A Christmas Poem: Blackberry’s Jam Isn’t So Sweet

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Every electronic gizmo was working, right down to my mouse.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nick would leave more high-tech there.

My children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of new gadgets danced in their heads.
My wife in her Snuggie, and I in my cap,
Had just settled down, for a long winter’s nap.

When on the side table there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
I looked, and I saw my BlackBerry flashing and red,
And I knew that meant trouble, as I groaned, “Oh, no! It’s dead!”

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Was little consolation for my lifeless 9-9-3-0.
I tapped it. I shook it. I tried all to no avail.
But, deep down I knew, this was yet another RIM fail.

You see, my Bold became cold as coal three times before
Data wouldn’t provision, BBWorld wouldn’t work right.
Then, an odd defect appeared on the screen in plain sight.

Ever since I bought it, my BlackBerry was a mess.
My friends all chuckled, “Why didn’t you buy the 4S?”
Four times it had failed me, in just more than eight weeks.
For lack of quality, the 9930 in volumes it speaks.

More weary I became with each trek to the store;
The tales of reliability seemed nothing but old folklore
But each time it broke, I ended up playing RIM’s game.
Each time it broke, I called them by name.

“Now, Joshua, Jacob, Marshall and Mike,
You work at Verizon. You know what it’s like.
Sarah and Sally and Susie and Jan,
You’re at Customer Care. Do what you can!”

Their eyes – how they twinkled! Their dimples –how merry!
But all they could say was, “It’s that darn BlackBerry.”
What choice did I have? Maybe the fix was an app?
No, no, not at all. I had fallen into a Trap.

“We can send you another.” That would be number four.
“You can exit your contract.” For a fee, plus lots more.
“Maybe the Galaxy Nexus or another new device?”
No way that’s for me, when $699 is the price.

So, my 9330 is dead, and I’ve no options in sight.
I’m trapped. I’m upset. And it doesn’t seem right.

Blackberry’s Jam isn’t so sweet,
Its trouble will continue, beyond Wall Street.

RIM is in trouble, and it has to do better quick.
If it doesn’t, it may be in dire straits, with more than St. Nick.

I’ll end this rant now, so we can go back to good cheer,
Merry Christmas to all, and to all, better mobile in the New Year!

RIM To Manage Apple and Google Devices

RIM (re)announced its BlackBerry Mobile Fusion offering today. The intent of the solution is to simplify (unify) the management of smartphones and tablets running BlackBerry®, Google® Android® and Apple® iOS® operating systems.

While many enterprises are able benefiting from expense reductions because employees are bring their own devices to work (BYOD), these same companies face a myriad of issues (technical and expense) relating to the management and regulatory compliance. RIM’s solution should help that cause.

Enterprises that already own a BES server will find this new capability a very worthy upgrade. The jury is still out if this new offering from RIM will be enough to attract new enterprises to a RIM solution in the face of quick-moving, very capable upstarts like Mobile Iron, Apperian and security plays like Mocana.  The new software is the result of RIM’s acquisition of the mobile device management company Ubitexx in May.

 

 

For more information, visit www.blackberry.com/mobilefusion

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I Bought A New Blackberry

For those who know me well, I usually carry 3 or 4 devices w/ me all the time. I’ve been doing it since the mid-90′s.
In fact, I’m quite sure my mobile phone device museum is second to none..

Over the last couple of weeks – especially the last few days – I was thinking about all the devices I’ve carried, on every North American network, as well as many in Europe and in the APAC.

During the last few days, I was more than just a little frustrated by yet another RIM network outage.

But when I think back across my 20+ years in this business about what devices have served me most reliably, what devices did I carry for years, not days or weeks, or what device line make me look less silly because of typos, it was Blackberry.

I dropped the last one I had a broke a few months back and hadn’t had time to replace it.

Tonight, as people stand in line – many of them out in the rain here in the east coast – to buy a new/old iPhone, I went out a bought a new BB Bold 9930.

I hope RIM doesn’t let me down..

How RIM’s Network Outage Affects Mobile App Design?

RIM just can’t seem to win – and they won’t if they keep punching themselves in the face.

The results of what started as a core switch failure inside RIM’s European network continues to cascade to other regions, including North America. A significant message backlog was created in Europe because of the outage and the time it took to get it operating again. RIM seems to have a handle on the root cause, but the company didn’t make it clear why the backup system also failed. Nor perhaps is that important in the heat of this firestorm.

RIM said they had not throttled traffic in other regions (contrary to some press reports). RIM did emphasize that there are a lot of messages to Europe from Asia and the Americas that seemed to be a causing the slowdown. While it’s clear the message backup is the most identifiable issue, it was unclear (Egan: I wasn’t convinced) if there are secondary failures.  That said, RIM seems pretty confident that the outage is not the result of a security breach or from a software hack.

What’s seems curious is how the network fabric is constructed in a way that a message backup in one region is clogging up browser and in-region message delivery in another.

