RIM eyeing up Windows Phone 8 for future BlackBerry devices, abandon BB10?
BlackBerry makers RIM wanted to go it alone with QNX and BB10. However, today we hear that they’ve met yet another delay and are pushing back BB10 for ‘Early’ 2013 (Remember what ‘early 2011′ was for PR2?. Yikes. Well, that’s better for WP8 for two reasons. It’s already hard enough with the current competitors and secondly, because RIM might be considering going WP too.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/29/us-rim-options-idUSBRE85S04J20120629
Reuters reports that WP8 might be an option now for RIM, possibly dropping BB10 too instead of having WP8 concurrently. RIM could also get Microsoft to buy a stake in the company for ‘marketing and other expenses’. That option is not the most ideal for RIM apparently because it could mean the end of their independence. RIM’s board however would prefer to stick to developing BB10.
It was previously rumoured before that both Nokia and Microsoft would combine to purchase RIM, but that is not discussed.
What effect would RIM WP8 devices have on Nokia Lumia?BTW Did you know that BlackBerry are making ‘Nseries’ devices now? Nseries with Qt…from RIM…hmm…
Cheers Jonas, Zipa and others for the tip!
Category: Nokia, Windows Phone
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I understand (from all the news) they considered this option but said no thanks to Ballmie. I have to respect for sticking to their guns. It will be interesting to see if they can make it work.
Yes, especially considering RIM is now in a much worse shape than Nokia was back in February 2011 by any measure.
The comparisons between RIM and Nokia are uncanny. Not perfect, but very interesting nevertheless. One chose to go it alone, the other to team up. One chose to put a brave face on it (RIM co-CEO’s unbelievable quotes are legendary), the other did the February 11th we’re burning dance (a day that will live in infamy). Both big names just a little ago and now the laughing stock of the industry.
Which will come on top? Will either? Or both?
Still, neither of them are sending me checks to root for them here.
I’ll root for both, because I really like underdogs.
+1
-1
There is little correlation besides the fact both companies are now in the gutter and will soon be dead.
RIM had a dying OS and had just started working on something to replace it.
Nokia had Symbian (still a cash cow with it’s sales on the rise) and MeeGo/Meamo (which would now be a very polished product) already out the door.
Not my understanding at all; simply rumors that Microsoft (and/or Nokia) was interested in an agreement with RIM. In other words, I don’t think RIM even had an opportunity to turn down Microsoft as there was no interest by Microsoft in purchasing RIM or having RIM use WP in their devices.
Really don’t think the UI in WP would work well with the iconic Blackberry form factor.
Of course MS would be interested. WP has lost OEM’s lately and even Samsung and HTC, the biggest besides Nokia, are clearly concentrating much more on Android than WP.
Microsoft still needs every break it can get in the mobile world and is not in a position to turn down potential OEMs. Probably MS does not want to purchase the majority share of RIM, but it is quite plausible that it could invest in the company if it adopted WP.
By the way, BB is moving away from portrait Qwerty. The first generation of BB10 devices are all going to be pure touch. In fact the adherence to portrait Qwerty is one major reason for RIM’s troubles. That form factor is no longer mainstream in smartphones and even worse, there are many low cost alternatives which provide nearly all the functionality (except BBM of course) of Blackberries for consumers (including the Nokia Asha Qwerty devices). The corporate market is stagnant and threatened by BYOD, iPhone and now WP8.
you f&%^&ing kidding me!!!
A friendly advice.
Develop for the leading platforms.
RIM is going the way Nokia was going with or without the burning platform memo.
Highly speculative statement.
Do you have any specific reason to believe RIM is not going down just like Nokia is?
If they will be able to complete the development of the OS, what then? Do you think RIM will have resources left for marketing?
Let’s say – future of RIM is less certain than future of Nokia. RIM may fail, may not. Personally I see the future of Nokia like this – all valuable assets (like Navtel) will be sold, and remainder will go bankrupt. That’s for sure.
