On Monday Thorsten Heins, CEO of Research In Motion, rallied support at a conference for the upcoming BlackBerry 10. After cutting past the bravado that Heins put up perhaps for a show, it is clear that RIM is conceding the top two spots in mobile to Apple and Google‘s Android.
Heins’ realism is progress in that now RIM is realizing that it does not stand a chance of returning to its former glory days. Both Apple and Android are too far ahead of RIM for RIM to catch up. The foregoing may seem obvious to a casual reader but astute watchers of RIM would see that the company that once dismissed iPhone as a toy and then refused to accept the reality of the marketplace for a number of years finally gets it.
With BlackBerry 10, RIM is actually targeting Microsoft (MSFT) Windows Phone 8.
It is clear that RIM is unlikely to dominate the consumer market like it did before. The best way to analyze RIM’s prospects of making a comeback is to segment the market.
Existing User Base
In spite of its problems, RIM still has about 80 million users. If RIM comes up with a product that is somewhat competitive, it may end up retaining about half of the present subscriber base.
The High-Security Market
RIM still has an edge in markets that require high security such as government entities and certain functions in private corporations. BlackBerry 10 will have a shot at dominating this market. There is a significant overlap between this market segment and the existing user base segment.
BYOD
BYOD now a commonly used acronym stands for Bring Your Own Device…Read more at Forbes