Fool on Call: How Apple iPhone Helps BlackBerry

The enterprise users will have great difficulty in adopting iphone, as it is an entertainment device with music, phone and photos as intergral part.

Blackberry transmits e-mail as its primary strength with capability to provide security based transmssions that can not be hacked and is being used with encryption layered transmissions controlled by the user likw US Army, Defense department....

Those enterprise users can spend a lot of dollars as compared with young users...Both address different markets at this time...

Congruence will be easier for Blackberry as the iphone capabilities are not that difficult to develop. The customer inerface is better for iphone and that is Apple's Strength. And, they did it better than Blackberyy fair and square.

But, Blackberry is still very functional and we have a lot of CRACKBERRY ADDICTS to prove this. It will be there 5 years from now.

Market is big enough. IPOD have enough snob appeal that baby boomers will purchase it for teenangers and young adults. As they start working, these young adults will get Blackberry's from their employers. No music or photos for work place.

Think about it....iphone for teenagers and Blackberry's for adults... Teenaers get it form their babyboomer parents and Blackberries from employers...

Wiseowltx

Just wanted to add one more thing. I read somewhere that RIM engineers are hard at work making something that would equal or better the iPhone. But the author failed to point out though is that Apple's got 200 patents approved or in for approval for the iPhone. Any company wanting to make a similar product has to spend a considerable amount of time side stepping these patents and thus making the outcome of an inferior product more probable. And in doing so, RIM like Samsung and others will offer an array of splintered products and thus confusing to end-users.

Apple on the other hand already has a platform 100 MM or more users are familar with- iTunes.

In sports, in order for a team to mount a comeback, it first has to have failed to stop another team's offense. However, as far as Apple is concerned, it is a new team in an old league, where it is a new season and the game for it has just begun. Accordingly, Apple is not mounting a comeback.

Great article. And it got me thinking. It truly amazes me how so many well-paid and supposedly smart CEO's today can be so blind to the true threat that Apple represents to their companies, and won't take the necessary steps to fully protect themselves until it is too late and history has repeated itself and Apple has come to dominate yet another global market ripe for the taking.

I'm no CEO, yet it's childishly easy for me to see and to realize this. I can only wonder why don't they. It truly pains me and grates into me every time I hear some CEO proclaim that Apple is not really a threat because of the high prices they charge, that Apple is no threat because iPhone doesn't have certain capabilities that business users need, that Apple is no threat because the iPhone lacks this feature or that feature.

So what? Is that a reason for you to rest on your laurels and not be scrambling to create better products or be worried? Any phone manuf CEO who feel it's still business as usual in light of the threat imposed by iPhone, then fools they are. I totally agree with the principal that only the paranoid survives. It's better to be a little paranoid and to survive, than to behave like you're so cool and calm and get steamrollered over.

The fact is, all of iPhone's current shortcomings can and will be addressed and sooner than you think. It's only just a matter of time. Apple's first release of iPhone is just that - only the first, but not the last. This first version is only to establish a beachhead, nothing more. You can be absolutuely sure there will be many more versions of to come, versions which will target every revelant market, even the so-called business market, which companies like RIM seem to cherish and depend on so much. The fact that Apple is not currently targeting your specific market is by no means indicative that Apple won't target your market in the future. The only thing it is saying is that you have some lead time.

Maybe a year or two at most, no more. So now is the time to prepare yourselves. Now is the time to be scrambling to create some truly innovative and compelling devices to be able to compete against the coming onslaught of innovative iPhones which will surely come and will target your specific market, whatever your market is. That's why every cell-phone manufacturer on the planet - regardless the market - should indeed be worried and quaking in your boots.

Why? Because if your market is indeed relevant, then you can surely bet Apple is coming. It is only just a matter of time. And if for some reason Apple does not come, then it is only because perhaps your market is not relevant to begin with. And perhaps neither are you. Therefore, if you feel you are relevent, then you must Prepare Yourselves or become extinct. Don't be like so many proud MP3 player manufacturers before you who didn't realize or accept the fact that Apple was a threat until they found themselves steamrollered over.

Now they're history. Now they're irrelevant in a relevant society. You have to be the one who truly thinks smarter. Why? Because Steve Jobs certainly is. And he is already several steps ahead of you.

Just think- in one swing Apple's iPhone made the Blackberry look like a 1950 Ford! Wait and see the slew of apps and enhancements by Apple in the weeks and months and RIM has a lot to be concerned about. For one the iPhone will severely limit RIM's ongoing expansion beyound the enterprise market. For two, just like the iPOD, newer and cheaper version with more capabilties are on the horizon. And 3rd, just look at the commercials. People are now going to compare their Blackberry's to the iPhone and say: Can a Blackberry do that and do it this way?? Ans. Nope. And fourth with the iPhone you could port all your e-mail from the most popular services again limiting RIM's growth. And fifth, and this is a big one, iPhones allow to tap the endless resources of iTunes! I mean music, books on audio, podcast, v-cast, movies, Tv shows, etc.., get the point?

If I were RIM I'd be very concern.

They are surely scared by the iPhone. But only an idiot would admit it in their position!

Yea, Blackberry has a few years to live, still. I'd short the also-rans, though-- Palm, Windows Mobile, etc.