Ever since Apple dived into the mobile market like a drunken brawler, with Google following soon after with a flying kick, the head that’s been getting kicked around like a football the most is Research in Motion. That’s what happens when you don’t innovate and rely on the head of the company overruling the IT department which hates you as your customer base. Now RIM is realizing just how much trouble they’re in…and they’re starting to get desperate. How desperate?
First up, some smashed Blackberries. RIM has mostly protected itself by pretending that the BlackBerry is better than the iPhone because it can do email and has a proprietary keyboard, but that didn’t cut it with consumers and increasingly isn’t cutting it with business clients. Also, Apple has been selling iPads like they give you orgasms with the press of a button, and iPads are increasingly becoming popular with…older people and businesses.
So RIM, deciding that a tablet is just a gigantic smartphone and they can totally do smartphones, built the BlackBerry PlayBook. One small, teeny tiny, utterly minor problem that almost nobody would notice: the PlayBook didn’t do email on ship date.
Maybe it’s just how the Canadians do business, but we think including a feature that’s pretty much what you’re known for is good business sense.
How do you check your email? By using the BlackBerry phone you already have as a hot-spot! Congratulations! That advanced device you bought is a $600 magnifying glass!
Granted, BlackBerry did save its hide in one important respect: the PlayBook, despite running a different operating system, can at least use Android apps. So it’s not totally useless! Just useless for…er…businesses. Which are RIM’s main clients. Some of whom are understandably just a little upset about all this.
Of course, they’re still funneling cash to the company eating up all the mobile market share, Google, every time somebody uses their BlackBerry to search for something. But don’t worry! They’ve got that covered too!
They’re teaming up with Bing!
Stop laughing. OK, yes, it is a little funny. But it gets funnier.
Apparently Bing is going to be deeply, sensually integrated into all future BlackBerry products, probably because nobody in marketing realized that everybody is immediately going to refer to such a phone as a “BingleBerry”. This isn’t just a search tab; Bing is somehow going to be central to the BlackBerry experience, something that worked out so well when Microsoft bought Danger and “integrated” it right out of existence.
And that’s the news from BlackBerry World so far. We’ll let you know if there’s any sort of jam.
[news-links]
- PlayBook, Now With 100% Less Email! (eWeek)
- BlackBerry and Bing are going to make sweet love to each other. “Don’t worry about the Sidekick, baby” Microsoft mutters sweetly “She’s nothing compared to you.” (ZDNet)
[/news-links]
[news-morenews]
In other tech news, remember when Sony tried to hide a massive data breach that compromised millions of its customers, spilling their private information and credit card numbers all over the Internet?
“Yeah, that was last week”, you’re thinking. And you’d be wrong, because Sony, like Britney Spears, did it again. And by “it” we mean cover up another major security breach.
No, the hackers didn’t go back to the PlayStation Network for seconds, they raided the Sony Online Entertainment ranks. SOE, who you might remember run “Everquest” as well as “DC Universe Online” and “PlanetSide”, plus a whole bunch of failed MMOs that mostly serve as reminders that nobody does it like Blizzard.
This time, it was nearly 24 million customers that got compromised. Wait…24 million people play any MMO other than WoW? Maybe Sony was storing all those former players from all those bombs for the day when they came back pleading for “Everquest?” (Yahoo!)
[/news-morenews]
[news-stats]
- As of 2009, there were 28.9 million BlackBerry users. That’s an impressive number until you realize there are 125 million iOS users worldwide and the Android OS is activating 200,000 phones a day. Maybe BlackBerry could team up with RC Cola for a promotion? They could call it “The Third-Placers Unite!” (NumberOf)
- Hey, if you total up the number of accounts Sony lost, it’s 101 million! Finally, they’re beating Apple at something! (Massively)
[/news-stats]