From the Toronto Star (aka Crvena zvezda) no less:
RIM’s woes partly based in Canadian telecom policy
…
RIM was never shy about trumpeting its perceived competitive advantages. For years, co-founder Mike Lazaridis promoted the data efficiency of RIM’s BlackBerry, while emphasizing that wireless spectrum is a finite resource. From RIM’s perspective, efficient use of data makes its devices more attractive to wireless carriers, which incur lower costs when compared with bandwidth-hogging devices such as the Apple iPhone.
The emphasis on spectrum scarcity and the value of currying favour with telecom carriers is very much a product of the Canadian marketplace. Bell, Rogers, and Telus dominate our wireless market, resulting in longer consumer contracts than those found elsewhere, among the highest roaming fees in the world and expensive wireless data costs…
The government response to RIM’s troubles should therefore not focus on assisting the troubled, but still-profitable BlackBerry maker. Rather, it should recognize that the policies that resulted in an uncompetitive telecom market have implications that extend well beyond pricey consumer cellphone plans.
For better or worse, RIM is very much a product of its environment. Addressing RIM’s woes requires establishing policies that ensure that the next Canadian tech giant emerges from a more globally competitive market where conserving Internet use and prioritizing carriers over consumers are not viewed as competitive advantages.
Rim – like nortel before it – forgot that it’s real customer was the end user of their product – not the telecom middleman.
Just as consumer products moved into the PBX business – the domain of nortel – crushing prices and offering far more flexibility, the smartphone/portable email device world that RIM had created into a commercial kingdom was removed from the throne by a coup-d-etat by Apple and others.
Rim is the Atari of smartphones – there is very little chance they won’t collapse entirely like Palm before it or be devoured whole like motorola.
Completely off topic but Jack Layton has passed away. http://livenews.thestar.com/Event/Jack_Layton_dead_at_61
One family member has Blackberry and another has I-phone. The Apple product is more user friendly and more reliable. Our experience anyway.
Having used both present day, the iPhone is much more user friendly.
Try zooming in with a Blackberry to read stuff or using the Blackberry pad wheel to superscroll past the selection you want always.
Smaller screen to boot, have to squint to see the pictures.
I bought a Blackberry Playbook and tried to use it. I really, REALLY tried. For 24 hours I surfed the forums to find a way to:
-attach to my Telus Blackberry
-play netflix
-play any video in my library
-play any iTunes video.
-download a playable version of Angry Birds or Plants Vs. Zombies, the two hottest aps on Earth.
I found that Netflix and my non-upgradeable OS 4.5 Blackberry were specifically disallowed from use on the Playbook. Netflix uses MS Silverlight, which is not supported by QNX yet. Telus sold me a brain-damaged Blackberry 8300 on a three year contract and RIM let them. There’s a large number of people out there with these orphan phones, every one of whom is going to be P1SSED when they find out. Because no Blackberry hookup, no 3G for the Playbook. WiFi only, baby.
Videos could be transcoded to run on QNX… if I wanted to learn a whole new transcoding process and spend about one hour per movie cranking the process through my quite fast four core PC. Pretty steep learning curve by the look of it, gonna take a looooong time to code the flicks. Like, months of computer time.
I never did get Android aps to run, there seemed to be no reason why not, it just didn’t work. Plus I would have had to -buy- Angry Birds etc. again from the Android store instead of running my iTunes version, because of the tragically stupid Apple Walled Garden policy of making sure their sh1t doesn’t run on anything else.
The Playbook itself, aside from the above shortcomings, is very nice, beautiful screen, very fast, even has USB… but you can’t upgrade the memory with a USB stick because they specifically crippled that function. You have to pay HUNDREDS of dollars for the bigger memory, which is actually a micro-SD flash chip I can buy for fifty bucks. I could swap out the chip and stick in the bigger one myself… if I had fingers the size of Tinker Bell’s and a surface mount soldering setup, and cared to dismantle a $500 item that’s designed not to be taken apart.
And that is why RIM stock is in the toilet. Because they are IDIOTS.