Navtel -> Navteq, sorry for typo.
Word is they sacked the R%D dept and BB10 devices are going no where. Sound familiar?
“Do you have any specific reason to believe RIM is not going down just like Nokia is?”
yes, I have
they have no m$ mole inside
I was mainly referring to your assertion that Nokia was going gown with or without the burning platform memo. Symbian was going down sooner or later in any case, but Elop botched the transition in such a serious way that it alone should have got him fired, and in fact a similar error would have gotten a lower lever employee in serious trouble. But of course most of know that the ideal of more power equals more responsibility does not really work in many organizations.
are you calling wp7/8 leading platform?
if I’ll switch somewhere it will be ios
Yeah, iOS is one of the leading platforms. It’s a great OS and you can get some nice sales with it. Definitely better compared to the new OS by RIM.
While WP customers seem to be buying lots of software, it’s not a good idea for you to develop for it.
The response of RIM:
“We came to the decision that joining the family of the Android players, for example, would not fit RIM’s strategy and its customers,” he said. “We are not trying to be one of many. We’re trying to be different. We’re trying to be the best solution for our customers that buy a BlackBerry, know why they want a BlackBerry. And we’re aiming for nothing less than being a viable, successful, mobile computing platform of the future. This is what we’re aiming at. And I think that’s the difference. If you compare us with others, did we take the hard rod? Absolutely. Absolutely. But having done this and building and completing this new mobile computing platform that then expresses itself as a smartphone or as a tablet or as a vertical application or embedded in cars, whatever you want to do, that is where we will take BlackBerry. And this is – that’s why it was absolutely required and necessary to build its own platform. I would argue the other way around. If I continue to rely on somebody else’s OS and somebody else’s platform, would that allow me in the long run to really differentiate towards my customers and provide them the services and the environment that they request from me and that they would like to have? I have a big question mark around this. So I think going this way and building the platform we are building has the absolute intent to serve our customers and our markets better than on a standard-based OS and platform.”
http://www.wpcentral.com/rim-said-thanks-no-thanks-windows-phone
@jay please update the Post
phew. I knew that RIM cant be soooooooooooooo stupid!
especially taking in account what happen with Nokia
Ya like having a line of products actually increasing in sales (Lumias) which is something that RIM would kill for.
When you start from zero, you can only increase. And adding new countries where you sell your devices, it’s only natural that you see sales increasing. There haven’t been any steady q yet to see if sales are increasing enough to keep Nokia alive. But estimates are not very promising.
Symbian was increasing in sales all the way to Q4 2010. So are you now saying that the future of Symbian looked quite promising in Q1 2011 before the strategy change?
No it was apparent Symbian was a dead OS walking because in just about every market where there were cheap Androids Symbian was being crushed.
So you have double standards. Not that it is a surprise in any way. It’s been quite clear.
No not double standards. But he has convenient logic.
Logic of hindsight, I might add. On the other hand now it is not apparent that WP has actually gained any significant momentum that would last longer than a quarter or so, since the massive marketing campaign is most effective in the beginning before it reaches saturation. Regardless of marketing, the Lumia success is still very spotty, and we don’t even know yet how well it has lasted for example in the US.
To my knowledge the only countries where Lumia has seen any significant lasting success so far are Finland and the Netherlands. After the Q2 results are in we know more, but unfortunately not enough, yet.
Maemo was also growing quite nicely as kog as it was pushed. Had they continued on that path, Maemo + qt would have outsold by far.
And still Nokia could have adopted WP for selected segments and got better deal from MS
Smart people learn from other peoples’ mistakes; dumb people learn from their own mistakes; idiots don’t learn from mistakes at all.
They won’t sign to Microsoft right now. No way.It would take at least 6 months to have a phone to market and that with a lot of cut corners. So even if they sign with android or wp they will still be releasing them next year. So theres no point in droping their own platform. RIM’s problem is that they don’t have any new devices coming out till then.
