5 key fall of BlackBerry - ALT1040

Pyramid of Dunder Mifflin (The Office). A metaphor for failure and bad vary the BlackBerry PlayBook.

By Eduardo Arcos

November 27, 2013, 19:27

Some consider

BlackBerry has simply reacted too late or come after you need to market trends, but it is simplistic thinking to a much more complicated and full of missteps situation for years part of senior management.

When Apple launched the iPhone many critics felt that afternoon had reached the competition in mobile telephony. In retrospect it is clear that the time of the company’s entry to the market is completely irrelevant but it was a very necessary element disruptor for mass smartphones beyond geeks , early adopters and corporate environments.

What caused

BlackBerry is in its current state? Certainly have been a series of bad decisions, poor strategy, lack of vision, underestimate the market, inability to see what makes you unique as a company and on all betraying your own principles. These are what we consider the five keys to drop BlackBerry:

To back away

products company principles

departure and popularization of iPhone awakened the tendency to screen capacitive multi-touch screens that allowed a much more functional GUI operated entirely with the fingers on the screen operation. Previous attempts used not only impractical but resistive screens that required stylus.

BlackBerry

had captured the majority of the smartphone market that preferred to operate with a physical keyboard. Not everyone is ready or interested in virtual keyboards, not everyone finds it easy and there are millions of people interested in the feel of the keys when typing.

also were in possession of almost the whole market of people who felt that they had the device in his pocket made him more productive through technology push notifications received emails and other messages from the company. Yes, it is true that technology push and rely solely instant email as a differentiator is not sufficient, but the combination of productivity solutions, simple devices with physical keyboard and full integration with the IT structure definitely gave them an advantage.

But

BlackBerry decided to make a tablet to compete against the iPad was not able to read emails (necessarily needed to have a BlackBerry smartphone, although months later it was sorted). Also focused development BlackBerry 10 operating system to be a direct competition against Android and iOS . The result was uncomfortable position in an environment with an ecosystem of applications not yet congealed and touch devices that are not really differentials to find reasons to buy enough weight.

Moving away from its principles

cost BlackBerry its dominance in the market, being unable to compete on their own terms, weaken and give in to market pressure to make devices which clearly were not able to dominate the output of your founder (Mike Lazaridis), the Co-CEO (Jim Balsillie) and output Thorsten Heins (who replaced them).

Pride

Looking back, it was off the Playbook in my opinion, which marked the beginning of the fall of BlackBerry as a company. Using the phrase “amateur hour is over ” (the time of the Nerds has finished) RIM sought to position itself as a serious alternative to the corporate world, in the world of tablets . Lazaridis handled the keynote for BlackBerry World 2011 where, by the CEO of Adobe, commented on the absolute superiority of the PlayBook because it was able to run Flash.

Yes

Flash. BlackBerry betting on the flash to differentiate. Mike Lazaridis , the man who revolutionized the way we use the Internet to communicate with mobile devices seemed to have fallen into an ancient time when animations and Flash intros dominated internet, that if you did not have the plugin installed, you could not see hardly anything. How is it possible that the same person who once knew she had to implement data compression systems (invisible to the user) to bring mobile internet to the masses is not able to realize this almost- was HTML 5 and not in a technology like Flash is heavy, unable to work well on mobile devices and dying

Throughout the presentation

pride , a wrong attitude of a company innovate away from betting on technologies irrelevant to the end user as a differentiating competitive breathed. Word for word (read from a teleprompter ), Lazaridis personified the current state of RIM an undertaking asleep on their laurels, it looks dated, slow, little interested in the consumer uninterested itself but full of pride. “Amateur hour is over.” That phrase used over and over to refer to Apple ironically was applied to themselves.

“They accuse us only because we are extremely successful” – Mike Lazaridis

The conference was basically a summary of the general attitude of the company against the market, against consumers compared to specialized media and face competition. It seemed that RIM lived in a perfect bubble in Waterloo where their products were far superior to the competition and no one could really rivalizarlos. When asked if BlackBerry feel old, semi-automated response was “ yes, all right, but BlackBerry is the most popular platform in the world . ‘ It is as if the market share figures were a vaccine against the disease that represents a multinational dedicated to mobile devices stop innovating.

And while

BlackBerry was a hard lesson, both directors of the company and any person who believes to be the number one selling makes you the best, the company seemed to stumble against their own stone: the supposed infallible communications network created by RIM out . For four days the platform users could not send or receive messages, you could not browse the web, nothing, not even via Wi-Fi. The early days the company undergoing his pride kept silence. Social networks served as immense pressure that made him understand the company behind their products there, to her surprise users. People tired of not being able to use their devices. The apology in the form of bad video made the founder and CEO of video not only does not seem to be enough, but were never able to really explain what happened. When you think you’re above the rest, you do not have to explain.

