RIM getting out of the consumer market

To be honest I'm not surprised. The Blackberry was originally positioned to compete in the business market, not the consumer market. RIM quite frankly didn't understand the consumer market, and it's offerings in that space were decidedly clunky, and lacking the innovation of Apple and Android.

You have to remember that the Blackberry's killer app was email, at a time when email was awkward and expensive to receive even on the smartest of other hand held devices that were around. Today that's not the case.

Writings been on the wall for a couple of years now as far as I've been concerned.
 
im not surprised either to be honest. business users does seem to be where they excel.

that said i dont think it will be long before they fold in the business sector either, BES is horribly clunky in my opinion and the cheap handsets that make their deals worth while (in our case £4/month/handset compared to £35 for iphones) are horrid.
 
At work we've got rid of blackberries and replaced them with iPhones, the handset costs were offset by not having to run/license BES. And users prefer them too which is a bonus.
 
I have to say i really liked my blackberry, one of my favourite phones. Fast, good battery life.

But tellingly, i do not own one now..
 
Craikeybaby said:
At work we've got rid of blackberries and replaced them with iPhones, the handset costs were offset by not having to run/license BES. And users prefer them too which is a bonus.
Click to expand...

i think we may have had BES for free initially to get their foot in the door. will be interesting to see what happens at renewal..
 
Amazing how things get twisted and distorted by press/public.

Theyre not getting out of the consumer market, but they are going to look to partners for consumer solutions...i.e. cloud based services...e.g. not making their own video stores and any other consumer oriented services...they will continue to build consumer devices and provide consumer blackberry infrastructure
 
in-case you're wondering here is a transcript of the actual words spoken during the calls with BB and the press clarifying the exact point which appleites in the press are jumping on to distort the reality. The context of the comments was actually about the widely expected industry future where consumers want to use their own devices for work...(BYOD = Bring your own device)

Jeffrey T. Kvaal - Barclays Capital, Research Division
Thorsten, I think conventional wisdom in much of the industry at the moment is that the BYOD principle is driven by the demand by consumers to bring their own enterprise into -- or device into the enterprise. That seems to be driven by availability of applications and what have you. It seems, if I'm understanding you correctly, that you're flipping this [on it's head], and you want to focus on the core enterprise businesses and you're going to pull back from the consumer band. Is that -- am I understanding that right? And if so, what does conventional wisdom have wrong about that approach?
Thorsten Gerhard Heins
... my clear objective is to use BlackBerry 10 to provide a very, very strong play in the bring-your-own-device toward the enterprise segment. Now how I constitute the consumer part of this device expression and the device identity, that's why I exactly talk about partnerships. I will provide the strength to BYOD that we can bring to the table by refocusing on what makes a BlackBerry a BlackBerry: workflow, productivity, efficiency, security, easy to work with. And on the consumer side, exactly to what I've said in -- against the first question is, we will partner. We will have to have those consumer table specs on a BlackBerry 10. There's no doubt about it. Do I have to do this myself? Probably not. So we're seeking strong partnerships that allow us to have the completely BYOD offering, but that doesn't mean we have to do it all ourselves.
 
arwesa said:
Amazing how things get twisted and distorted by press/public.

Theyre not getting out of the consumer market, but they are going to look to partners for consumer solutions...i.e. cloud based services...e.g. not making their own video stores and any other consumer oriented services...they will continue to build consumer devices and provide consumer blackberry infrastructure
Click to expand...

This seems more feasible. I see far too many people carrying blackberrys around for them to simply pull out of the consumer market. And a lot of people i know/have known who use blackberrys like them very much, like iPhone/Android users who are equally proud of their equipment.

I myself got a blackberry despite having to support them at work and growing very fed up of them, the main reason I did it was for the excellent keyboard and trackpad for navigation. I just couldn't hack it with a touchscreen keyboard so nearly all Android handsets (that I know of) and all iPhones were immediately out of the window. There is one HTC that I know of and a few other phones that were running Android and had physical keyboards, but none looked particularly great and I fancied a change from Android - I'm a sucker for trying something new once I get interested.

I decided to get the Blackberry Bold 9900, well built and very nicely finished - one of the best blackberrys there is a the moment. I didn't like the look and "plasticky" feel of the curve, and one thing I have found with phones is to get the best you can afford because the cheaper ones can often be worse in a whole lot of ways and you're stuck with it then. My phone is very nice, the physical keyboard is so good I'd never go back to not having one now, and the trackpad on the phone allows me to browse the web with a cursor almost like I'm on a real computer. Using a touchscreen to browse the web and constantly having to pinch/zoom and then clicking the wrong link would just infuriate me now.

One of the bad points is the app world... most apps I have come across are free "trials" and there's not much on offer...

I don't think blackberry are going anywhere (I really doubt they will fold) but I also think they're far from perfect. BES is a pain in the arse and feels as unfinished as Linux and I wouldn't go near a Curve (and many of their handsets) with a bargepole.
 
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have you got blackberry bridge on there yet? can be used as a trackpad/keyboard on bluetooth devices. released for playbook, but standards (HID) connection so also works with playstations, pc's etc.
 
nope, never heard of such a thing. interesting!
 
its very cool, turns the phone into a bluetooth keyboard/trackpad (both screen and thumbpad) I use it to plug the tablet into tv and remotely browse internet and control movies etc.
 
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