Research in Motion (RIM), the Canadian parent company of Blackberry, began it’s quest for first mover advantage in the smartphone business, on the back of healthy revenues from the educational PC market.
We now commence day 4 for generalised service failure, across its network of users. This was all RIM could say yesterday, in response to a now worldwide outage: “BlackBerry subscribers in the Americas may be experiencing intermittent service delays this morning”
In a world where mobile computing is now the standard, users have demanded, and expected, reliability. BB had indeed differentiated itself, on the basis of offering this reliability. One of its key selling points for business, was the fact that it has its own network of servers, and so is less reliant on the technology of the mobile providers whose platforms essentially act as a co-host.
Losing the perception of this security and stability, could not be more crucial for RIM – not least as it happens at a time when Apple is launching its own iPhone 4S, with a bundled iMessage, a rival to the lauded BBM.
Ian Fogg, a mobile industry analyst at Forrester, said RIM had built its reputation on reliability.
“RIM is in danger of becoming its own worst enemy if it is unable to reliably operate the communication services that have differentiated it,” he said on his blog.
“BBM is the reason many young consumers stay with BlackBerry. If it doesn’t work, they will leave RIM.”
Damian Merciar
