Amazon was hoping to add Blackberry to the Amazon Prime offerings. Free 2 day email delivery.

Man, all our tech companies up here start out nice then *blam*

Corel
Northern Telecom/Nortel
ATI - Well, I guess they are doing ok since they got bought out by AMD.

Hmmm, short list, guess we're just not good at tech in general.

Good. Let
Nothing bad happen tO the amazons

/ kindle fire is not helping bezos

A few years back, I was at a job where my new boss recommended that we update everything about our organization. To this extent, he decided to hook up everybody in Admin with some new phones. I offered to help, and started researching Androids and iPhones to see if they would fulfill our needs.

My manager chose Blackberries. And then gave me this long spiel about how they 'were stable' and 'going to be around forever.' The motherfarker got fired five months after his hiring, and that pretty much says it all.

Blackberry's days were numbered when the iPhone came to be.

Why is everyone so hard on BlackBerry's? I've never used another smart phone, I have a BlackBerry and it's always worked to my expectations.

I can forgive that Blackberries are usually a no-frills device designed for business, even if the design is getting stale.

It sure would help if they could at least keep their network stable as a simple start. How many server issues have they had in the last few months?

devioustrevor: Why is everyone so hard on BlackBerry's? I've never used another smart phone, I have a BlackBerry and it's always worked to my expectations.

Well, if it meets your expectations is a great product then.

I used them for many, many years. The buggy OS was what made me switch. I had a 7890 (or something) then 8000, 8320, 9000 and finally 9700 before switching to an iPhone 4. All the OSes were garbage (4, 4.5, 5 and 6). Random lockouts, restarts that take 10 minutes, sluggish, had to pull the battery twice a day, memory issues (I had a finite amount of memory to install applications, and it was very common for applications to have memory leaks, so the BB would start deleting messages as a last effort to recoup memory).

One of my biggest pet peeves was the BROADCAST Feature in BBMSN. EVERY SINGLE member of my family would start Broadcasting stupid chain letters and there was NO WAY I could stop them. There was no "STOP BROADCAST MESSAGES" in options in BBMSN and has never been one, even though so many people complain about them.

Made the switch first a bit scared because hey, I'm losing BBMSN. But in this age of Facebook messaging, twitter, googletalk, whatsapp and even old fashioned email, BBMSN isn't really needed.

maq0r: devioustrevor: Why is everyone so hard on BlackBerry's? I've never used another smart phone, I have a BlackBerry and it's always worked to my expectations.

Well, if it meets your expectations is a great product then.

I also have low requirements out of it. I just need something for phone calls, texting, e-mail and organization (day planning/contacts list). When I'm in unfamiliar towns/cities I'll also use Google Maps to figure out how to get to where I need to be.

Apparently my bank also has an app for personal banking, and while I know BlackBerry's are incredibly secure I'm just not the type that would trust something as secure as my bank accounts to a cell phone.

Enemabag Jones: I can forgive that Blackberries are usually a no-frills device designed for business, even if the design is getting stale.

It sure would help if they could at least keep their network stable as a simple start. How many server issues have they had in the last few months?


The problem is that email delivery isn't the rocket surgery it used to be. Fast, reliable and secure email is easy to do on just about any phone out there now. Blackberry has some nice features if you need super high security or have thousands of devices to manage at an enterprise, but these days Exchange push email is mature and robust enough that a BES is just a waste of time and money for many business. Ironically enough, I think the iPhone becoming popular was what really broke RIM's strangehold on business email (since every executive suddenly wanted to be able to get their work email on their shiny new iPhone), and in the process pretty much turned Exchange Active Sync from something mostly limited to Windows Mobile users (and a few poor bastards using Mail for Exchange on Symbian) into the defacto standard for corporate push email.

If Microsoft was smart, they'd be making the priority in the next big Windows Phone update the addition of enterprise features like full device encryption and robust device management tools, so that way they could position Windows Phone 8 as a replacement for Blackberry in enterprise, especially since it integrates so closely with their Office and Server products (plus it also has one of the best on-screen keyboards I have ever used - nothing fancy like Swype, just very accurate and with a very smart autocorrect).

Blackberry : phones :: AOL : Internet :: MySpace : Social Media

Once they were big, important, industry leading giants. Now, they are hangers on, mostly through inertia, and most people look at them and go, "Wow. Are they still around?"

maq0r: Made the switch first a bit scared because hey, I'm losing BBMSN. But in this age of Facebook messaging, twitter, googletalk, whatsapp and even old fashioned email, BBMSN isn't really needed.