I hope they make it, competition and diversity is good
Oh and nokia should hurry up and release a qwert wp8 device. either a candybar design or a slider like the E7. Do that and you will get some former blackberry users for sure
As I already said, there is nothing bad in WP itself. But, when using WP in your devices, you shouldn’t say that your own products are crap like Nokia did, you shouldn’t abandon your own R&D (like Nokia did) and you shouldn’t terminate almost ready sexy things in which you have already heavily invested (like Nokia did). This is a road to the grave. Samsung makes things more wisely – some devices with Android, some devices with WP and some devices with their own OS (Bada, then Tizen). All-ins are stupid.
Lol! There is plenty of time for Thorsten Heins to write RIM’s ‘burning platform’ memo, and if you read the blogs and/or comments, he may have to – many current BB users aren’t going to wait for BB10 and some have already jumped ship!
Hopefully, though, the memo won’t be leaked
Well, if Thorsten Heins does something like that… we all have Nokia as example of RIM’s future before our eyes
Time will tell, whether RIM is going to follow Nokia’s footsteps.
Great said RIM, @nokia : ““We are not trying to be one of many. We’re trying to be different. We’re trying to be the best solution for our customers that buy a BlackBerry, know why they want a BlackBerry.”
Elop forgot his customers and thought they were stupid enough to buy into wp.. Instead they left to android.
thats the between rim and nokia.
That said I think Microsoft will buy rim.
Yeah, RIM’s customers left even without being told.
That’s the difference indeed.
And oddly RIM has more smartphone customers than Nokia. It wasn’t a long time ago, when things were the other way around. Just goes to show how big a boost WP was to Nokia. Unfortunately the boost was on the wrong direction.
Right.. I don’t see why they would go with WP only, especially after they saw how badly Nokia is doing with the same strategy. Android? Maybe. Probably not, though. (they could also use both WP and Android, but there is no logical reason to only pick WP)
come on, to Nokia was aroun 8-9 months to develop and integrate the SO, if RIM wants to do the same, how many time more, unitl to see a new BB with WP8??
Nokia lost lots of market share in the past two years. RIM lost lots of market share in the past two years.
Without the burning platform memo, what would have made Nokia to perform better compared to RIM? Nokia and RIM have both been losing market share.
http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/.a/6a00e0097e337c88330167671c9e48970b-pi
Just look at the chart. They have been steadily losing market share. RIM shows everyone what was going to happen to Nokia. Nokia was collapsing before the burning platform memo. It was inevitable.
Windows Phone shows what was going to happen with MeeGo. Both WP and MeeGo were unproven platforms competing against the two top players. The difference is that it’s cheaper to lose with a lisenced OS compared to developing one of your own.
RIM’s way would have been Nokia’s way. With or without the burning platform memo.
Just look at the chart? Try to analyze it…
http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/.a/6a00e0097e337c88330167671c9e48970b-pi
You say “without the burning platform memo”, the fact is you cannot remove the effect of the burning platform memo when showing the actual MARKETSHARE of Nokia over time… The “Years” on the X axis of the graph shows the “End of the year marketshare”.. As you can see, afer the end of “2010″ early 2011 to be exact, was the abnormally “steep” drop in Nokia marketshare, and increase in Samsung marketshare.. Thank you burning platform…
Additionally, this graph also includes a marketshare prediction until the “end of 2012 including WPs”.. Wow 5% marketshare even with the magical WPs? That’s a whole new low..
To be specific…
http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/.a/6a00e0097e337c8833016306292186970d-pi
Yeah, that projected 5% Nokia marketshare by the end of 2012? only half of that is WP…
Also to be really specific…
http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/.a/6a00e0097e337c8833017615d17606970c-pi
Nokia “SALES”, meaning the actual number of smartphones sold, per quarter, the data which can actually reflect the revenues and profit of the company… Was “increasing” for Nokia pre-Feb11 sans WPs…. But after Feb 11? continuous drop, even with WP on board.
