Since today appears to be National Pile on RIM Day, I thought I would add a little fuel to the fire.
I see a lot of people talking about the Playbook, the devices and the terrible mobile device experience that RIM has brought to table in contrast to the sleek, new offerings from the competition. I do not disagree with anything that has been said in that area. It’s sad to see a once-mighty company implode the way they are, but given the leadership of the two CEOs in power there, it’s really not a surprise. I also noted that RIM thinks of their ecosystem in a backwards fashion from Apple: the corporate device usage drives the home device choices.
That’s wrong, but whatever.
One thing that I do not see many people talking about is how RIM’s core business is dying. I’ve often considered my enterprise to be a microcosm of what is likely happening around the world. Blackberry Enterprise Server is dying in just about every corporation I’m familiar with. In our own enterprise, the BES device usage is dropping month by month while the iOS and Android devices are skyrocketing. I can’t give you statistics due to privacy stuff, but I assure you that is the case.
I can also vouch that in our research into BES 5.0 has produced interesting results. It appears that the quality assurance on BES 5.0 when paired up with Exchange 2010 has been poor. I know of at least one major social networking organization that was so frustrated by the experience that they dumped Blackberry Enterprise Servers entirely, took away all of the Blackberry devices and handed out iPhones.
If RIM is relying on their core business to stay relevant, they are in more trouble than people think.