In his UC eWeekly a couple of weeks ago, Jim Burton talked about the growing importance of apps in the evolving smartphone market, and how Apple has left RIM reeling as they drive this new market dynamic. Well, I have been a long-time BlackBerry user (and fan), but
There are actually a number of excellent apps to be found in the BlackBerry App store. My favorite is BlackBerry Travel, hands-down the best travel app I've ever seen. It scans your incoming emails and prompts if it finds one that looks like a travel confirmation. When you confirm, it captures all of the trip details automatically regardless of the carrier, hotel, or rental car company. It stores the airline record locator, ticket number, seat, hotel addresses and phone numbers, confirmation numbers, and anything else you can think of. You can also enter all of that stuff manually but what's the sense in that? On the day of the flight it sends you the gate number, alerts you of any delays, and provides useful stuff like the time between connections (adjusted for delays).
You can also get BlackBerry Messenger and versions of Google Mobile, Flixster (Movies), Slacker and Pandora (Internet radio), ScoreMobile (my favorite for tracking the Yanks), Poynt (Local Search), Superpages, Urban Spoon, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Navita Translator, WebEx, Carfinder, and a decent flashlight.
Despite this, the BlackBerry community is still found to be "app deprived". Jim Burton quoted Purple Forge CEO Brian Hurley, who said, "When we put an application in the field, there was a 20-to-1 difference between Apple and BlackBerry downloads". My recent experience with the rate at which people try these BlackBerry apps has convinced me that RIM is its own worst enemy.
The problem is that many of BlackBerry's longtime customers have no idea that there are apps for the BlackBerry or where to get them. I have lots of friends with BlackBerries (far more than with either iPhones or Androids), but the vast majority have no applications beyond the core email and BBM (plus the required carrier "crapware").
When I show them some of the things I have on mine, they're absolutely amazed and ask me how to get them. That's where the trouble begins. The BlackBerry App World app comes pre-installed, but you need to establish a BlackBerry ID and password--no one has ever told them that. Once you clear that hurdle, you're greeted with the worst search engine that has ever existed (enter a search term and it seems to treat the letters like a "Jumble" and sends you masses of meaningless, unrelated drivel).
Over the past few weeks I've tried to help a half-dozen BlackBerry users to get some of the benefit out of their fancy phones; I have been successful zero times. By the way, many of those people are now looking at iPhones or Android devices to get many of the same capabilities that exist on their BlackBerries.
Despite what you may have read, RIM really does have some great applications. The real problem is that they have done a terrible job getting them in people's phones. Their ads do nothing to let customers know what's available and they have made the whole process a trial by fire. You don't need a million apps to be successful, but you do need to help customers get to what you have.
RIM's annual meeting took place this week and resulted in an agreement to form a committee to study its leadership, particularly with regard to the co-CEO arrangement. That came in response to a proposal made last month by Northwest & Ethical Investments LP to split the roles of chairman and CEO to increase board oversight. The meeting apparently ended with Bob Seger's "Against the Wind" blasting from the loud speakers.
With their enterprise focus, RIM could be a major player in the UC space, but they have a steep hill to climb to get back to their former glory. They also need to fill some gaps on the product side, and they apparently have seven new devices in the pipeline including a new QWERTY-less Torch. More than anything else, RIM needs to start executing with what they have in hand.
