What's Up Blackberry?

Their devices once were a rage among corporate. Well that was almost a decade ago. We even know that US President Barack Obama was so fond of his Blackberry, that the secret service fiddled with it for a few days, made it secure, and returned it to him. But gone are those days when the RIM device enjoyed unparalleled loyalty.

RIM's Struggles in the Changing Landscape of Mobile Applications

In recent times, we have seen a rather un-innovative approach from RIM, losing out to Android, and iOS devices on the applications front. RIM's effort at sweeping into the youth segment, using BBM services was shortlived.

From a once-dominant position, Blackberry's market share has continuously dropped. There are many reasons as to why this happened, but the most significant one being RIM's failure to embrace the app market early on. This clearly has made the non-corporate consumer more interested in other devices like Android, and Apple's iPhone. Both the Android, and iOS platform allow the user access to third-party apps, developed specifically for the said devices. Among them, Android is considered the most flexible, and widespread, with numerous apps developed, and a vibrant marketplace for apps (Google Play Store).

In the case of Blackberry, the true loser would be the Enterprise consumer. RIM still has a significant share in the enterprise segment. Users in a corporate environment can use their own device (Bring Your Own Device, or BYOD), and the IT departments then proceed to configure the devices to get work-related updates. RIM has been the most flexible Enterprise solution, allowing the IT department freedom to lock out devices, to ensure that sensitive data is not compromised, a feature not available on iPhone, the most popular BYOD device. In case RIM decides to stop making Blackberry, the next in line would be the Windows and the Android platforms which can sweep up the stake in the Enterprise segment.

Enterprises will now have to decide which platform they have to buy into, or worse still, decide whether or not to invest in BYOD trend. There will possibly be an application for that soon, and maybe Windows might offer the same integration that RIM offered to Enterprises. But the whole question here is What's up, Blackberry? What is your next move?

Image Credit: Blackberry