Hot on the heels of my scathing diatribe against the once-mighty Blackberry empire, Erick and I explore the current financial and developer situation that has befallen our neighbors to the North. Plus, we have an extra special guest who, as Erick notes, will “build an app for any platform, even Windows Phone 7” but bailed on BBOS.
As I wrote in my post, I wish it didn’t have to be this way. RIM has long been a powerhouse in the mobile world and their failure to adapt mirrors Nokia’s: it’s the sense that internally, the successes of the past defined the actions of the present, resulting in out-dated thinking.
RIM is, in short, in the death spiral. Even as numbers seem to point up, the reduction of available handsets, the inevitable move to competitor’s products, and myopic leadership are all conspiring to bring it down to earth. Stuck in Waterloo, the company can’t see the writing the on the wall and so claims that it is popular with teens, celebrities, and club kids. It’s only popular with those people because they can’t get out of their contracts yet.
Enjoy the video and sound off in comments.