That arrogant attitude reached its lowest point during an interview conducted by the BBC Mike Lazaridis when he decided to stop and deal with some aggressiveness to the journalist because he considered “unfair” question.

In late 2011 the action of BlackBerry falling more than 70% its cost earlier this year making the company’s assets are worth more than your cost share. Ie: BlackBerry would make more money if sold in parts, that bag

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Betting on technology and not the user experience

RIM is responsible for much of the technological innovation in mobile devices we now take for granted

During the 80s and 90s at the beginning of the technological revolution that today allows us to access almost universal internet, smartphones and super powerful computers in the bag did not have to, especially, companies bet on selling devices by their technology and not for what they can do, ie. selling equipment because they have faster processors, because they can store more data, because they can connect to certain networks or because the printer itself prints colors

RIM is responsible for much of the technological innovation in mobile devices we now take for granted: optimizing the use of data to avoid saturating networks popularization of technology push mobile devices that we have emails sent immediately after, to have synchronized our calendar or address book. An instant messaging system that does not depend on whether we are available or not, always comes and depends on the data network, no SMS.

But as technology becomes invisible, low cost and people adopt their use as a tool in their daily lives, no longer salable. Ever having Wi-Fi at home was a luxury and many wireless rotures bought hundreds of dollars just for the novelty that meant. Malfunctioned and was slow, but hey, I had internet access. Today is normal. RIM BlackBerry now seems to have been at the time it was salable technology. Nobody cares if the BlackBerry Z30 incorporates Natural Sound , an audio system that allows calls to be heard incredibly well, if I can not use it with other people. To no avail that the PlayBook will have multi-core processors if it did not incorporate a simple email or calendar application.

Nobody cares

BlackBerry 10 , the next generation operating system the company is based on QNX , which is the same that has installed rovers on Mars. Is irrelevant because I do not have even 10% of the applications that I can get on Android or iOS on a BlackBerry 10 device. Nor is important if you have to learn a range of unintuitive gestures on the screen to move through the interface. Yes, once learned are useful, but hey! , I have to learn.

Betting on technology and not the user experience is what made Blackberry smartphones grow old so fast , is what won the PlayBook are a failure before leaving and is making, although there are efforts that point to the contrary, no BlackBerry 10 finished off.

dismiss the power of your best tools

Obama fanatic BlackBerry Messenger could not be separated from their smartphone.

BlackBerry Messenger is probably the best invention and applied as the best product for the end consumer who has left the company’s technology. At one time it was the answer for millions of people in countries where SMS were expensive and became reliable, economical and easy to use service. There was a time when BlackBerry dominated the entire Latin American region and not have BBM PIN you automatically excluded from social circles.

was a probably accidental but no undeserving achievement. Is that besides all, BlackBerry Messenger was dependent on a single platform. You had to use a company phone or did not have access. No multi-platforms. A golden opportunity wasted to dismiss the power of a tool that is becoming popular.

The best analogy I find this is Twitter , a minor small tool developed in parallel within a corporation called Obvious I was building a tool for posting podcast in a simple way. Of not caring, they had probably crashed into a wall called failure. Instead, they realized the potential, and took advantage of Twitter is what today is.

underestimate the immense potential of BlackBerry Messenger and squeeze, not knowing swing as a company to the things that worked well did you see WhatsApp with a very similar service, very Low cost ($ 1 per year) and multi-platform. Today WhatsApp is the market leader with all their security flaws. BlackBerry took years to react and once I made the same mistake as always: unable to differentiate enough. Yes, it is much safer, we believe that is what everyone should be using, but the market is not interested right now.

Inability to innovate

innovation in the strict sense of the word, is when a good idea is implemented as a new product or service to find a way to be successful in the market. When RIM began marketing the BlackBerry as a working tool always connected to the internet made a huge work of innovation that allowed us to millions of people have access to our email, calendar, contacts and messaging on a single device and relatively easy to innovate .

But all that work

innovation stopped once the platform is popular. BlackBerry continued to release new products aimed at different market segments. Low range, high-end, premium range inclusive, aimed at younger markets (such as BlackBerry Pearl , very popular at the time) and sometime even dared to put one.

Camera innovation capacity disappeared BlackBerry . Such stories circulating among followers of the technology is the internal reaction when RIM announced the iPhone. They considered it absolutely impossible to manufacture with the device cost, not only that, considered a touchscreen smartphone without keyboard was suicide. That pride in numbers caused by repeated presentations where time and again we were the number one market share did not stop them about who sells more, it’s about who makes the highest quality product and achieves good marketing .

Today

BlackBerry is in an extremely difficult situation. I doubt disappear, but have been unable to compete your your with iOS and Android . Made Windows Phone , an operating system which mocked much less than a year, becoming the third ecosystem, a position for which BlackBerry recently struggled with sweat and blood.