Also…
“The difference is that it’s cheaper to lose with a lisenced OS compared to developing one of your own.”
Really??? You’re seriously going with that argument???
Still justifying the choice of WP only strategy are we??? Classic apologist line..
Well, after burning any way out of the WP strategy, what is there to do but go with it till death.
Yeah, the decline in unit sales was caused by the stabilization of the ASP.
2009/2010
Q1 190->155 (-18%)
Q2 181->143 (-21%)
Q3 190->133 (-30%)
Q4 186->156 (-16%)
2010/2011
Q1 155->147 (-5%)
Q2 143->142 (-1%)
Q3 133->131 (-2%)
Q4 156->140 (-10%)
2011/2012
Q1 147->142 (-3%)
Nokia was no longer able to sell handsets with lower prices. Android killed Symbian at the low end.
It’s all about the market share. Nokia was losing it years before Elop. They were able to keep up with the unit sales because of the declining ASP. After that one failed the unit sales collapsed.
Sure, Microsoft needs Nokia.
It’s cheaper to buy the OS because the OS needs constant development and is never ‘ready’. It may be ready to be sold but you just have to develop it. That’s why it’s cheaper to lose with a licensed OS.
There is correlation and probably even some causation between APS and unit sales, no denying that. However, there is no way to measure proportional impact of that, since we are talking about a complex system where any single factor is not independent from the others and we don’t even know how strong the dependences are. Therefore it is quite incorrect to state that the unit sales dropped only or even primarily because the decline of ASP slowed down.
It’s a hypothesis, but not necessarily any more (or less) valid than Elop effect for example. In fact I would say that by default we must assume that both had an effect in unit sales (remember that Osborne and Ratner effects are well known and validated, not invented by TA or anyone else defending the old strategy of Nokia), and there were other factors in the play as well.
Sure, I agree Elop’s memo accelerated the decline. How much is another matter. It’s probable the decline would have been on par with the decline of RIM. How many units of lost sales is that?
The Osborne effect is real, but it’s very questionable how much it actually accelerated the decline of the Symbian. There are two reasons for that. First is the fact that the premature announcement was not one-time-only. Nokia facet the effects of the Orborne effect early in the 2010 when they announced the N8 too early. They faced the very same effect in 2009 when they announced upcoming versions of the Symbian. The same effect took place in 2008 when they started to get desperate with the competition and announced Nokia will deliver a killer product to compete with the new bright star in the mobile world.
Those are just few examples. Nokia has been prematurely announcing products before they were able to deliver. Why would the WP announcement be any different? What would make it to boost the Osborne effect any more compared to the other announcements done prematurely?
You probably guess what is the second reason.
“The difference is that it’s cheaper to lose with a lisenced OS compared to developing one of your own.”
That is absolutely and utterly incorrect. Nokia had already devoleped the platform and the money was already sunk. To bring it to market and support it would have had relatively minimal costs.
On the other hand in order to get WP they had to offer up the company and all of its assets on a silver platter to MS, completely change their corporate culture, abandon it’s own software, kill it’s most successful products, and alienate its current users. Yeah, that’s much cheaper….
STAY IN THERE RIM!
Dont give into MS just yet, give BB10 a chance!
I like how it looks, yes meego/symbian ripoff-ish..but hey, atleast its alive..right?
We need more competition in the OS space, iOS and WP are on the same “locked down model” , whereas Android is not as smooth or consistant.
We need 3 more GOOD OS options on the market, yh i’, dreaming, but imagine how the competition would drive out the best innovation out there!
How do you think, could they hire Elop? He would close their factories, fire workers and sys developers and would divide community and M$ would pay for this with “friendly help”. Nokia casus could be repeated! Awasome! What a succes that could be…! Just similar to Nokia one.
