BlackBerry's Uphill Journey

BlackBerry: You're Dead to Me

23 September 2013

A note to Prem Watsa, Thorsten Heins and Kevin Michaluk:

It is my intent to never, ever buy another BlackBerry device. Granted, that's not saying much. It seems unlikely new BB devices will be on the market when it's time to upgrade from my Z10 in 2015.

You guys - collectively - blew it.

---

BlackBerry: Still on the Ropes

6 July 2013

The latest quarterly results for BlackBerry were much worse than I expected. Sigh. It's still a love/annoyed relationship with Thorsten Heins and the supposedly new BlackBerry company.

For one thing, they finally made it official BB10 won't be on the PlayBook. No particular surprise there, other than it took them so long to acknowledge it. I ditched the PlayBook back in March and have been much more productive on my iPad Mini.

But here's the kicker. I enjoy how I'm coexisting with my Apple iPad Mini and my BlackBerry Z10. Dropbox and other cloud solutions have made the ecosystem notion a little less important.

However, Thor still needs to tell a cohesive, cogent story for the new BlackBerry. From what I've gleaned of his ideas for the future of mobility, it sounds less visionary and more jaundiced. What I hear sounds more like portable computing rather than truly mobile computing. Yeah, great, I'll be able to dock by BB10 phone with a computer at the office and have "all I need" on my phone. But what about when I'm not in the office? When I'm on the road, I don't want to cart a laptop and phone around. Not in 2013. That's old school. I want to compute while being mobile. And for that, the tablet is a terrific form factor. Not to mention it's better for media consumption, such as magazines and movies. So, in my opinion, Thor's comments about the tablet fad dying out is ill-informed. In light of BlackBerry finally ditching PlayBook altogether, it comes across more like wishful thinking or sour grapes than anything that's even remotely visionary.

This is no time to relax, Thor. BlackBerry's still got a massively painful uphill climb back into popular relevance ahead.

---

BlackBerry 10: Love at First Swipe!

23 March 2013

Woo-hoo! It's 23 March; the Z10 is finally here and it actually exceeds the hype, in my opinion. The Z10 is an elegant mobile experience from BlackBerry. Finally.

Alas, that breakthrough comes on the heels of my giving up on the PlayBook and putting it into semi-retirement in favor of the iPad Mini. Support for the PlayBook never materialized and a huge iPad selling point for me, aside from work-related endeavors, was the availability of Final Draft. I use the screenwriting software on my laptop. Having even greater flexibility on the iPad's got me really excited about digging into those screenplays again.

Related to all this, I'm convinced both AT&T and Best Buy have some odd vested interest in taking all of the fun out of new technology. The incompetence I encountered while purchasing both the Z10 and the Mini was extraordinary. More on all of that later...

---

BlackBerry 10 Update III

3 February 2013

So the latest BlackBerry, the Z10, is now available in Canada and the U.K., with more rollouts happening around the world. The U.S.? We'll get it at the end of March. At least we got that expensive, yet rather ineffective, Super Bowl commercial.

Fine. But it still feels like the old RIM (now, officially, BlackBerry as the Research In Motion name has gone away). Remember the PlayBook launch? It was supposed to be out "sooner than you think" which, in reality, turned out to be later than anybody expected. Still playing with words. Yes, it sounds better to say the Z10 is only "weeks" away, but last week it could just as easily have been said to be a couple months away for the U.S.

Still waiting. Still don't want an iPhone, an Android, or a Windows phone. But my Torch is certainly showing its age.

---

BlackBerry 10 Update II

23 December 2012

Still holding out for BlackBerry 10. It's been a long, slow road for RIM, but Thorsten Heins has rebuilt my confidence during the past few months. Besides that, I really don't like the other options. I'm not a fan of iPhone, Android or Windows. Fingers crossed that BB10 will deliver the goods and restore BlackBerry's shine.

---

BlackBerry 10 Update

28 June 2012

So much for my faith being rewarded. I was so terribly let down by Thorsten Heins today and the announcement the new OS will be delayed until 2013. It's the same ol' RIM, unable to meet a launch date. And the same ol' RIM, unable to handle an earnings call with smarts and confidence.

Maybe Heins is no more trustworthy than the dynamic dunderheads of Lazaridis and Balsillie. And maybe, just maybe, this company doesn't deserve to be in business. It pains me to write that, but I do have my limits and RIM has finally arrived at the precipice of my patience.

---

BlackBerry 10 Is Looking Mighty Tasty

With the coverage coming out of BlackBerry World 2012 I feel like my faith is finally being rewarded. I'm really excited about what Research In Motion is doing with the new BB10 operating system. There's some hot stuff coming. So much so, I'm inclined to go for the first BB10 model on the market, which is expected to be a touch-only device, without the world-renowned BB physical keyboard.

The following video is of RIM's new CEO, Thorsten Heins, describing BlackBerry people. At least for me, it's the stuff at the tail end that hits the nail on the head.

Comments like that remind me of the days I spent bonding with my Bold 9000 while on the U2 360° Tour. Tweeting U2 lyrics while riding the trains of Europe - an effort which, I do believe, led to Bono singing Electrical Storm during the second night in Gothenburg. And dedicating it to a guy who'd been "following" them the past couple weeks.

And there was the episode in Washington, D.C., in which I downloaded a city client's Web page, updated it with flooding information, then reloaded it on the Web server on a Sunday morning while at the base of the Washington Memorial. All done on the Bold 9000. I could tie this in with The Lost Symbol and Robert Langdon (we're both into codes, after all), but I'll save that for the 360° journal.

