I think this really took blackberry by suprise and the sudden jump in profits and switch in demogrpahic of users caught them off guard and really unsure about which way to make / market future products! Instead of say for example Nokia in the early 00′s releasing ‘fun’ products for younger users and high end phones for the business market, blackberry in the past few years have been churning out very very similar phones to all users hoping that a one size fits all approch will work! Which it didnt.

Putting that to one side the 2 MAJOR factors that i think have lead to decline in blackberry is:

1. Software (mostly apps)  2. Marketing.

Take for example the Playbook, i own one, and think it is by far one of the best pieces of hardware that i have EVER used, the size, build quality, cameras, processor is great and the QNX OS i think is a very slick, no nonsense os which looks brilliant.

But its has to be the apps where everything goes sour, i have read somewhere that an ipad is just an App-Launcher… yeah and so what? With apple i can literally download any app to let me do pretty much anything i want, which you just cant do with the playbook! Even something simple like the video chat function on the playbook, brilliant camera but unless you know someone with a playbook you cant video chat because there is no skype etc even something that simple cant be sorted.

The other thing is the marketing, its called a PLAYbook but clearly is more aimed towards business users espically with the bridge function, again a perfect example of blackberry not sure who they are aiming there products at. Giving a completly mixed signal to consumers which makes a nightmare to maket and ultimatley ends up with neither the business user (who thinks due to the name that its for playing games) or the young user (who thinks its for business looking up slideshows etc) buying it.

Ultimnatley i fell so sorry for the guys who desinged this brilliant product only to see it ruined by the shoddy marketing and lack of applications.

So don’t confuse your luck with whether the iPhone can be damaged.

Rather it was just bad marketing and the crippling of features that required a Blackberry phone to fix that was it’s main problem.

Though providing only one size could also have been a issue with so many still trying to decide what size tablet they really want/need…

The Storm especially had a lot of issues, not related to the Playbook which was actually a good product…

The Playbook was mainly badly marketed, lacked a properly developed app market ecosystem, and tied to being used with a Blackberry instead of being a fully independent device.  They finally fixed the last one with the latest updates and are continuously working on the app market but they’ve yet to provide it proper marketing, especially to fight all the mostly unfounded negative opinions that have developed. 

The Web Browser for example is one of the only ones you’ll find on a mobile device that fully supports Flash and can play full HD youtube videos.  You can play any Flash game and even go to Amazon Instant Video and rent/buy or log in with your Premium Account to watch any video they have.  Along with a couple of other strong features like multi-tasking.

While the Storm was just plain and simple a bad product, bad touch screen, bad OS optimizations for touch UI, etc. But aside from the future Smart Phone style Blackberry’s there is also the Torch series as a good compromise between the traditional and touch screen style devices.  While even the traditional design has gotten a touch screen now and for thumb typing some may still prefer it.

The only question is whether their upcoming products will be good enough to turn the tide that’s against them now or not…

Then add all the issues of privacy concerns on both iOS and Android…  While Android has issues of being more open but conversely Apple still maintains control of its own “walled garden” which makes it
difficult for developers to create tools that effectively manage iOS
devices.

Also Jailbroken and rooted devices are a natural risk to security and both are done far, far, far, far, far more often on Android and iOS than ever on BB.
Meaning it isn’t that BB doesn’t have a security advantage but rather fewer people are that concerned about security as extensively as they use to and good enough security is also enough if it also brings in other advantages like a more developed app market and is frankly liked by the employees more.  Most companies just go with the flow of what their employees want unless they find a problem with it and usually it makes it easier for their IT departments if the employees care more about the devices.This is different, however, from what would be the best technical solution in favor of what’s good enough and majority popular.

So if there is any perception to the contrary of RIM having better security then it’s a mistaken perception that overlooks the limitations of Android and iOS security and privacy.

While RIM email services don’t tend to crash, they did have a major outage not too long ago due to some serious server issues and it was a major embarrassment for them but their track records doesn’t show a pattern of problems and unless causes of the server issues weren’t fixed then there is no reason to expect that they’ll have another major outage anytime soon.

Really, even Apple has server crashes like the issues they had when Siri was first released.  So let’s stop exaggerating issues.

What RIM is weak in is appealing to the general consumer and the Enterprise market isn’t as robust as it use to be.  So RIM can no longer can depend on the Enterprise market and needs to start appealing more to the general consumer.

Really, there’s a reason why there’s such a large market of spare parts for the iPhone despite Apple’s famed tech support services.  Some people just break them too often to bother with support and wind up fixing it themselves most of the time.

The real threat RIM perceive is Nokia and their Windows phones, which could threaten their corporate contracts. Hence the new marketing strategy aimed at reminding their corporate accounts what they are getting from a Blackberry device.

I agree with the posts below which suggest RIM were wrong to ever go after Apples core market, or Android, as they are a completely different group, with different requirements.

RIM’s big failing was their poor Playbook product. It was flawed in hardware (too small) and software, thereby failing to capitalize on their position and provide a broader ecosystem for their customers.
RIM need to rectify this asap.

1) just because marketing says something doesn’t make it true. Sorry, marketing professionals can really do nothing if they don’t have a good product
2) The competitors – iPhones and Androids – are actual more useful. Casting them as a toy doesn’t ring true when you can do things more than typing e-mail, IM, and browsing non-complicated webpages.3) Blackberry is not a toy? I thought Blackberry is a fruit in a plastic cady and don’t kids like to play with plastic fruit? I don’t think kids like to play with human robot hybrids and an internet phone is just too generic to be only a tool. But a plastic fruit belongs in any good girl’s play kitchen.

Neither shows me how the devices aren’t toys, and the one from the Martinez Brothers doesn’t (to me) differentiate it from any other phone out there.  And I know that when they say “we’re playing” they mean music, but it sounds very much like a toy.
After all of its varied and failed ad campaigns for the PlayBook, RIM needs to spend big bucks on a an agency that understands the enterprise market.
None of these commercials presented a compelling reason for buying a BlackBerry.

IT departments that abandoned the BB/Exchange monoculture are saving huge sums without giving up anything. The only thing keeping BB afloat these days is IT departments that have invested so much in BB server and devices that the short term costs of switching are just not tenable with budgets being what they are (think governments). This will not last forever. Unless it becomes some sort of fad for consumers to own a BB for some reason their fate is already sealed.

With a down economy where corporations are spending less the focus needs to be getting the consumer not on how well you can secure the device for a corporation.

People will always spend money on vices, food, and hospital care. Corporations spend only when they have to spend to boost or maintain business if they are run responsibily. Add on the fact that more people are bringing home purchased devices to work to do work then they used to and this marketing plan is sure to fail without the fun factor.

What they should do is change the name from blackberry (something that is never fun to be caught up in) and change it to cloverleaf (something that is a delight to walk on) and add a choice of free multimedia services for the life of the phone. Also add a wifi thumb drive default app. Make it easier than tripping on your shadow to wirelessly transfer docs, media, cal, email, etc. to the device. All quite doable on that platform.