Idiots who, in addition to not knowing what people want to do with a tablet, think f-ing over their own customers by crippling the machine to make you buy more memory from them is a winning proposition. Apple got away with this f- over because they are the first, they will not be getting away with it forever. I’ll buy a Playbook when BestBuy is blowing them out for a hundred bucks, not before.
RIM will recover from its current position in the toilet, circling the drain, when they realize that consumers of high tech widgets are not constrained to buy whatever crap RIM feels like pushing this week. I’m not holding my breath on that one, such appalling arrogance is usually not curable.
I’m not sure how manufacturing an inferior product is the government’s fault or the fault of expensive data transfer. RIM created a market and very very successfully exploited it. In fact it was so successful it decided it could rest on it laurels while others saw an opportunity to move into the market with better products. Maybe you have to be a twice removed from reality like a professor living in Ottawa to draw the “Its the government’s fault” conclusion. Of course it also helps that the paper that publishes your nonsense is in a panic trying to find any dirt it can to destroy the newly elected government.
As a separate issue, the telecom industry in Canada is one of the worst examples of Special Deal crony capitalism there is in a whole country stuffed full of it. They could do with a major @ss kicking, you ask me.
OTOH, Canada has more empty miles in it with idle cell towers sitting on them that anyplace other than Russia. De-regulating and encouraging the building of cell towers would probably fix that. Farmer John could get a decent little sideline out of hosting a tower in his back forty, they’re a hell of a lot cheaper than solar panels and they actually contribute to society.
I’ve worked in telecom for 30 years. I can assure everyone that the CRTC – another Trudeau brain child – is first and foremost a tool for Bell, Rogers, and now Telus, with consumers coming last and least every time.
I worked for companies as they entered the PBX market, the cellphone market, and the long distance market. In every single case, the CRTC took the side of the big telcos. Mitel Corp had a huge market share with its best selling SX-100/200 in the USA, but couldn’t sell them in Canada because Bell owned Nortel. It took an order in council from the government to force the CRTC to consider interconnection.
Same thing in long distance. Call-Net, where I worked, had our lines shut off by Bell, with the express approval of the CRTC, three times. Again, it took an order in council from the government before the CRTC would even consider resale.
And in wireless, the CRTC initially set up a nice duopoly between Bell and Rogers. Even when it auctioned off spectrum in 2008 – ostensibly to “increase competition”, it was Rogers, Bell, and Telus that gained the lion’s share of spectrum. And, in next year’s auction, Bell, Telus, and Rogers are all arguing for the right to buy any or all of the spectrum available, again ensuring that smaller competitors with cash flow problems will be shut out.
The CRTC is anti-competitive and anti-consumer. The long gun registry may be a more familiar boondoggle, but most consumers would benefit far more by abolishing the CRTC.
The Playbook is a DOA product. I work in a BB only company. A manager here is testing a playbook. The bridge software to let you use mail, contacts and BBM on the Playbook is so bad my co-worker actualy composes email on his BB because it is so painfully slow to type on the Playbook not to mention that the spell check does not work either.
I find it ironic that the IT staff here dismiss Apple’s products as ‘toys’ when in reality you can get more ‘business’ done on a iPad device and that RIM’s entire marketing campain for the Playbook is that it can play games at the same time you can watch a Beyonce video. I guess the lack of a native email or contacts app and no spell check would not fit well into a commercial.
I’ve had a Blackberry Curve for the last two and a half years and after my 3-year contract is up, I’m moving to a Samsung Android phone. When I first got the Curve, it was better than most of the other smartphones available. What I’ve noticed, however, is that over the last couple of years, the technology and hardware of their competitor’s smartphones have drastically improved and RIM has not been able to keep up. Samsung has a dual core smartphone out, and it won’t be long until HTC and LG start manufacturing dual core phones. The latest batch of RIM smartphones have just hit the market but they’re no better than the smartphones released by their competitors a year ago.
Blackberrys are more of a business product, iphones and android based phones are more consumer. It has always been this way. Unless RIM changes gears and puts out more consumer friendly phones, they will keep losing market share globally and in the US.
Ahhh, Mitel. When my small company needed to buy a new PBX we couldn’t get a quote from our re-seller and Telus figured $100,000 was the low end ballpark for us. Then we got a cold call from a company with a product from Intertel (now part of Mitel). $10,000 later we had a new PBX with all the functionality we could want. Up yours Telus!
