2010 is a year that the competition in Smart Phone market becomes extremely intense and even fierce. Google's Andriod replaced BlackBerry and iPhone and became the No. 1 smart phone platform in terms of device shipment. Apple announced iPhone 3 and iPhone 4 and entered the tablet PC market by launching the revolutionary product iPad. As the previous No. 1 in Smart Phone market, although still dominating the enterprise market, RIM needs to respond and needs to respond quickly on the challenge from Google and Apple in the consumer market. Looking back, I have to say that RIM responded fairly well in my personal opinion.
As the formal response to the long-going criticism on BlackBerry's clunky Browser performance, RIM announced 6.0 OS with a built-in Webkit-based Web browser.This is the first Webkit-based Web browser on BlackBerry. It's pretty stable and render contents really fast. Some of its ACID testing even outscore Android's and iPhone's browser. The 6.0 OS is shipped with BlackBerry Torch, which is the first BlackBerry that has both full QWERTY keyboard and touch screen. It provides the hybrid user experience of both world and significantly close the user experience gap between BlackBerry and iPhone.
RIM also realized that in order to differentiate BlackBerry from other smart phones, it must have be some unique and different. Therefore, unlike Andriod and iPhone are more multi-media centric, RIM decided to make BlackBerry communicating centric. RIM wants to give customers such an impression that BlackBerry is the best smart phone to communicate with people via Email, Instance Messenging,and Social Networks. BlackBerry already has most secured end-to-end pushing email facility. BB Messenger is becoming the preferred way for BB customers to communicate with each other. A social feed application is added to 6.0 OS, which integrates the RSS feeds reader, Twitter, Facebook,My Space, Google talk, Yahoo Messenger, Windoes Live Message, AIM into a single application and BlackBerry user will never feel easier to manage and track multiple social resources.
RIM decides not to confine itself in the smart phone market but rather entering the new emerging Tablet market by announcing BlackBerry Playbook. This product is directly aiming at the iPad, hoping remedying all the shortcomings of iPad and provides with the same or even better user experience. It will have built-in Adobe Flash support with USB and HDMI interface, which are all iPad lacking. It's 7-inch size is much simmer than 10-inch iPad and is just small enough to put into the pocket. It paired up with existing BlackBerry smart phone with BlueTooth as a BlackBerry extension and customer doesn't need to pay extra service fee to carrier if they already have a BlackBerry data plan. It has a WIFI capability as well so customer can use it as a Tablet even if he doesn't have a BlackBerry. This looks really like a promising product and should be well receipted by the marktet when launching in early 2011.
Nevertheless, RIM is keeping enforcing the enterprise market in 2010. 5.0 BlackBerry Enterprise Server was released in early 2010, which brought the device manageability and enterprise data mobility to next level. BlackBerry Moblie Voice Service (MVS) integrated desktop phone extension to BlackBerry so that customer can receive and make phone call via his desktop phone extension from his BlackBerry on the go. BlackBerry clients for enterprise applications such as SAP CRM, IBM Lotus Connection, Microsoft SharePoint, has been released to provide BlackBerry customers a native BlackBerry experience rather than accessing those sites, database via Browser. Although Andriod and iPhone keep trying to penetrate into enterprise market as well, there is still a long way to go for them to provide the same capability what RIM offers to enterprise customers today.
So overall, 2010 is a transit year for RIM. In front, we see RIM releases the best ever BlackBerry, Torch. Under the hood, RIM is trying hard to prepare itself for the further success. Going forward, I believe RIM will continue bring more exciting products to smart phone and Tablet market. Hello, Google and Apple! The game is on! For more information and finding these products, visit: www.blackberrycomplete.com