I'm with you there. Everyone I want to chat with outside of work is on Facebook, so Facebook messaging is the best way to get hold of them. At work, Lync is much more flexible because I can use it on the computer as well as on the phone. In this day and age it just seems stupid to have a messaging client that is limited to only one type of device. Apple's iMessage is a fail for the same reason. My wife is a huge Apple fangirl, but she never uses iMessage to chat with anyone because most of the people she knows do not have an iPhone or an iPad. You have to be cross platform or you are going to fail miserably. Hell, even Microsoft realizes this and has been putting out iOS versions of SkyDrive and OneNote recently.

Also, Blackberry Music is a cruel joke. I just don't understand how anyone with even a passing knowledge of competing music services would think that it was a remotely good idea. The fact that they actually had the balls to launch it around the same time Spotify was hitting North America just shows you how out of touch RIM management are with reality. They actually made Zune look cool in comparison.

RIM has their engineers working hard on making a time machine so they can go back 10 years to when they were still relevant.

jackbooty: RIM has their engineers working hard on making a time machine so they can go back 10 years to when they were still relevant.

Ah, the old Terra Nova gambit. That's a bold move.

HempHead: Equally dumb move:[www.zdnet.co.uk image 610x458]

Microsoft didn't buy Nokia or offer to buy it.
Someone will buy RIM just for the patents

teto85: I hate to admit this, but maybe Bettman and the NHL were smart to not allow the Preds to be sold to Ballsillie [sp]

It was the Coyotes, and selling them to Donald Trump would have been a smarter business move than keeping them in Phoenix. Balsille's a tool, but only in a typical billionaire way. Bettman's a special kind of stupid.

Lars The Canadian Viking: Man, all our tech companies up here start out nice then *blam*

Corel
Northern Telecom/Nortel
ATI - Well, I guess they are doing ok since they got bought out by AMD.

Hmmm, short list, guess we're just not good at tech in general.

No, Canadians are every bit as good as the US at tech. I have noticed, though, that Canadian firms in general (and RIM in acute particular) allow themselves to become way too paranoid about intellectual property, to the point of paralysis and dysfunction.

Loosen up, eh? :)

My (very large) organzation is 100% Blackberry, still. No other phones allowed. I haven't heard any rumors about them starting to test iOS, Android, or Mango, either. When RIM fails, it will be a disaster of epic proportions around here. Of course, we're still on XP and only recently upgraded to IE8.

Hell, I'd just be happy syncing my work and personal calendars (on Android). Forget the email.

I really love walking up to some teenager who has a blackberry and showing them my droid with the moving smoke background on the home page, voice search and widgets. Just that makes them want to go back to their mum with a sad face and a demand for a new phone.

drjekel_mrhyde: HempHead: Equally dumb move:[www.zdnet.co.uk image 610x458]

Microsoft didn't buy Nokia or offer to buy it.
Someone will buy RIM just for the patents

The horrible idea in the pic isn't about sales at all; it's those chairs. Just awful, they look like two schoolkids about to get sent to detention.

I worked outsourced for RIM late last year, for few months. I on when their 9 os came out. I saw writing on the wall. The competitiveness of the market was just exploding and Blackberry devices where already lagging behind in apps, software, and hardware features. They're too vertically integrated to be competitive anymore. You can't be a hardware and a software company in the smartphone for very long. Apple can to a degree because of it's fan club. However to be innovative and competitive now is almost herculean. Plus the mobile device and the personal computer are going to start blur into one small portable device.

Lars The Canadian Viking: Man, all our tech companies up here start out nice then *blam*

Corel
Northern Telecom/Nortel
ATI - Well, I guess they are doing ok since they got bought out by AMD.

Hmmm, short list, guess we're just not good at tech in general.

And didn't Kobo recently get bought out by a Japanese company?

In any case, they made a poor decision partnering with Borders in the US.

illisium: teto85: I hate to admit this, but maybe Bettman and the NHL were smart to not allow the Preds to be sold to Ballsillie [sp]

It was the Coyotes, and selling them to Donald Trump would have been a smarter business move than keeping them in Phoenix.

Actually, it was the Preds and the Coyotes.

And the Penguins.

And if rumors are to be believed, he also kicked the tires on the Sabres, but Golisano told him to get bent if he was even thinking of moving the team.

jso2897: dready zim: I really love walking up to some teenager who has a blackberry and showing them my droid with the moving smoke background on the home page, voice search and widgets. Just that makes them want to go back to their mum with a sad face and a demand for a new phone.

