InfoWorld, RIM's CEO and my take
InfoWorld has an article about the "top ten technology innovators" and Mike Lazaridis, the CEO of Research in Motion (RIM), is one of them. Good for Mike! He's smart, innovative and a primary reason RIM has done so well.
In addition, he and two other RIM executives have established the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ont. (I'd like to do something like that....if I had a mere tens of millions of dollars to donate. Sigh. I like reading about quantum mechanics but I'm a moron when it comes to the mathematics.)
I like RIM. I've been following the company since it began and it produces superb two-way wireless devices that serve customer needs. The RIM BlackBerry pagers are rugged, with a good enough keyboard and good enough screen (the LCD on the larger unit, 957, is far superior to the dull screen on the smaller 950).
Indeed, RIM's success has been a driving force for the spate of small keyboards as accessories for PDAs as well as the development of other pagers, such as Danger Research's hiptop. The BlackBerry has proven that the pager form factor is superior to cellular phone keypads for entering any messages longer than a sentence.
By-the-way, does anyone ever ask a BlackBerry user if that's a "Cingular pager" or a "Motient pager" he/she is using? Cingular (formerly BellSouth Wireless Data, formerly RAM) and Motient (formerly American Mobile, formerly American Mobile Satellite, formerly Ardis) have been spectacularly unsuccessful in generating "buzz" for their excellent packet data network offerings. It took RIM, a small, no-name Canadian company, to generate excitement for two-way messaging. Intelligent, small-company management wins over doltish, carrier-mentality management.
RIM's future is not tied to the current data networks of Cingular Wireless (which uses Ericsson's Mobitex protocol) or Motient (which uses Motorola's RD-LAP. These networks work just fine and I certainly prefer them to cellular systems for getting all my e-mail (minus attachments) for a flat monthly fee. The networks have good enough coverage and are plenty fast (fast = low latency). But they are legacy systems and, unfortunately, aren't being upgraded for the future. The future for RIM will be in pagers with phone capabilities for GSM GPRS and CDMA 1xRTT networks....and beyond.
Slow but steady
The problems with RIM include a proprietary operating system, boring design, bare bones PIM functionality and slow-moving upgrades. This is actually intentional. RIM focuses on the boring -- but lucractive! -- business market.
Fancy design is less important than reliability and ease of use for business people. (Just look at the design-challenged Windows box you're probably using.) RIM's pagers are reliable and easy to use. As for the proprietary OS, it is tough -- very tough -- to create an OS that's wireless-friendly. Microsoft, for example, underestimated the difficulty, which is why it has had such a tough time penetrating the wireless market. (But that was then. Microsoft will be a winner in the wireless OS space.)
RIM looked at other operating systems and realized it had to develop its own. As for PIM functionality, RIM seems to have adapted the older Palm model: give the customer what he wants and cut down on all extraneous stuff. (Yes, Palm is changing now and RIM must change, too.) As for slow-moving, RIM has been moving at the pace of its carrier customers -- the sluggish dinosaurs who sell the pager and upon whose networks RIM relies.
But the times they are a-changin' and RIM is slowly changing with them. RIM does offer Java (J2ME) for its pagers, but as the InfoWorld articles states, RIM has been researching Java for four years. You don't see any wealth of Java applications for RIM products. Java can be used to create exciting stuff, but you won't find it on a RIM pager.
Oh -- you won't find RIM calling their products pagers. They are "BlackBerry e-mail solutions." Whatever.
RIM is producing pager-phones. (I guess I need to use another word besides "pager.") New GSM GPRS units for BT Cellnet (now mmO2) in the U.K. are available now. RIM is producing similar devices for other GSM carriers, such as T-Mobile in Europe, TIM in Italy, Rogers AT&T Wireless in Canada, AT&T Wireless in the U.S and VoiceStream in the U.S. RIM also is developing a unit for Nextel, which uses Motorola's iDEN (TDMA) technology in the U.S.
Competitors
RIM's units are aimed at business users who want to send more than a sentence via SMS using a cramped keypad on a cellular phone. It will be interesting to see whether consumers are interested in RIM's products. Consumers want exciting designs. Consumers need to easily customize their devices and access a range of software and services. Consumers want a range of choices. This is not RIM's forte.
As long as RIM sticks to the business environment, it should do well. The problem is if RIM wants to succeed in the mass market environment, and has to go up against consumer-oriented manufacturers offering great looking devices with lots of software. Or, consumer-oriented vendors might enter the business market.
My interests
I like RIM's stuff because of the form factor, reliability and battery life. I just wish its bundled PIM software wasn't so primitive, its selection of consumer software wasn't non-existent and its screen wasn't monochrome. (I'd trade color for poorer battery life, and I think most people would, too. In a few years, the majority of PDA screens and cellular phones in the U.S. probably will be color.)
All the PDA vendors are getting into wireless, and there is a wealth of software for these Palm OS and Pocket PC devices. But PDA-based products have a different form factor. PDA-phones will, I believe, be a niche market.
Personally, I want the smallest, coolest phones (I use Verizon because of its good coverage, so I'm out of luck when it comes to cool phones!), the most feature-rich PDA (I have a Compaq IPAQ 3600 and am waiting to upgrade to the XScale Pocket PC products later this year) and a two-way pager for e-mail. Until technology can offer me a better solution, I'm carrying at least three devices.
12:20:01 PM 
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