RIM CEO not worried about iPhone…
I found this article a bit ago with some words from RIM’s co-CEO Michael Lazaridis (via iPhoneWorld). On one level, it’s the most reasonable quote from a handset maker about the iPhone that I remember seeing. On the other hand…
He [Steve Jobs] made smartphones cool again. Now everyone wants one. He helped the entire industry.
No he didn’t, he made the iPhone cool. RIM’s BlackBerry pancakes are never going to be cool.
We both focus on two entirely different markets. One is pure consumer and pure consumable. One is pure function and pure productivity.
Of all the handset makers I’d guess that RIM’s is going to be safest, entrenched as they are in big IT. They’ve got a lock on Exchange servers everywhere that isn’t going away in awhile. On the other hand, their tentative forays outside of that ever so conservative box (the Pearl) just aren’t going to cut it. He also makes the mistake that having a handset that is good looking with an innovative and intuitive interface is something that only consumers want. It turns out that everyone wants that.
Now the iPhone is just vapor and a few YouTube videos at this moment, so who really knows. But, from looking at those videos and thinking about it, if Apple can come up with a robust solution that doesn’t crash every 10 minutes (something Palm has had great difficulty doing) and if the UI is as easy to use and intuitive as it seems to be in the video, every handset maker should be worried. Worried and embarrassed as hell for sitting with their thumbs up their butts for years and waiting for Apple to do something genuinely interesting in the space.
RIM’s marketshare has been pretty unassailable so far, but it doesn’t take much. If the iPhone proves robust and if that virtual keyboard proves usable - with a little exchange integration work, they could start eating into that part of the market. We’ll see, I’m optimistic that the iPhone will shake things up for everyone and whether or not it actually pans out, I think it’s going to be good for us lowly consumers.
