RIM Switching to iPhone Development?
If you can’t beat ‘em, develop for ‘em! At the moment, that it what Research In Motion, producer of the BlackBerry, may be doing. The company has seen falls in sales of elephantine proportions since the introduction of the iPhone, and they seem to be in a hole out of which they cannot be dug. Some analysts even predict the iPhone to totally make the BlackBerry an after thought in the world of SmartPhones.
With that in mind, RIM may be hedging their bets in terms of an BlackBerry fallout. A recent company memo called for applicants for a special team, and although the exact memo is nowhere to be found, an unidentified RIM employee did leak the following to Electronista.
The position does have some specified requirements however, namely familiarity with Mac development in Cocoa and Objective C. Applicants must also be familiar with Javascript and XML, but knowledge of Sync Services, Bluetooth and USB are merely considered assets.
Now why would an Apple competitor be interested in someone with these talents? There are many speculations, one of them being that they may actually start applying some of their SmartPhone know-how to developing applications for the iPhone. This may prove to be a fairly good plan on RIM’s part, diverting more of their time and money into a seemingly more successful venue. Other speculations point towards a reverse-engineering some of the components of the iPhone and adding them to the BlackBerry to increase the overall appeal RIM’s only major product.
All of this is with warrant, as the imminent release of the 3G iPhone is well poised to knock RIM down another notch in the SmartPhone industry. And with the 3G iPhone rumored by Fortune Magazine to see a price drop to only $199, that would destroy one of the BlackBerry’s few advantages over the iPhone- affordability.
Leave a message below with your opinions on the believability of the claims.
Read [Electronista] and TUAW]
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Not sure where you get this information: “The company has seen falls in sales of elephantine proportions since the introduction of the iPhone, and they seem to be in a hole out of which they cannot be dug.”
RIM’s latest results, reported Apr 2 2008, said: “...profits more than doubled from a year ago, adding 2 million new subscribers during the quarter.
Co-CEO Jim Balsillie said that the results were led by ‘continuing to diversify the base of BlackBerry users’. 38% of RIM’s subscriber base are now individuals...not enterprise users. In fact, more than half of new subscribers are non-enterprise users. “
Doesn’t sound like RIM is seeing any effect from the iPhone.
on April 30, 2008 at 03:15 PM - LINKIt is all in terms of how much of the market has been taken over by the iPhone.
They definitely would not switch to only developing for the iPhone, but the memo that was released shows that they are doing something to do with the iPhone.
on April 30, 2008 at 03:50 PM - LINKRIM shipped has shipped 25 million smartphones since inception, with 14 million subscribers in 2008 (RIM 2008 Annual report). Apple has sold 1.4 million iPhones, in total, since its inception. Lets please put this in its proper perspective.
Also, bear in mind that RIM has developed for Nokia phones, Windows Mobile Phones and Palm Treo, creating software that is known as Blackberry Connect, allowing these phones to connect to the Blackberry servers for mail access. I see this as nothing new, no major shift for RIM. Just business as usual. No one got wound up when they did this for Treo or Windows Mobile, but I guess since it is iPhone, it is some significant event.
You may want to research your stories just a tad before publishing.
on April 30, 2008 at 11:26 PM - LINKActually I read recently that since the launch of the iPhone Blackberry sales have shot up - in fact all smart phone sales have benefited from the iPhone launch and publicity. What RIM are worried about is the long term sales as iPhone gathers momentum. Hence they are developing their own 3G handheld.
on May 2, 2008 at 06:10 AM - LINK