Yes, Canadian telecom policy regarding wireless stinks that is for sure. Wireless in Canada today is like the phone system was in the 80’s, and in true good old Canadian fashion we allow ourselves to be ripped off. There is something about Canadians where we just love to get ripped off and do nothing about it.
As for RIM, they are finished. The asinine gong show of co-CEO of Jim and Mike, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, will finish the company off if nothing else well.
Comments on the CRTC …. Kevin …. Right you are.
I’ve got 35 plus years in Tcom and experience working with CRTC reps in the area of competitive services.
After the local access wars were settled in favour of the ILECs and the competitive innovators taken off the board the next steps were to ensure ossification in wireless and IP services.
The CRTC plays to the status quo and that keeps Canada in the second rate group of tcom service regions.
RIMs problems are entirely self made though. The expectation the Balsilie et co would have the brains or the know how to sustain a competitive battle with manufacturing giants is just wishful thinking.
The only thing I care about in RIM is two nephews who work there.
One more thing … the bandwidth management strategy is not necessarily a bad thing. It is good practice to build efficient systems.
The real bandwidth issue is that there is a artificial restriction created by those regulatory policies the articel alludes to.
I don’t want a smartphone. If I want to listen to music, I have devices to play music. If I want to watch a movie, I can go to a theater. I mean, do you really want to watch a movie on a screen the size of a business card, and hear the sound on tinny little speakers the size of dimes?
If I want to surf the Internet while traveling, I have a laptop. Ditto for e-mail.
All I want is a dumb-phone, rugged enough to drive nails with, and that has an on-board answering machine function, so that callers can leave me a message ON my phone, so that I don’t have to burn up long-distance air time to access my voice mail.
Back when I had an analog phone, I could do that, you know. Had the “dial-tone emulator” box plugged into my Motorola bagphone, and could plug a fax, or an answering machine, or a regular desk phone into it. Or all three, in fact. Try sending, or receiving a fax on your smartphone.
If RIM goes tits-up, no tears will be shed here.
I don’t think anyone in RIM’s marketing department is naïve enough to believe it isn’t consumers who drive the hi-tech gadget market in the US. If they do, they show remarkably narrow grasp of the consumer telecom industry. With all due respect to Michael Geist, I think RIM sticking with old core technology (to which bandwidth scrimping is a part) is more relevant to their situation than Canadian carriers bandwidth standards.
The consumer market loves bandwidth hogging portable devices and that’s what you target and innovate if you want to compete. Rim stayed with old business tool technology that starved the new products of features and performance their competition’s products have. Coming up short in the new tech roll-over, RIM ditched the hybrid designs, scrambled back to the drawing board and hastily introduced some new products that are embarrassingly identical to the competition’s. The markets reacted.
Having been stung by Nortel and Novatel tech-dependant stock, savvy investors started quietly pulling out of RIM when it became obvious they missed the 18 month technology roll-over and were still using the old RIM core tech with some new features. The scramble to copy competition with a hasty redesign did nothing to build investor confidence. RIM was always an innovator, not a copycat.
Those who still champion Canadian forays into the realms of aggressive consumer electronics market competition shouldn’t mourn though, because 13 years is a ripe old age for any hi-tech company – most fail in 5 years – and RIM is far from done yet. The giants survive by consuming or bankrupting their rivals. In that regard I was amazed RIM brass didn’t shop RIM around to the biggies when it was hot property. The fact they didn’t makes me wonder if they still have a few cards up their sleeve left to play. Rumors of RIM’s demise are premature.
I think RIM will go out of business from reading all of these user reviews. I can recall the day I got my first blackberry phone, how excited I was to start using it. It was pretty phenomenal to have access to all my email and meetings while on the go, but even then I was really disappointed with the web browsing. Very limited. I also remember the first time I used an android phone and I concur with my friend describing the first time he used his iphone: It changed my life.
