The maker of BlackBerry today seemed to admit defeat in the smartphone wars after suggesting it will abandon most consumer markets.

Research in Motion Ltd will instead concentrate on reaching business customers, who are said to value the security of the company's handsets.

RIM has been struggling as Americans are abandoning their BlackBerrys for flashier touch-screen phones such as Apple's iPhone and models that run Google's Android software.
Despite the phones' continuing popularity among business users, the firm has had limited success trying to enter consumer markets in recent years.

'We plan to refocus on the enterprise business and capitalise on our leading position in this segment,' CEO Thorsten Heins said.

'We believe that BlackBerry cannot succeed if we tried to be everybody's darling and all things to all people. Therefore, we plan to build on our strength.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2122489/BlackBerry-gives-Manufacturer-RIM-withdraw-consumer-market-focus-businesses.html#ixzz1qcNBpdfB

This is false report and a thorough misunderstanding of RIM's statement today.

RIM WILL refocus on their enterprise bread and butter but will also continue with the consumer market.

What the Ceo meant was that RIM would abandon such plans like BBM Music and plans for video stores etc that were not likely to make it big. Instead of a lame BBM music service for example, it would serve RIM better to partner with Amazon for music on the BBs.

Hope this clears things up. BB 10 phones are coming this year ending and are aiming squarely at the consumer market.

Dying company. Then again, they've been dying slowly for months now.

Even as of August or so, it should have been clear they'd get their azz kicked by iPhones and Droids

texazzpete: This is false report and a thorough misunderstanding of RIM's statement today.

RIM WILL refocus on their enterprise bread and butter but will also continue with the consumer market.

What the Ceo meant was that RIM would abandon such plans like BBM Music and plans for video stores etc that were not likely to make it big. Instead of a lame BBM music service for example, it would serve RIM better to partner with Amazon for music on the BBs.

Hope this clears things up. BB 10 phones are coming this year ending and are aiming squarely at the consumer market.

Nah.

They are dying.

Read this, for example: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303404704577312010085459278.html

Bb a walking dead...*smh

Blackberry is heading for failure, esp after the recent server crash, many abandoned bb. RIM is jst a confused company.
Moreso, d one they call their best bb yet - Bold touch 9900 is an absolute disgrace! RIM has totally fumbled, not sure they will recover from this one

BB are dying slowly especially now when there are loads of altanatives to the BBM

No problem. Never was taken by the fad so I won't be missing anything. The company has been in full retreat for a while. Unstable management, lacking innovation and no clear cut perspective as to what the market will be in a few years. Just a fad.

i have said it countless times, RIM is a dying company esp thru BB.
but i do not agree with the last post that BB9900 was a disgrace, actually the phone make sense. Have u used it? What are u comparing it too? it maybe was delayed in its arrival, but its still very far from "disgrace".

Research in slow motion

RIM can not die. They ventured into an unfamiliar terrain and were burnt. They will now channel most of their resources to service Enterprise platforms.

Blackbery is quite gud. .buh dia ba3 stuf is a total mes up. . .

I never digged a berry in a life. . . not for a second.

poor battery. . .

I'm happy with my droid. . . so much fun, battery, and flexibility.

I can even ping on my droid using whatsapp. . . so what the heck bout BB??

How can someone say RIM is a dying company? So far from it.

Mcleo007: How can someone say RIM is a dying company? So far from it.

why are people so crazy about this BB of a thing?

This is false report and a thorough misunderstanding of RIM's statement today.

RIM WILL refocus on their enterprise bread and butter but will also continue with the consumer market.

What the Ceo meant was that RIM would abandon such plans like BBM Music and plans for video stores etc that were not likely to make it big. Instead of a lame BBM music service for example, it would serve RIM better to partner with Amazon for music on the BBs.

Hope this clears things up. BB 10 phones are coming this year ending and are aiming squarely at the consumer market

[color=#006600][/color]

As usual, a mature, intelligent, well informed post by Texxapete (although you usually give me a hard time)

The RIM recognise that their consumer market is actually in developing countries like Nigeria, Indonesia, etc and teenagers and young people in the more mature markets, this is because of their reduced data charges, as such they will probably be focusing on cheaper handsets rather than compete with the big boys like the iPhone or top end androids. Hence the popularity in Nigeria

they're withdrawing from the consumer market and focusing on business customers only.

didnt want to post the sad news yesterday.



i know how nigerians love blackberries.

Headline Quiz: Mid-Nineties Apple or Present-Day RIM?
March 13, 2012 By Cantech




Scan through a typical day’s worth of tech headlines and two things will immediately become clear. Apple (NASD:AAPL) has become one of the great success stories in American history. With a market capitalization of more than $500 billion, the company recently became bigger than Poland, noted The Guardian recently.


Conversely, Research in Motion (TSX:RIM) is struggling. After growing its revenue from just $6 billion in 2008 to nearly $20 billion in fiscal 2011, RIM has begun to lose market share and has suffered through a painful management transition because of it.

But were things always this way? Not exactly. On August 6, 1997, amid “gasps of disbelief and loud boos from the audience of thousands of Mac users and software developers” Microsoft founder Bill Gates bailed out struggling Apple with a $150 million dollar investment.