Granted, RIM is still a company that needs to prove it can actually deliver the goods. Under the Abbott and Costello tag team of Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, RIM suffered through a number of often-delayed and mightily botched product launches, most notably that of the PlayBook. More recently, the release of a simple Bluetooth keyboard for the PlayBook was jacked up by severely underestimating demand. More than a month later, I'm still waiting. That's embarrassing.

But this Thorsten Heins guy has my attention. I think he can do it. And he's certainly a much, much better speaker than Lazaridis and Balsillie. The messaging coming out of the shareholder calls was getting so jumbled and mangled, it was getting to the point I couldn't believe a word coming out of Balsillie's mouth. Balsillie's comments about a "specs race" in the mobile market still jar my soul. The guy was out of touch.

Good riddance.

Now it's time for BlackBerry to get back to the future.

Research In Motion: Time for a Meeting of the Minds

I own a few shares of RIMM stock and I want to take a moment, a week ahead of the shareholders' meeting, to bitch about Research In Motion.

There's no question Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie turned RIM into a tech giant and a pride of Canada.

But there's also no question their hubris has blinded them. It's a hubris of which Apple also needs to be mindful.

For one thing, during the most recent earnings call their comments about the "spec race" in the USA being cause for them to delay the newest line of BlackBerries is ludicrous. They clearly haven't been paying attention to the calls for spiffier specs that preceded the launch of the Torch last year, and the deriding it received for bringing old tech to the table. I own the Torch and some of the criticism in the thoroughly unreliable blogosphere was unfounded. It is a great phone that does what I need it to do. And it was a lifesaver when I was able to Google Maps on my way back to my hotel while on the phone with my bank and credit card companies after my wallet was stolen in Athens.

Even so, they need to step it up and quickly. I do believe they've gotten the message, but things going forward need to be much more robust and done with certainty. Product launches need to be on time and pack a "wow" factor. And, for Pete's sake, listen to what the end users want, not the carriers.

I love my PlayBook - I'm actually using it even more than I expected. But I'm mortified by AT&T's land grab and attempt to attach a tether plan on BlackBerry users browsing on the PlayBook, essentially looking at the phone's data on the phone's plan, but on the PlayBook screen. RIM should've taken action and explained they are trying to clobber a key feature of the PlayBook. It's a great feature. I use it on my clandestine version of the BlackBerry Bridge.

Along those lines, the marketing sucks big time.

I received from RIM a "you're valued" e-mail touting the impending arrival of a pre-order e-mail received via the e-mail associated with my BlackBerry, which is unusual. But the follow-up pre-order e-mail never arrived. Nor were any e-mails regarding the PlayBook sent to the address I used when I signed up for PlayBook updates via the BlackBerry Web site.

That's atrocious and unacceptable.

The release strategy behind the PlayBook as a whole was horrid. I received a call from Staples to confirm my shipping address and was told over the phone, without prompting, with considerable certainty, that I would receive the PlayBook by Wednesday, March 30, well ahead of the April 19 launch. That was even after I pointed out the April 19 launch date to the Staples customer service rep. Ultimately, that order was canceled and I tried to order one through Walmart; I don't remember why, I usually steer clear of Walmart stores and their Web site. When I checked on the order status, I was told it had already shipped on April 13. The morning of April 14 they credited my account for the cost of the expedited shipping since, in actuality, it hadn't shipped yet and it wouldn't arrive on time. Within a few hours after that notification, Walmart cancelled the order altogether because of a lack of availability. I thought those guys were supposed to be the experts in inventory management and logistics.

I wound up getting the device from a different vendor and have been enamored with it ever since.

Agitating the PlayBook situation were rumors swirling around regarding an April 10 launch. RIM reps played coy with questions about the release date at various events, including SXSW. The date, they teased, was sooner than you think. Then the release turns out to be April 19, later than anyone expected.

Does RIM really have any respect for its customers and shareholders? Really?

Can Balsillie step up and deliver a coherent marketing message for 2011 and beyond? Does RIM have the marketing moxie and marketplace savvy to move one step ahead of the competition instead of, as has been the case for the past couple years in particular, playing catch up in terms of technical specs and market demands in the USA?

Hopefully light will be shed on the answers to those questions during the shareholders' meeting on July 12. As an investor, I am extremely frustrated with RIM's stock tanking after the most recent quarterly results. I understand there's a lot going on in the world, external forces beyond anyone's control. But almost all of RIM's troubles are self-inflicted.

The TAT and QNX acquisitions are significant and have kept me optimistic, but the specter of wasted opportunities is rearing its ugly head. On the flip side, the blogosphere has misread the tea leaves of layoffs, saying it's a sign of the company's struggles. But the blogs, and some analysts, it seems, have entirely overlooked the need for those layoffs in light of the numerous acquisitions RIM has made during the past couple years. It's a natural thing to do, but one they should've done sooner.

Here's another reason why I remain optimistic: Lazaridis has repeatedly been making mention of mobile computing. I think they do have a longer-term vision of where BlackBerry and the new QNX operating system can go.

And the PlayBook, despite the knocks it's taken in the blogosphere, is terrific. The ability to shuffle files to and from the PlayBook wirelessly is awesome. It has great sound, terrific video quality, and the browser is, in my view, the best on the market. I prefer it to my laptop browsers.

Get native e-mail and a native file manager to stop the yipping and get Amazon to launch Kindle for the PlayBook, then I'll be even more content.

As for Steve Jobs declaring 7" tablets DOA (and, of course, all the blogs that parroted that comment), I disagree strongly. The 7" size is perfect for what I want to do and where I want to go. It's the perfect size for true mobility and travel and, enclosed in my convertible case, it looks like a new-millennium Moleskine.