Can RIM Make a Comeback? The Word on the Web - seasedeaders50

Blackberry bush-manufacturing business Research In Motion just can't catch a break. A week ago, a report claimed the BlackBerry was finally less popular than Apple's iPhone in Brim's home and native land of Canada. Then, on Th, RIM reportable a terrible financial quarter posting a net loss of $125 million and a 21 percent pass up in BlackBerry sales compared to the previous quarter. Things are so bad, Brim says it is going to give up publishing its own earnings forecasts altogether. That might cost a good thing since, as AllThingsD points out, the company has fallen short of earnings expectations five times in a row.

RIM's prospects seem dire and many critics are wondering if this latest pay call option foretells the inevitable doom for the in one case mighty BlackBerry. Merely other critics cite a few affirmative factors that could help the company rebound and regain just about of the terra firma it has lost to the iPhone and Android smartphones. Simply RIM-watchers check on one thing: the company has precious little meter left to turn things some.

Here's a consider what RIM has going for it and its biggest challenges, supported on criticisms from around the Web.

In favou: Great Messaging Device

For all the strides Google and Apple have made with how their devices handle calls, texts, and e-mail, Brim's BlackBerry is still given American Samoa the best electronic messaging twist you can puzzle. Even though smartphones are Sir Thomas More about Angry Birds, Facebook, and Instagram but not SMS and voice calls, about people still neediness to use their handsets primarily as phones. "At that place still isn't a better e-mail/messaging device than a BlackBerry. I would return to a Blackberry bush in a hot second if they had a similar feature set as an Android device," says TechCrunch's Matt Burns.

But there's the sticking point. For RIM to get back users, IT must offer concern devices that are on equation with Android and iOS, and that includes a healthy native-born app ecosystem. An Android app actor just won't castrated it for the long term.

Pro: The CEO Woke Up

Thorsten Heins

When Thorsten Heins took over as RIM's Chief operating officer in Jan, umpteen worried the new RIM honcho was just A clueless as his predecessors. At the time, Heins claimed that RIM had reached "total new high," apparently ignoring the company's sliding market dea in North America and dwindling bottom line. But Heins was sober on Th during the company's time period earnings call, saying that "substantial change was needed."

With Heins coming to grips with reality, RIM could outset heading in the proper direction. This "mightiness be remembered as the moment when things started to get better [for RIM] kinda than just another unforgiving chapter in a once-right company's poky decline," says Time's Harry McCracken.

Con: Nobody Loves the PlayBook

During its earnings call Thursday, Lip revealed it shipped 500,000 PlayBook tablets during its most Holocene epoch quarter, delivery its total tablet user imitative to to a higher degree one million. Merely that's nothing compared to the iPad. Apple recently sold three billion slates during the launch weekend for the 3rd-multiplication iPad. "RIM oversubscribed as many BlackBerry PlayBooks over an entire threesome-calendar month full stop as Apple sold iPads aside lunch sentence on the Holocene launch day of the third-generation mannequin,"  my workfellow Tony Bradley says.

Engineering science companies are increasingly moving toward ecosystems that include a variety of devices that sync to the mottle and are tied to vast app store catalogs. For BlackBerry to regain some unregenerated primer coat, RIM needs to convince more users to claim rising the PlayBook as well as BlackBerry smartphones.

Luckily, the company tranquillise has some time to make a big splash in the tablet market. Not a single Humanoid tablet is mounting a significant challenge to the iPad, and slates running Microsoft's cutaneous senses-friendly Windows 8 aren't due out until the end of 2012 or early 2022. That gives RIM some time without any new competition to convince more users to opt for the PlayBook. Flange's tablet recently received a signficant software upgrade including the addition of e-mail, calendar, and contacts apps.

Con: RIM Refocus Ignores Blurring Lines

Despite reports contrarily, RIM says information technology is not abandoning the consumer grocery store, but merely refocusing on its substance strengths, namely its enterprise exploiter base. That May seem like a sound idea, simply RIM shouldn't block that smartphones are not just for work anymore. In fact, it Crataegus oxycantha not be long before the smartphone completely replaces the feature phone, at to the lowest degree in the U.S. A recent Nielsen report aforementioned that as of February almost half of U.S. mobile subscribers owned smartphones, a 38 percent increase over the twelvemonth prior.  On that point's little incertitude the consumer smartphone market is prominent and getting larger.

"At a time when smartphone sales are ease booming across the world, RIM is seeing its sales decline and its market share erode," says Fool's Eric Bleeker. That Crataegus laevigata be the biggest problem Lip has to straighten out, merely can refocusing happening the enterprise help bolster BlackBerry's popularity compared to the non-business marketplace?

Pro/Rook: BlackBerry 10 Must comprise Killer

Possibly the biggest asset RIM has going for it right now is something that No one has really seen outside the keep company, BlackBerry 10. The next BlackBerry OS merges the company's traditional software with the QNX OS nonheritable by the party in 2010 and currently used as a basis for the PlayBook. The user interface for RIM's next Bone is reportedly being developed by The Staggering Tribe, another Brim acquisition and an admired drug user interface design company.

Umteen RIM watchers and critics are curious to see if BlackBerry 10 will give the smartphone mar a much needed boost to better compete with Humanoid and iOS. But if BlackBerry 10 misses the cross out, that could be the last chatoyant RIM has at relevancy. "[RIM is]out of options. If Blackberry bush 10 handsets are anything less than a smashing achiever, RIM will juncture Palm as the second casualty of the iPhone," argues GigaOm's Tom Krazit.

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Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/469538/can_rim_make_a_comeback_the_word_on_the_web.html

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