Blackberry should give up and profit more
The mobile device and OS market is on fire and, I for one, am super giddy about it! Between the iPhone and Android, there’s some exciting stuff going on. In the media, as it relates to the mobile market, iPhone and Android are all the media is talking about. It used to be that Windows Mobile, Blackberry, the occasional Palm device were the “smartphones” people used to hear about. Now? iPhone, Android, and the occasional Palm device. As far as I can see, Windows Mobile has to aquire someone in order to stay in the game… Palm? I recently wrote a post predicting what the Mobile OS market will look like in 2015. Conspicuously, Blackberry was not included in the pie chart. I do, however, think RIM/Blackberry has a HUGE opportunity right now, but they need to take advantage NOW!
RIM has valuable assets
RIM has millions of loyal customers; business, consumer, and government. They make tons of money on both devices as well as the Blackberry Enterprise Server (over 175,000 organizations have an installation!!) and they have awesome apps on their devices that their customers love including the blackberry messenger (BBM, which only blackberry users can use to IM each other instead of text), and Brick breaker. I use these on my work phone and they’re great! I’m new to blackberry so I may have missed a few nuggets that sets RIM/Blackberry apart from the rest. Therefore, RIM needs to reflect a little and really ask “What do our customers love about our devices and software?” Hold that thought. I want to switch gears for a second, but I’ll get back to this point.
Good Bye Blackberry OS, Hello profits
RIM should give up. Right now… On their OS. RIM should take Android (after all, it IS open source), and build at least one Blackberry that runs Android… RIGHT NOW! What will this get them? Well, they can save money by NOT continuing development on an OS based on over a decade of old paradigms. They can embrace the user experience of the Android, that people really like. RIM can take advantage of the hype of a growing app store and allow Android apps to run on Blackberry devices. Again, as per my prediction, the Android Market will be just about as big as the iPhone app store. Finally, they can port their existing gems, that I just talked about, to Android! It’s all Java and the underlying code should be very easily portable; mainly the user interface piece of the apps will change. They can port, brick breaker and sell it on the Android Market (maybe even for a price). They can, and should, figure out a way that only Blackberry Android devices can run the android version of the BBM, and make it so that only the Android Blackberry can talk to already existing and new installations of the Blackberry Enterprise server for Microsoft Exchange!! Or they can license the Blackberry Enterprise server client to other Android manufacturers. Apple says they’re pleased with enterprise adoption of the iPhone, so the sooner RIM nips this one in the bud, the better!
All in all, Blackberry can use their already extremely strong brand and attach it’s name to the growing strength of the Android brand while saving money on continued Blackberry OS development to mold it into something it’s not. By saving money on Blackberry OS development, they can easily raise their margins and maybe even sell MORE phones and increase sales. The problem with this, is what do they do with all the engineers that currently work on the OS? Well there’s lots of porting of code that needs to be done, plus lots of opportunity to innovate in this field today!
Bottom line, give up the OS game, embrace new UX, Android Market, and the hype… Oh and make more money.
Thoughts?
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