Where on this planet would you find a teenager with a Blackberry?

UK

Lulz. Even a year ago the writing was on the wall for them.

These companies....it must be some weird kind of tunnel vision. All the big-wigs go to work every day in their big fancy offices and everyone around there is carrying Blackberries. I mean, Dec-Jan of last year the entire press world was laughing at the Playbook and Torch.

Blackberry could get an extension on life if they would just license ActiveSync for Exchange server, instead of pushing that awful Enterprise Server.

Good. I hate BES. Heck, we have the free version here (BES Express) and I hate it. We only have a handful of users, but they generate more problems for me than the roughly four times as many iPhones that tap into our mail servers.

RIM's retarded but I can't live without that keyboard. The new QNX OS sounds interesting even if they can't even name it properly. They haven't fallen over the falls yet but they're swimming close, they could still turn it around though.

drjekel_mrhyde: HempHead: Equally dumb move:[www.zdnet.co.uk image 610x458]

Microsoft didn't buy Nokia or offer to buy it.
Someone will buy RIM just for the patents

Nokia dumped everything to devote themselves to selling WP 7 phones. That's gonna end up destroying the company.

Blackberry is not going to fail. They hold the majority market share for people who need extremely secure devices.As much as a lot of people hate to admit it there are many entities that require that type of security. Entities like banks, the government, and hopefully insurance companies and the medical industry would require the level of security that Blackberry offers to protect peoples private data. These entities aren't worried about all the apps available for the Blackberry that is why Blackberry should just go back to basics and concentrate on making it's os and severs stable to make the business market they have now happy and stop trying to compete with Iphone and Andriod in the consumer market.

I've never been interested in the iPhone, so I've kept my smartphone buying to the competition. I started with Palm's Treo and moved on when it was obvious Palm was done. The one Blackberry I owned (the Storm) was decent for about a year before it was quickly outpaced by the Android phones. I switched to a Droid X and haven't looked back.

The Storm was a device with potential, but it wound up being extremely hampered by its software. It was obvious to me then that RIM had some extreme myopia, and every time I hear their execs say something, I just shake my head in bewilderment. RIM has a good stranglehold on enterprise-level devices, but that will only last until Microsoft realizes that they're not going to be able to compete in the consumer market at that the corporate sector still loves them.

If I worked for RIM, I'd be polishing up my resume. The likelihood that they're going to get broken up and sold off by their investors is increasingly likely as the days go by.

ChubbyTiger: My (very large) organzation is 100% Blackberry, still. No other phones allowed. I haven't heard any rumors about them starting to test iOS, Android, or Mango, either. When RIM fails, it will be a disaster of epic proportions around here. Of course, we're still on XP and only recently upgraded to IE8.

Hell, I'd just be happy syncing my work and personal calendars (on Android). Forget the email.

Propose to them that you can make the move to iOS and Android due to program like mobileiron which will offer security roughly on par with RIM. plus the renewal licensing is cheaper with MI than RIM. So in the end you get a better phone and save some money.


/did that at my work
//RIM is almost dead here
///MI admin

ongbok: Blackberry is not going to fail. They hold the majority market share for people who need extremely secure devices.As much as a lot of people hate to admit it there are many entities that require that type of security. Entities like banks, the government, and hopefully insurance companies and the medical industry would require the level of security that Blackberry offers to protect peoples private data. These entities aren't worried about all the apps available for the Blackberry that is why Blackberry should just go back to basics and concentrate on making it's os and severs stable to make the business market they have now happy and stop trying to compete with Iphone and Andriod in the consumer market.

that security exclusivity is dying. for example the new version of mobileiron leverages S/MIME for more security robustness not to mention the new API's let me shut down even more of the iphone and replicate the BES on almost all the same levels.

TheGhostofFarkPast: ChubbyTiger: My (very large) organzation is 100% Blackberry, still. No other phones allowed. I haven't heard any rumors about them starting to test iOS, Android, or Mango, either. When RIM fails, it will be a disaster of epic proportions around here. Of course, we're still on XP and only recently upgraded to IE8.

Hell, I'd just be happy syncing my work and personal calendars (on Android). Forget the email.

Propose to them that you can make the move to iOS and Android due to program like mobileiron which will offer security roughly on par with RIM. plus the renewal licensing is cheaper with MI than RIM. So in the end you get a better phone and save some money.


/did that at my work
//RIM is almost dead here
///MI admin

There's your issue right there. Are you going to completely overhaul your mobile network to get something that iss ALMOST as secure?