One of RIM’s main problems is that it is closed. Example, I pulled my blackberry out of the back of the desk drawer where it has been sitting since I got my android, and I tried to connect to the Blackberry app world through a wifi connection. You can’t access the app. store from a wifi connection! STUPID! In terms of application development, it is a closed platform and they cater to the service providers who also want a closed system. Android and Apple have provided the means to break the chains. Anyone can build and deploy an application now very easily.
I knew the playbook would fail simply because it took RIM so long to deploy it.
gordinkneehill, you haven’t used an iphone or ipad I take it.
See I don’t care five different items to listen to music, watch movies, surf the internet, check emails, or take 5MB pictures when I travel across canada by air.
See I don’t like loosing paper or boarding pass forms when my iPhone has it from my email on display they scan at the gate.
Nor do I miss the 5 to 7 pounds of laptop (or even the 3 lbs for a netbook) and the space it takes up on my carry on now that we are limited to 1 checked bag. As well limiting the space I can use it in. Try eating your meal with a laptop and lunch, or listening to music and wanting to take a picture of the beautiful country side without getting entangled by all the wires and power cables.
As well I do hope you don’t watch movies or tv while inflight. Smaller screen than the ipad.
So, like the medieval king said to the machine gun salesman, “I don’t have time for new toys, I’m off to battle”.
Time to get with the 20’s. 😉
Oh gordinkneehill. I do send and receive faxes with my smart phone as well.
There is a reason they call them smart phones.
gordinkneehill, take a picture with your 5 megapixel smartphone and send that. Fax is so 1980s.
And I say that as a guy who bought a fax machine in the 1980s. 🙂
Actual “IT guy” here.
The reason RIM hangs on is that their devices are the only ones that are secure enough and centrally manageable enough to be considered in any real business. If and when Apple/Android produce a phone where I can manage and secure the device to the same level that I can a Blackberry, then RIM is dead, but that hasn’t happened yet.
Daniel Ream, heard that. Apple or Google will probably -buy- RIM after it gets crushed some more. Same reason they bought Motorola: patents.
If you want to distribute and manage 100 phones with any regard for security and upgrades, RIM is the only show in town.
I think they’ve lost their way by jumping on the iphone bandwagon. Newsflash: “angry birds” isn’t high on employers’ list of communication priorities. If RIM goes back to basics and sticks with what they do well they will survive. Buying QNX is an encouraging sign.
I had a Blackberry for work back in 2007. I hated it. The user interface was the absolute worst. The web browser was horrible. None of the Blackberry’s numerous faults were due to the Canadian government.
KevinB at 10:55:
The CRTC has little to do with the cell phone industry; Industry Canada governs wireless telecommunications and issues like spectrum licences.
Phantom at 10:37:
Siting cell towers is largely deregulated right now with carriers pretty much having the right to locate within most planning zones. This drove municipalities crazy as nearby residents complained about the visual impact of the towers and possible effects of radiation for those located nearby. Any opposition to cell towers by municipalities was driven by ratepayers (i.e. voters).
Regulations were loose enough that Industry Canada now requires public consultation with local land use authorities and, in many cases, public meetings. From what I’ve seen (and I have worked in the real estate end of that business), the cell companies try to finesse their way through the process – generally successfully and at increased cost.
BTW – Industry Canada does not require consultation with the public or land use authorities for towers under 15 metres in height (you are beginning to see 14.9 metres towers installed within cities in response).
RIM in trouble – could not have happened to a nicer guy, heh. You can judge a person by the company he keeps.
UN Climate Panel Includes RIM’s Balsillie
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2010/08/09/un-panel-balsillie.html
max, I take it you haven’t heard if iPhone Configuration Utility for distributing enterprise configuration profiles?
They got lucky with a one-hit wonder product and the world has moved on.
There is no comparison between an I-Phone or an Android and a Blackberry.
It’s over.
“max, I take it you haven’t heard if iPhone Configuration Utility for distributing enterprise configuration profiles?”
Might I interject? Can I remotely turn off an iPhone when we terminate an employee? I can with BES. Can I change the configiration on any phone at any time and push it out to users of iPhones? I can with BES. Can I configure the phone to prevent web browsing if my compnay thinks it frivolous to pay for an employee’s eBay habit? I can with BES.
Comparing iPhone/android to Blackberry is silly. One is a consumer device, the other is business.
