardware. I absolutely hated Classic MacOS and had no interest in ever using it outside of work (my work was, and still is, a mix of Windows, MacOS and Linux).
When Mac OS X came out, I found it quite interesting, although still not enough for me to migrate at home. By 10.2, I decided I might get a Mac as a secondary system at home; and then by 10.4 I basically stopped upgrading other systems. At home, I now have three Ma
Handsets, eggs & milk (Score:3)
Inelastic demand ...like milk and eggs at your local grocery store...if you're out of handsets your customer goes over to the competition shopping. No handsets, you're out of business. RIMM handset delay puts their customers infront of the competition...if ever they come back to RIM - HELL will freeze over.
Stephen Elop's reaction (Score:2)
Stephen Elop decides to kick back, relax - loads up Slashdot for the first time in years and sees...
But the size of the F1Q13 sales miss raises another question: apart from Apple and Samsung, is the handset industry drifting into serious trouble?
"Hey, that was uncalled for!"
what it signals... (Score:5, Insightful)
is that RIM made lousy management decisions, has a bad product, and is now paying the price for that. That's a good thing.
Not at all (Score:4, Interesting)
First, RIM is in this pickle because they got complacent when they were dominating the mobile market with one of the most popular devices on the market. Instead of innovating all they did was tweak their designs a little and create designer models of the same thing. The story of RIM is often repeated where a market leader is suddenly playing catch-up when a distruptor enters the market with something dramatically different. RIM is a story of how everything is being done wrong by a mobile device company, even the announcement of a delayed BB10 devices is hurting the company because the remaining Blackberry fan boys are not going to buy a BB today that is going to be replaced tomorrow.
Secondly, the market will not tolerate ONE maker of all their mobile devices. Apple will not become the ONLY player in the mobile device market, where everyone owns an iPhone or iPad or iSomething. Clearly it is obviously that as popular as iThings are, Android devices are growing quickly and outnumbering iOS devices. Sure, maybe Android devices are not as good or flashy or refined, but there are significantly more people out there unwilling to pay the Apple tax for a product. In any market there are fanboys and the fanboys are NEVER going to agree on ONE thing, that is an absolute guarantee.
The question is then how many players in the mobile market will consumers tolerate? So far it looks like its only 2. RIM lost their market position through complacency and Microsoft is trying to claw their way in, but it seems consumers are only interested in having 2 options, iOS or Android devices.
I think RIM is done, period. Any speculation for the company to rebound belies a repetitive habit for failure that began when the iPhone and Android devices were released. RIM would have to shift modus operandi dramatically before it could even be considered a competitor, and I don't think they have it in them. What RIM should do now is try to position themselves as an attractive company to buy, I am sure the patent portfolio for RIM is a goldmine for Apple, Google, or Microsoft and would significantly boost any company looking to compete in the mobile market. But ultimately RIM technology needs to be directed by an innovator and there is nobody at RIM that can claim that position.
Arrogance (Score:3)
I don't know if RIM encouraged it but so many companies handed BBs to their managers and crap flip phones to their grunts. There often would be this huge cut off where some arbitrary level of employee would not be allowed to get a BB. To make it worse RIM gave the IT people the ability to select and block various features as they would choose. IT people are famous for pissing people off with their arbitrary policies so more Apple fodder. This sort of elitism just fed the Apple monster giving the joe employee the desire to buy a better phone for themselves. Then it got nasty for RIM when the top top management would break out from the RIM stranglehold and force the IT people to get them an Apple.
In the end all these companies ended up handing out BBs to employees who used their own money to get an iPhone/iPad for their own use. Pretty bad when your product is free and still can't win the hearts and minds of all but a few hard core MBA types.
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
Given that smartphones are the most widelydeployed and used general purpose computers in hands of individuals, I guess they do care. It's the future of computing.
They were in the market of cheap buffet style email for corp users and managed to get there by being convincing carriers to not price by kb with their platform.
The best chance of survival for them is to buy a T-mobile or Sprint (with the iPhone deal RIM is screwed now) and offer corp. plans for $30 a month, and then building an enterprise app ecosystem around a solid platform as QNX. No sane company will pay $100 per employee/mo if they could pay $30 and have a platform that can run apps just as good as the alternatives.
They though they where a premium brand with a premium product and now even if the products excel, they are irrelevant. If given a choice, most will prefer widely used platforms w/hundreds thousand apps and solid development tools.
Buying a carrier and being the low cost provider for corps is one of the few things that could save them - but may be too late.
Re: (Score:2)
Opera Mini; Swype.
Re:Not surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
BB10 happens to be missing a feature - nobody can buy it. Sadly, "it shipped" is a critical feature. It doesn't matter how amazing it is without that one feature.
Meanwhile, Android is a crowded market that has lots of demand. People actually buy Android phones. This is the same mistake Nokia made: thinking that being the big fish in a swimming pool is better then being a small fish in the ocean.
Fanboys love to insult Android as second rate, but their "amazing" vendors would trade places with Samsung in a heartbeat because they (and Android) happen to do really well on the metric that matters in the business world: people actually buy it.
Re: (Score:2)
Hello, Apple fanboy here. :)
To that end though, RIM, Nokia, HTC, Moto, et al. need to follow Apple's example.
Chasing market share doesn't mean chasing profits. In order for all of these companies to win, the others do not have to lose. Steve Jobs said it back in the 90's about Apple vs. Microsoft, and it's absolutely as true today as it was then. There are a lot of pockets to fill with phones. There's plenty of space for everyone.
Make your phones profitable and the experience not suck. Unfortunately th