Surely organizations need to wrestle with the service level affects because of the outage itself, but I think there is also something instructional for the long terms to be gleamed here.

RIM’s network failure should be a reminder to organizations that during application design, building in offline capability is crucial. While HTML5 can help mitigate many of the costs due to OS fragmentation or closed- control ecosystems, it should be augmented with other client/server hybrid techniques.

Application store revenues to reach $3.8 Billion in 2011

Combined revenues from the four major mobile application stores run by Apple Inc., Google Inc., Nokia Corp. and Research In Motion Ltd. will leap 77.7 percent in 2011 to $3.8 billion, according to iSuppli.

RIM Fights Back: My Interview with Canada’s Global News Network

RIM’s first Beavis and Butthead moment dates as far back as 2007 when it should have asked itself why it didn’t invent the iPhone. [Read more...]

RIM’s RIF Math

..doesn’t seem to add up.

[Read more...]

Is CISCO the new Nokia?

20110711-115252.jpg

The word on the street is that CISCO is about to furlough some 10k employees.
About 3K through a voluntary separation, the others via a RIF.

From an investor view, it’s been a tough few years for Cisco. The company has been outperformed by all its nearest competitors.

When I talk to people who work at Cisco, it is clear that they”re committed to their job, and that they generally like the culture of the company. The problem is that it feels a lot like these individuals have become “company people”. They seem like they have lost that start-up feeling. I know from which I speak here, because during my tenure at DEC, I saw it. And the minute I started to feel it myself, I knew that it was time to get out.

I digress.
One would think that Cisco’s roots, and with its early market penetration, that the company would be served well because of the accelerating growth of IP services, those wired and wireless, and delivered across many modalities.

Instead, I think the company has become too internally focused, and that Cisco has created distraction and confusion in the way the company manages its enterprise and consumer businesses. Finally it seems at least some of its employees appear to have lost their edge and become complacent. In a nutshell many have become company people. Cisco’s lost it’s edge, just like Nortel, Nokia and some would argue, just like RIM.

Today Cisco has just over 70k people according to the company’s most recent filing. Discharging upwards to 10,000 people isn’t going to solve the problem. The company probably needs to get down to half the people size and figure out how to become the market maker once again. Equally, I think Cisco needs to spin-off its consumer products group and give them a free hand.

Let me know what you think.

If You Were RIM’s CEO, What Would You Do?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://watch.bnn.ca/headline/july-2011-/headline-july-5-2011/#clip495654

My appearance on Canada’s BBN talking about how to fix RIM.

As many of you may also noticed, I’m thrilled to announce I have join forces with MGI Research.
More on that, in a post later this week.

 

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Is RIM Done?

This time we’ve asked ourselves: Is RIM Done?

Analysts are of two distinct minds on Research in Motion (RIM) – one is that RIM is done, another – that current problems are temporary and that RIM stock is a screaming buy. RIM (NASDAQ:RIMM, MGI Index= 2,396) shares continue to be under pressure, while Apple, (NASDAQ:AAPL, MGI Index =8,327), continues to gain market share in what used to be RIM’s core marketplace – the enterprise.  Apple’s iPhone has become the new “CrackBerry” and apps have become the new currency of the mobile computing world.

Research in Motion, Ltd. (RIM) recent financial guidance put the lingering questions about its strategy and execution into sharp focus. RIM (MGI Index= 2,396) shares lost over 28% since April 28th 2011. Some industry observers feel that the tsunami of Apple (MGI Index=8,327) and Android offerings has irrevocably washed RIM away from its comfortable market position. Others see the current RIM challenges as a temporary hiccup for an otherwise great company in a great market. For one thing, we do not believe that with over $2Bil in cash, no debt and a consistent profitability, RIM is going out of business any time soon. The question is one of relevance and leadership. Can RIM retain a meaningful leadership position in the new mobile computing landscape and generate above market growth and profitability? Can it defend its position in the consumer markets and successfully penetrate the tablet space? Or will it roll back to being a niche provider of mobile access solutions for secure enterprise-class e-mail? Does the company have a realistic vision of the overall mobile computing opportunity? How long will the recovery process take? Do the RIM board and current management team have the right combination of skills to translate the vision into action? In this research note we examine RIM survival and recovery scenarios and share our outlook of why RIM’s recovery is likely to take a while.

This insightful 13 page MGI Research reportIs RIM Done? analyzes RIM stock scenarios by going deep into RIM’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. The report examines RIM’s operating and R&D efficiency relative to its peers and explores RIM’s strategic options. The report was written by the MGI Research analyst team in collaboration with the leading mobile computing expert and industry analyst Bob Egan of the Sepharim Group, LLC. We believe this report is a must read for investors, analysts, portfolio managers, industry executives, and others involved with Mobile Computing investments.
Available immediately to MGI Research subscribers at the MGI Research website, a single copy can be purchased from the MGI Research Store or via Bloomberg.