You can lock an iPhone or change the password remotely, you can also “wipe” the phone if you choose.
“Posted by: johnbrooks at August 22, 2011 11:46 AM: gordinkneehill, you haven’t used an iphone or ipad I take it.”
No, zero interest, really.
“See I don’t care five different items to listen to music, watch movies, surf the internet, check emails, or take 5MB pictures when I travel across canada by air.”
I don’t travel much by air. And I plain don’t watch movies. Or TV. I actually own a TV, but the last time I plugged it in was 9/11.
“See I don’t like loosing paper or boarding pass forms when my iPhone has it from my email on display they scan at the gate.”
I’ve been lucky; the few times I do fly, I manage to have the paperwork in order.
“Nor do I miss the 5 to 7 pounds of laptop (or even the 3 lbs for a netbook) and the space it takes up on my carry on now that we are limited to 1 checked bag. As well limiting the space I can use it in. Try eating your meal with a laptop and lunch, or listening to music and wanting to take a picture of the beautiful country side without getting entangled by all the wires and power cables.”
When I eat, I don’t need distractions. If I want to take a picture, I have a digital camera with all kinds of nifty features. And I can download the images right into my PC, don’t have to e-mail them.
“As well I do hope you don’t watch movies or tv while inflight. Smaller screen than the ipad.”
Airplanes have windows for a reason.
“So, like the medieval king said to the machine gun salesman, “I don’t have time for new toys, I’m off to battle”.
Time to get with the 20’s. ;-)”
I see you didn’t address the point about the built-in answering machine function.
Yeah, fax is pretty well obsolete, except when it isn’t. Mostly now, I scan and e-mail documents, but some recipients still deal only in fax. Point is, having that dial-tone emulator box on my bagphone meant I could plug in any machine that needed a phone line. Including my modem. So I had internet available to me out in the sticks, too.
max, I take it you haven’t heard of iPhone Configuration Utility for distributing enterprise configuration profiles?
gordinkneehill
“When I eat, I don’t need distractions.”
A beautiful sunset I hope isn’t a distraction. Kinda hard telling the sun to wait while you finish your pork and beans…
“If I want to take a picture, I have a digital camera with all kinds of nifty features. And I can download the images right into my PC, don’t have to e-mail them.”
You missed the point. I said the smart phone already does that so you don’t have to carry around a heavy camera, even pocket sized. You also don’t have to download them to your PC or email them. You can directly upload them to Facebook from the smartphone if you wish.
“As well I do hope you don’t watch movies or tv while inflight. Smaller screen than the ipad.”
– Airplanes have windows for a reason.
Right. Cloudy day below or it is 10pm. Enjoy.
“I see you didn’t address the point about the built-in answering machine function.”
Are you referring to Voice mail?
“Yeah, fax is pretty well obsolete, except when it isn’t. Mostly now, I scan and e-mail documents, but some recipients still deal only in fax. Point is, having that dial-tone emulator box on my bagphone meant I could plug in any machine that needed a phone line. Including my modem. So I had internet available to me out in the sticks, too.”
Not sure how this comes into discussion about the value of a smartphone.
I have a fax all-in-one machine as well. 2 short rings means fax coming in, normal ring means normal phone call.
Again, not really part of the discussion, just saying smart phones are a lot more than what you are dissing them for.
Re: abolish the CRTC.
Be careful what you wish for. While there may be some benefits, you have to consider, what the government giveth, the government taketh away.
The CRTC mandates Telcos/Comms to provide bandwidth (at discount cost, calling it ‘competitive’) to startup companies and fly-by-night discounters who provide alternate Internet access, Long-distance services and such.
Wipeout the CRTC, say good bye to all government regulated competition that Rogers, Bell, Telus and Shaw are -forced- to allow within their cables.
As well, you can also say goodbye to other third party discount cell providers, who also piggyback within the Incumbent company’s bandwidth. The economics for small companies to build their own structure and cables without government protection is prohibitive.
Be careful what you wish for. Unintended consequences.
tomayto tomahto.
“so you don’t have to carry around a heavy camera”
Ok, I guess. Does it hurt when you shave?