Uncool Mobility

BlackBerry Storm Is Off To Bit of a Bumpy Start - WSJ.com

I've heard such mixed reviews about the touchscreen Blackberry. Are there any current Storm users out there who can say if the device is a good one or not?

BlackBerry Storm Is Off To Bit of a Bumpy Start - WSJ.com.

BlackBerry vs. iPhone

Informative post from Changewave asking the most critical question of Q1 09 for the mobile services market share: "But is the new RIM lineup of consumer products strong enough to take full advantage of their increased demand?"

"The smart phone market is now dominated by two companies - Apple and Research In Motion. According to our survey results, the Apple iPhone trails the RIM BlackBerry in terms of current market share - but the iPhone has experienced strong growth since its inception and explosive growth since the release of the 3G model in July 2008.

Going forward, RIM is showing a surge in momentum due to its slew of new product launches - and appears capable of giving Apple a strong challenge in 2009. But the real test in a cutthroat market is how satisfied consumers actually are with their new models."

BlackBerry vs. iPhone - The Smart Phone Battle Rages On.

BlackBerry Storm Launching for Holiday Sales

RIM's touchscreen finally gets a firm date and price--next week, priced like the iPhone at 199 with contract (but also has $50 rebate).

It's Official: BlackBerry Storm In Stores Next Week - The Channel Wire - IT Channel News And Views by CRN and VARBusiness.

RIM launching prepay?

The blog Boy Genius Report, a frequent leaker of internal RIM documents which prove accurate, has released an operator pitch RIM is using to propose a prepaid service which targets LATAM, APAC, and key WE countries.

As the recent Nielsen data suggest that the iPhone's fastest growing consumer segment is users with income below $50,000 this market segment has demonstrated willingness to pay for wireless data services. Launching a prepay service will significantly expand RIM's addressable market and uptake rate. As RIM points out, the majority of mobile customers are prepay.

What RIM is proposing: The end customer purchases a device and one year of BIS service through retail. The second prepay model is a standard prepay or top-up account with the device purchased through retail (no subsidy) and purchases services incrementally through SMS, ATMs, scratch cards, etc.

Positioned as cost and security control targeting students and SOHO needing flexibility, not targeting lower incomes.

RIM positions operator benefits as:

Shifting inventory finance risks to retailers

Reducing churn / increasing engagement of prepay customers

Increasing EBITDA through ARPU lift on prepay customers

The deck suggests RIM is targeting Mexico, Brazil, Chile, UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Australia, and India.

RIM offers the following GTM learnings for Ovi service lines:

Use people/people images in all promotional material to clearly illustrate service concept and educate on benefits

Retail experience critical, emphasize placement near front door

Needs to be bundled with unlimited data plan

Requires specifically trained sales people

"Better to sell in few locations that have much traffic and have stock than in many that run out of stock"

Incentivize indirect channels beyond activations i.e. margin on devices

Global Cellphone Sales Declined In Typically Busy Q3, Marking The Slowest Growth Rate Since 2002 | mocoNews.net

Apple and RIM's recent growth is especially impressive given the overall market segment is flat. Motorola continues its slide, plummeting out of the top three in market share for the first time.

Global Cellphone Sales Declined In Typically Busy Q3, Marking The Slowest Growth Rate Since 2002 | mocoNews.net.

MOT launches Touch-Screen Krave

Touch-Screen Debut: Motorola's Krave ZN4 Hits U.S. Market - Networking - IT Channel News by CRN and VARBusiness.

RIM's new flip phone will have additional challenges at its pricepoint with this nifty touch-enabled flip from MOT.

Nice looking device from MOT. It will be interesting to see if a device without integrated services (no, VCast doesn't count) does well in a holiday season dominated by RIM, Apple, and Google launches.

T-Mobile Selling BlackBerry Pearl Flip

T-Mobile Now Selling BlackBerry Pearl Flip - The Channel Wire - IT Channel News And Views by CRN and VARBusiness.

RIM's new flip phone is a big product launch that has gone mostly under the radar. It isn't an "iPhone killer" and doesn't have touchscreen UI. Instead, it targets the mass audience of US consumers who want a flip form factor (which is why the RAZR remains the top selling device).

RIM needs to get the price point down below $100 so that it is very clearly differentiated from the iPhone and iClones and they will have a monster hit on their hands.

BlackBerry launching Application Center?

Exclusive: First Look at the BlackBerry Application Center! | CrackBerry.com.

The blogs are lighting up with this report showing an app center to come from Blackberry. From the conversations I had with RIM people at CTIA Wireless (things they wouldn't say or answer) I'd guess this is legit and coming two quarter faster than I had thought.

If this report has it right RIM is continuing a very friendly operator go-to-market with the app store serving operator-hosted apps. It will be interesting to see how this can keep up with Apple's store. Developers have been whining like crazy over Apple's policies, wait until they try certifying and releasing apps on a Verizon or similar!

Apple's stock follows RIM's

Bloomberg.com: U.S..

Apple succumbs to the market and dives, following RIM's pounding after their earnings call last week. Will the real world intrude upon mobility and web services beyond punishing the stocks?

CTIA Wireless wrapup from San Francisco

I spent last week in San Francisco at CTIA Wireless. The biggest takeaways I had were:

Apple dominated the show. The extent to which the iPhone has shaken up both service and device aspects of the industry was widely evident as the not-present Apple was constantly mentioned.

Business as usual for RIM. RIM had formal product announcements and booth appearances for the new flip phone and Bold, both of which have been extensively picked over in blogs. RIM also announced content partnerships in the form of specific applications to be natively built BB with MySpace, Ticketmaster, and a streaming audio startup called "Slacker" which I'd never heard of. Microsoft will also have Live search bundled on the RIM OS. As other service providers focus on creating a platform (and specifically an appstore) RIM seems determined to keep with a one-by-one approach of selecting partners to co-develop applications. Will this scale as a model?

Search is rapidly being co-opted into the same structure as web-based search.  I had thought mobile search would see different UIs, different ontologies/taxonomies driving definitions, and a new vertical within internet search but clearly that will not happen. The need to drive growth rates in ad spending has stomped all the smaller players as Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft invest to extend reach to mobile. Search is also becoming a trojan horse to package and/or pull related applications (such as Google apps or Windows Live Hotmail) onto devices.

Operators continue to struggle with "open" and by resisting concepts of openness for so long are now deeply in the hole trying to launch app stores. Verizon and ATT in particular are scrambling to catch up on this front but will not be able to move quickly enough to overcome iTunes + AppStore, the Android app store, and RIM's selected partnering model. Waiting in the wings: Microsoft Mesh.

Yahoo had the only significant new play. Blueprint and its integration into the new OneConnect is an interesting system that will dig into in a future post. Is it too late for Yahoo as a company despite innovative new products and services?