(…and Nokia could take a deep breath meanwhile…)
Greatest irony of this post is that just last week it was publicized how RIM shut down manufacturing and will fire something to the tune of 30% of its employees, in addition to all the ones who’ve gone already. All this without Elop’s helping hand. And BB10 is delayed again, this time to Q1/2013.
Maybe, just maybe, the BlackBerries and Symbians of this world are just no longer competitive?
p.s. All the while we have the great WP7.8 discussion here, and BlackBerry has been peddling their non-upgradeable wares since last years BB10 announcement and will continue to sell BlackBerries until and after the Q1/2013 BB10 release, which can not be upgraded and will not run the new BB10 apps. Again, all this without Elop’s help.
There are similarities between RIM and Nokia, but also major differences, so I would be very hesitant to see any repeating pattern or proof for anything from the comparison. The greatest error people do when analyzing complex matters is to see patterns and significant similarities where there is none.
“Maybe, just maybe, the BlackBerries and Symbians of this world are just no longer competitive?”
Um, what are you trying to say exactly? Isn’t BB10 being developed to solve that “old BBs are not competitive” issue? And isn’t Meego was developed to solve similar issue with Symbian (BTW, personally I think that Symbian is still very capable to run on middle-range and upper-of-low-end devices)? I thought it was the obvious.
Then, is WP really so “competitive”? Where are WP profits then? Are there any signs that WP all-in helps Nokia somehow? Regarding BB10, let’s see – if RIM still will release it.
“All the while we have the great WP7.8 discussion here, and BlackBerry has been peddling their non-upgradeable wares since last years BB10 announcement and will continue to sell BlackBerries until and after the Q1/2013 BB10 release…”
Well, there are upgrades and there are upgrades. For example, noone expected to see Harmattan update for N8 devices. But Lumias are another story – they are released not so long ago, an I believe that their hardware is still capable to run WP8, but… boom and your brand new phone turns into pumpkin. That’s why, for example, T-Mobile Germany refuses to offer Lumia 900 to their customers.
Janne RIM’s biggest setback is the delay in BB10 or QNX lineup.
Nokia had Meego delayed, but revenues were still coming in thru symbian, Meego (N9) became ready before Lumina devices, but Meego got axed and Lumnia got pushed and delayed. All this with Elop’s help.
BTW, I always agreed MeeGo or especially Maemo route might have worked. Personally I would have liked to see them try, but no use crying over that now. Feb11 was 1.5 years (!!!) ago. Get over it.
I am simply arguing against the mistaken notion that Symbian would have kept healthy and rising without Feb11. If only Elop would have shut up then all would have been dandy. No.
Even RIM was rising then for a very, very brief moment until the cheap Android ate it for lunch. Just like it ate Symbian for lunch. Symbian really, desperately had to go. Nokia saw this and reacted radically.
MeeGo might have worked. WP might fail and be a stupid idea. Time will tell. Feb11 was mishandled for many reasons, but it is not the main reason Symbian was going down.
I have to agree with Janne here. Symbian was going down because (in order of importance):
1) Outdated user experience prior to Belle (fixed for the most part in Q3 2011, but of course too late *especially* after the Elop effect).
2) Poor portability to new hardware (not really fixed, albeit alleviated a little in Symbian 10)
3) Poor developer environment prior to full adoption of QT in Autumn 2010.
Since the second point was not fixed and Nokia considered it too expensive to fix, Symbian had no longevity left. However, since points one and two were in fact fixed, Symbian could have soldiered on a year or two longer, especially when we remember that the porting to ST-Ericsson dual core chipsets was actually done and ready in 2011.
You guys all about protecting Elop. Think of Nokia, think of the developer base, think of the customer base, think of the revenues. Let’s all blame it on Symbian.
Do you know symbian was about coding? All codes can be created, edited and improved with proper engineers. Uggh stopped myself from getting into your twist.