I love my Blackberry because it's very secure. For example, when I open my email and type in my password "snorkle", I don't have to worry about anybody hacking into my account. As another example, I can got to fark.com and enter my password "uranussmells" without fear of someone hacking into my account and signing me up for total fark. It's not the Blackberry's fault, but my US Bank account password of "password123" is a pain because it requires numbers - a little harder on a Blackberry.

So yes, the Blackberry is perfect for security-conscience people like me.

ChubbyTiger: My (very large) organzation is 100% Blackberry, still. No other phones allowed. I haven't heard any rumors about them starting to test iOS, Android, or Mango, either. When RIM fails, it will be a disaster of epic proportions around here. Of course, we're still on XP and only recently upgraded to IE8.

Hell, I'd just be happy syncing my work and personal calendars (on Android). Forget the email.

Mine is as well. But next year they are allowing other phones and I assume replacing BB's with other smart phones if it is requested. They sent a survey out this year to see who wanted other smart phones. I guess a lot of the company did.

/Hate my BB
//to slow, needs battery pulled to often
///browsing sucks on it

Lars The Canadian Viking: Man, all our tech companies up here start out nice then *blam*

Corel
Northern Telecom/Nortel
ATI - Well, I guess they are doing ok since they got bought out by AMD.

Hmmm, short list, guess we're just not good at tech in general.

Fellow Canadian here...It seems that once a Canadian company hits 15-20,000 employees it has a good chance of imploding. It's like we're incapable of managing that many people. I'm not sure if the problem is that our talent pools are a little too shallow (hiring/performance standards decline) or if it is purely cultural (we're not cutthroat enough).

mcreadyblue: drjekel_mrhyde: HempHead: Equally dumb move:[www.zdnet.co.uk image 610x458]

Microsoft didn't buy Nokia or offer to buy it.
Someone will buy RIM just for the patents

Nokia dumped everything to devote themselves to selling WP 7 phones. That's gonna end up destroying the company.

I really don't know what other option they had. Meego is dead in the water and doesn't really have much to differentiate itself from iOS and Android except for lack of features and apps. Symbian is old and busted, and even though Belle gives it a UI that seems like a decent knock off of an Android phone running Sense, it's just lipstick on a pig because the underlying OS code is a mess. It is really too late to hop on the Android bus and really make a splash, and Android is so resource-heavy that you just can't compete unless you use the top of the line hardware and give yourself razor thin margins.

With Windows phone, they have the chance to get in on the ground floor with an OS that has the potential to survive the current shake out, since developers are getting onboard and Microsoft has a good service ecosystem that they can take advantage of to complete against the Google and Apple services. Also, from a manufacturer point of view, Windows Phone fast and stable with a single core processor thanks to some tight coding and hardware graphics acceleration throughout the OS, Nokia doesn't have to be using the most expensive hardware on their phones, which will likely help their profit margins if Windows Phone can get the critical mass needed to really start selling.

It's a big if, but with BBY being so late to the game with their QNX OS (and the Playbook's failure scaring off developers) and Web OS pretty much finished, I just don't see another strong alternative to Android and iOS outside of WP7. The tech press seems to really be positive about the OS ever since the Mango launch, and that sentiment is slowly going to trickle down to people in the stores and customers. I could kind of see it working out for Nokia.

schief2: Kobo's actually a good product

The Kobo Vox is on par with the cheap $100 chinese android tablets.

The KT is nice, but suffers from software issues that can nearly brick the device. I had one freeze up permanently (or rather, until the battery was dead) and their response was "we don't know how or why that happens, sorry". Took a few weeks to get it as well.

It is nice that they'll send you the source code if you ask really nicely tho.

jso2897: dready zim: I really love walking up to some teenager who has a blackberry and showing them my droid with the moving smoke background on the home page, voice search and widgets. Just that makes them want to go back to their mum with a sad face and a demand for a new phone.

Where on this planet would you find a teenager with a Blackberry?

Here in my town. Kids still love those blackberries because of bbm.

ChubbyTiger: My (very large) organzation is 100% Blackberry, still. No other phones allowed. I haven't heard any rumors about them starting to test iOS, Android, or Mango, either. When RIM fails, it will be a disaster of epic proportions around here. Of course, we're still on XP and only recently upgraded to IE8.

Hell, I'd just be happy syncing my work and personal calendars (on Android). Forget the email.

Maybe this would help. I use this at my work to sync with the Calendar on my Android.

Link (new window)