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Let’s get this out of the way – at the end of the day, business is about bringing in money. With that said, one shareholder of RIM’s – Canada-based Jaguar Financial Group – has called RIM out on its recent performance.
The open letter, headed by Jaguar CEO Vic Alboni, chastises RIM for failing to inspire consumer interest and enthusiasm. Jaguar noted that RIM is consistently losing market share to Apple and Android, citing recent findings from the likes of Comscore, Nielsen and Gartner.
While its rivals have demonstrated an ability to develop and market products with features that inspire consumer enthusiasm and drive higher adoption rates, RIM has clearly fallen short. Its failure to offer products with innovative features, combined with its limited selection of applications, has resulted in RIM losing market share to its competitors. While few would question the email and security capabilities of RIM’s BlackBerry platform, the reality is that RIM has failed to develop the multi-purpose device that meets the requirements of today’s dynamic consumer landscape.
The BlackBerry, once a market leader, has been relegated to number 3 in terms of market share behind Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android phones. A recent comScore report estimated that RIM’s U.S. smartphone market share declined from 39% to 22% over the twelve month period ended July 31, 2011. This decline in the Company’s standing can largely be attributed to significant execution delays, inadequate mobile applications, and the lack of a competitive product that addresses the needs of the consumer marketplace.
With a reduced market share for RIM there is the serious risk that developers of mobile applications will prioritize developing applications for RIM’s competitors. There should be a concerted focus for RIM to encourage or finance the development of cutting edge mobile applications. This lack of an effective ecosystem is a key shortcoming that needs to be addressed.
Jaguar gives insight into what RIM needs to do to bounce back, but ultimately it sounds like they’re not confident RIM can and would rather see RIM bring in some major dough on their assets.
This isn’t the first time RIM has been criticized by those who have close ties. In a previous open letter to RIM executives, one employee criticized them for failing to look at the end-users’ needs rather than their partners’. They also chastised RIM for a lack of marketing, poor third-party developer relations and rushing products and shipping them before they’re ready, among other things.
While the employee’s concerns were more on the innovation side, the financial side of things aren’t looking too well for all those who own stock in RIM. It all comes together at that point and the fact that they’re failing on both sides of the ball means they are in more danger than they’ve ever been in.
If RIM does comply (but we don’t think they will unless they’re really on thin ice) with the patent auction request, let’s hope the guys in Mountain View are up bright and early for the proceedings. Read the full letter here. [via Bloomberg]
another one bites the dust…… Android FTW!!!
RIM shoulda went Android. LOL
And no, putting Android apps onto Blackberry’s will not save you.
Did anyone else read that article about Android being a serial killer lol? I kinda feel bad though, a company going down means jobs lost in the end. Maybe most of their engineers and people can get scooped up by Google or a subsidiary?
The picture up there looks like a really bad Photoshop job, or else it’s a really low-quality photo. Does anyone else see it?
There phones suck nobody cares about a 2in screen and keyboard any more there like palm hp they just dont get what people want and keep building the same old crap phones. All my friends who had blackberrys two three years ago now have Android phones The Tourch really wana be Palm pre they have no clue
RIM’s problem is that they never saw the average user as a “smartphone user”. And the small segment of users they did consider smartphone users didn’t care about apps or a nice touch screen, only email.
They were content with enterprise. Unfortunately for RIM, when companies start cutting back on spending, technology is always first. That means company X will be holding on to their current handset models another couple of years.
RIM is slowly on it’s way to becoming just another footnote in mobile technology history, just like Palm and Nokia. Sad really, how soon the innovators become the obsolete.
Coming soon Playbook fire sale? They could partner with Android and have phones they make with Android software but with there own overlay/skin and special enterprise / security features
RIM and Blackberry had there market share but failed to keep it due to lack of inonovation and moving with the time. I truely think RIM thought it would be iPhones for the kids and Blackberries for the Professionals. Whoops…wish you the best with your Crackberries!
I find it funny that you’re constantly seeing all these BlackBerry phones being released yet they don’t gain market share. They flood the market, yet, unlike Android devices that also flood the market, fail to gain consumer confidence. Classic case of inability to adapt, now RIM gets to die a slow painful death, or make it a quick, clean kill.
Their latest phones have shown that Rim can make quality but were just trying to ram cheap phones down their regular customers throats. I was once a loyal Blackberry user and just had enough with their cheap phones with no memory, battery pulls every day and processors that were so slow I could run faster. All that wasted time trying to make phones with last years left over parts finally caught up with them. I hope they didn’t wait too long to pull the trigger on making quality phones, they can make quality, their latest devices show it.
Honestly most of the people that own blackberries buy that junk because it looks professional.
This guy is spot on. The morons at RIM would be wise to head his advice before it’s too late.