No, this is false news, they have stated numerous times that they’ll go all-in for BB10, and people at RIM are still optimistic about the end-result, although these are really bad times for them.
I sure hope they’ll get the chance to release BB10, and this is for numerous reasons:
– first of all it looks really promising
– the dev tools are very nice (Qt lives on at RIM, they have the android emulator and native HTML5 apps)
– diversity is good (and a 4th ecosystem is welcome anytime)
– at least they get their last chance to prove what they can do and they could either fail miserably or make the greatest comeback ever
– I love the underdog
I agree, I hope RIM survives and gets to release BB10. If for no other reason than for the love of the underdogs.
Don’t worry. There will be a new underdog.
Apple was the underdog just a few years ago. Android was the underdog for a brief moment.
The new underdog will be something different. Something the current players can’t adapt. That new underdog probably doesn’t exist yet. The top players can probably adapt against any underdog on the market.
I’ll bet the current hegemony will collapse in less than 10 years.
Of course there will always be underdogs.
I even liked Apple a lot when they were the underdog (in computing). But then they changed.
They never changed. They grew. They were always the same.
It’s not about the ability to multitask, have lots of applications or anything we have now. That’s the new underdog.
It’s not the new OS from RIM.
I disagree on Apple. The iEcosystem was a huge departure on the earlier Mac OS X years that for a time was actually embracing standards and many cool and even open and techy things Steve and guys picked up at NeXT. And prior to that, not even the classic Apple was as closed as the one now.
It was fun rooting for that. Then the iPhone came.
I have to agree with you on this one.
EXACTLY.
There was def. a period where they moving towards a far more open & standards compliant approach, instead trying to suck everyone into their walled garden.
Amazing how clued-up that guy thinks he is, when he says stuff so often that highlights it’s exactly the opposite.
‘Nseries’ and ‘Qt’…. no wonder why they are cursed.
Bullshit. This is not the problem of Qt, Linux or anything else on the phone. It’s simply bad management in the last years…and then putting a lot of hope on a platform that might arrive too late. I’m still looking for BB10. Actually I was short before buying a cheap Playbook – and would still do this if I know for certain that BB10 arrives on this device.
I just hope that MS and their stupid followers will be the suckers of the mobile age in the end…trying to tell everyone it is good to have alternatives in the mobile OS market while only offering one more boring Walled-Garden OS and killing all the interesting OS on this way…
I still have hope!
now it is time nokia, send elop to rim XD
OMG NO! Nokia is dead, I want a BB10!
RIM, for God’s sake, please no!
“pulling another Nokia” .. hmm
update.they denie it aleardy.
I see RIM staying loyal and improving on their services and OS (bb10) while Nokia ditching their fanbase for new customers (windows). Though some Nokia users have adjusted to the lumia devices already, I think the majority are moving on or have moved on to different operating systems.
I hope both companies survive. It’s weird though, BB devices here in the Philippines are quite popular. Like bb devices are a social status symbol, celebrities either use an Iphone or a bb device.
kinda same in india,bb has gained popularity in the past year.and has became default choice for the girls.
They will get crushed. The big 3 won’t allow anyone else to join the party… whatever it takes.
Microsoft is the biggest software company in the world,rim should put the wp os in ther phones.just like nokia have done. in the end ther will be only 3 os standing in the world…..apple os,googles andriod & microsofts windows phone os.
only one should survive! lets it will be windoze! everywhere…on desktops and on mobiles. after that there become total happiness :>
The web will win at the end.
What OS you run won´t make a difference, as long as you have a standards-compliant browser. Hell, the browser will become the OS. Apps are just a stepping stone. Both Google and Mozilla know this and they (and many others)are working hard to make it happen with projects like “Chrome OS” and “Kilimanjaro”.
Where do all these trolls come from???
Moving to android would have been the dumbest decision Nokia could have made.