Earlier this month, Research in Motion held its annual developer conference in Orlando. On that same early May day - when there was still a Canadian hockey club with Stanley Cup aspirations - a TV ad in probably the most expensive slot on the Canadian airwaves - Hockey Night in Canada - caught my attention. It was for BlackBerry. I have been put off by several cheesy ads attempting to position BlackBerry as a hipster device, but the timing of this particular ad was too much.
Meredith Valiando, the very hip YouTube generation concert promoter claims to receive 1,000 emails a day (do the math). She offers a snide "Good luck writing 1,000 emails a day on a touch screen." (Interestingly, she never actually claimed to be responding to the messages using her BlackBerry's physical keyboard, but that's the seed that was planted.) Why does it matter? This marketing was actually aired the same day as RIM put its BlackBerry 10 test platform into the hands of developers at BlackBerry World 2012 in Orlando. I will do my best to avoid references to Disney characters.
With the exit of RIM's former co-CEO team, one may have been at least cautiously optimistic that leadership might improve. But that glass half full attitude appears misplaced as the marketing department was pushing the utility (if not coolness) of a physical keyboard on the same day that the CEO was holding up a touchscreen device eerily reminiscent of an iPhone while trying to create excitement in the software developer community. Direction is lacking. I will avoid connecting RIM's hometown with any historical references.
The new BlackBerry touchscreen prototype was the launch vehicle for the new BB OS 10 that is intended to deliver the company from the fate its previous leadership aimed toward (think PlayBook here). And this makes it even harder to take. Despite this and previous negative comments about BB, I am a proud Canadian, and I feel betrayed, a fact driven home even harder during a Hockey Night in Canada broadcast. I can't help but think the season is over for RIM as much as it now is for Canadian teams in the Stanley Cup playoffs. As we hear nearly every spring, there's always next year. That might be true for the hockey clubs, but in the consumer electronics market, it's more like Hunger Games.
In defense of RIM's new CEO Thorsten Heins, he did respond to questions about the BlackBerry 10 development hardware by saying it was not necessarily meant to indicate a direction for future hardware releases. Heins was quoted as saying that the company was taking the time to get the software and hardware just right. After delays incomplete software and feature sets on an earlier flagship product, let's just say I hope they are not going back to the PlayBook play book.
In Canada, we are prone to be as rabid in our protection of struggling companies as we are fans of our favourite hockey teams. And so our media outlets look again for signs of hope. As my local Ottawa Citizen newspaper reported, RIM and its acquired OS gurus - the formerly independent QNX - are busy seeding the idea of app development in China. Alas, RIM could once again be late to the game. Although Apple's iPhone is only offered with some lower ranked cell phone carriers in China, they are still realizing phenomenal growth rates in the Chinese market. Sales in China for the most recently disclosed fiscal quarter were triple those of the previous year. Apple gobbled up $12.4B in the first half of the current fiscal year. Maybe it's time to concentrate elsewhere.
RIM tries to position its products cool and trendy. But despite the expensive, overproduced TV ads, I don't think hipster social media types, DJ's or rockstars are actually BB fans (although I claim no personal experience with same). RIM would be better off to double down on its strengths. We never see that. Instead, we see a company too late trying to catch up here and there (China, hipness, touchscreen). If I could give their PR folks a suggestion, it would be to start to market the BB as a trusted tool. Try the vintage angle (Dudley Do-right probably comes pretty cheap). If you are a civil servant, wear it as a badge of honour. I can envision John Hodgman in layers of tweed dead-panning. "My friends get the iPhone or the latest Android phone, but I still have my trusty BB." Come on guys. Concentrate on what you're best at, and you might survive. Try to play someone else's game and get ready for a less favourable outcome.
I watched another Canadian tech Titan(ic) go down, and although this one isn't quite so close to home, it will still hurt.
Meredith Valiando, the very hip YouTube generation concert promoter claims to receive 1,000 emails a day (do the math). She offers a snide "Good luck writing 1,000 emails a day on a touch screen." (Interestingly, she never actually claimed to be responding to the messages using her BlackBerry's physical keyboard, but that's the seed that was planted.) Why does it matter? This marketing was actually aired the same day as RIM put its BlackBerry 10 test platform into the hands of developers at BlackBerry World 2012 in Orlando. I will do my best to avoid references to Disney characters.
With the exit of RIM's former co-CEO team, one may have been at least cautiously optimistic that leadership might improve. But that glass half full attitude appears misplaced as the marketing department was pushing the utility (if not coolness) of a physical keyboard on the same day that the CEO was holding up a touchscreen device eerily reminiscent of an iPhone while trying to create excitement in the software developer community. Direction is lacking. I will avoid connecting RIM's hometown with any historical references.
The new BlackBerry touchscreen prototype was the launch vehicle for the new BB OS 10 that is intended to deliver the company from the fate its previous leadership aimed toward (think PlayBook here). And this makes it even harder to take. Despite this and previous negative comments about BB, I am a proud Canadian, and I feel betrayed, a fact driven home even harder during a Hockey Night in Canada broadcast. I can't help but think the season is over for RIM as much as it now is for Canadian teams in the Stanley Cup playoffs. As we hear nearly every spring, there's always next year. That might be true for the hockey clubs, but in the consumer electronics market, it's more like Hunger Games.
In defense of RIM's new CEO Thorsten Heins, he did respond to questions about the BlackBerry 10 development hardware by saying it was not necessarily meant to indicate a direction for future hardware releases. Heins was quoted as saying that the company was taking the time to get the software and hardware just right. After delays incomplete software and feature sets on an earlier flagship product, let's just say I hope they are not going back to the PlayBook play book.
In Canada, we are prone to be as rabid in our protection of struggling companies as we are fans of our favourite hockey teams. And so our media outlets look again for signs of hope. As my local Ottawa Citizen newspaper reported, RIM and its acquired OS gurus - the formerly independent QNX - are busy seeding the idea of app development in China. Alas, RIM could once again be late to the game. Although Apple's iPhone is only offered with some lower ranked cell phone carriers in China, they are still realizing phenomenal growth rates in the Chinese market. Sales in China for the most recently disclosed fiscal quarter were triple those of the previous year. Apple gobbled up $12.4B in the first half of the current fiscal year. Maybe it's time to concentrate elsewhere.
RIM tries to position its products cool and trendy. But despite the expensive, overproduced TV ads, I don't think hipster social media types, DJ's or rockstars are actually BB fans (although I claim no personal experience with same). RIM would be better off to double down on its strengths. We never see that. Instead, we see a company too late trying to catch up here and there (China, hipness, touchscreen). If I could give their PR folks a suggestion, it would be to start to market the BB as a trusted tool. Try the vintage angle (Dudley Do-right probably comes pretty cheap). If you are a civil servant, wear it as a badge of honour. I can envision John Hodgman in layers of tweed dead-panning. "My friends get the iPhone or the latest Android phone, but I still have my trusty BB." Come on guys. Concentrate on what you're best at, and you might survive. Try to play someone else's game and get ready for a less favourable outcome.
I watched another Canadian tech Titan(ic) go down, and although this one isn't quite so close to home, it will still hurt.