Keeping that day in mind, we present to you a simple quiz. Five of the headlines below are talking about Research in Motion today and five are from the mid-nineties, and pertain to Apple. Can you tell which is which? Answers at bottom.

continue at http://www.cantechletter.com/2012/03/headline-quiz-mid-nineties-apple-or-present-day-rim/

thank God, the guys at apple, didnt listen to folks here, on nairaland.

am a smartphones fanatic.bt one of my biggest regret was using my hard cash to buy that yeye BB 9520.check out samsung galaxy s1,htc and the rest of Droids family. BB is out of their dept and far away from hme in the smartsphone biz.cant get anything from their apps and they phucking doesnt work in many countries.completely messed up.

That reportis very much false. It does not reflect the contents and speech of the RIM CEO at the earnings call earlier today.

People saying that RIM is dying are quite misinformed. They might mot be making as much billions as Apple, but as of the last earnings call they still made $20Billiom,
Also their subscriber base increased by 10Million in the last quarter alone. Sure they are losing market share in the North American market, but they are still strong worldwide they are still the number 1 phone in UK and very much expanding in the Asian and African markets.

Yes the PlayBook is not such a success like the iPad but it still sold enormously than the Asus Transformer Prime.

RIM is struggling but dying is an overkill

moshoodn: I never digged a berry in a life. . . not for a second.

poor battery. . .

I'm happy with my droid. . . so much fun, battery, and flexibility.

I can even ping on my droid using whatsapp. . . so what the heck bout BB??

Tell me which of the  phones that a Droid would outlast on a typical day?

Very strange that you'd not see the irony in your statement thatyou had to fall to an imitation just to Ping. If you wanted to Ping that much get the real stuff

RIM Remains Committed to the Consumer Market
03.30.12 @ 7:22 pm › Research In Motion
↓ Skip to comments
Coming out of yesterday’s Q4 Fiscal 2012 Earnings Call, we’ve received comments and questions from our customers about RIM’s commitment to the consumer market. To be really clear, we are fully committed to the consumer market. In fact, we are aggressively focusing on delivering a unique and compelling user experience to all of our customers to enhance the way people engage, produce content, and manage data via mobile computing.

The consumer market is vast, so rather than trying to be all things to all people, RIM will focus its talent base and homegrown software and services on specific areas of the consumer market where BlackBerry® excels — which includes delivering a great mobile social and productivity experience – and we will look to existing and new partnerships to provide additional compelling apps and services that customers want and love.

We understand that buying patterns are rapidly changing for both consumers and enterprise customers. Smartphones are now just as likely to be purchased by consumers and taken into work to be used as their go-to work phone, as they are to be supplied by employers and used by employees on the weekend. We feel we are uniquely positioned to deliver a smartphone that consumers will be excited to use both personally and professionally that will also satisfy their employer’s needs for security and data management.

BlackBerry® 7 was a big step forward in this journey. BlackBerry® PlayBook™ OS 2.0 is another strong example of our commitment to delivering a powerful mobile computing experience. As part of the lead up to BlackBerry® 10, we will continue to seek partnerships with application and service providers to deliver consumer features and content that are central to the BlackBerry value proposition. We believe these partnerships, combined with our core product offerings, will provide an extremely attractive experience to both consumers and our enterprise customers.

We are excited about our renewed company focus and hope our partners and customers are excited as well.


http://blogs.blackberry.com/2012/03/rim-consumer-market/

BB is the fastest selling second-hand phone is Nigeria. Maybe that why they don't know they ve lot of potential in developing economies like ours. BB arguably has the most attractive bundled data service in Nigeria and if reasonably affordable, almost everyone will own one. The BB boom here is the opposite of happenings in places like the US where other smartphones are taking over the market. I feel companies like RIM don't appreciate what they can make out of economies like ours.

When I say BB is shit some daft people dat know nothing about Tech open their mouth to say that it is the best phone in the world cos of the stupid BB bandwagon in Naija..........very soon they'll go burst and all BBs will be useless....watch and see.

that's blackberry, right?

yes, i do see more people with iphones these days.

maybe blackberry should change its interface to match apple's.

The major problem with RIM is lack of innovations. I don't even think the company listen to consumer opinions and views. There is no way BB can succeed without looking at what is popularly very unique. There apps are very limited and the browser sucks that without it it is hard for you to use third party browsers to download. The business circle alone cannot sustain RIM market base in this present time and the general public they have to focus on must be those going after the latest make of iPhone and Android based Smartphones. Do you know that BB pioneer voice command in handset before iPhone and other makers started adding it to their lines with improvements?

They should take time to address many things and get of the Qwerty keyboard and go for all touch. People are used to touch screens and, they should take note of that in their coming products. I like BB Porche but yet the quality of the camera remains the same, 5mpx. There is room for improvement. Samsung would be coming out with Galaxy S III in few months time and it is going to be loaded. I like Samsung for being innovative, though, I have issue with the battery life.

all4naija: The major problem with RIM is lack of innovations. I don't even think the company listen to consumer opinions and views. There is no way BB can succeed without looking at what is popularly very unique. There apps are very limited and the browser sucks that without it it is hard for you to use third party browsers to download. The business circle alone cannot sustain RIM market base in this present time and the general public they have to focus on must be those going after the latest make of iPhone and Android based Smartphones. Do you know that BB pioneer voice command in handset before iPhone and other makers started adding it to their lines with improvements?

They should take time to address many things and get of the Qwerty keyboard and go for all touch. People are used to touch screens and, they should take note of that in their coming products. I like BB Porche but yet the quality of the camera remains the same, 5mpx. There is room for improvement. Samsung would be coming out with Galaxy S III in few months time and it is going to be loaded. I like Samsung for being innovative, though, I have issue with the battery life.

BB is not really for fashion but a business tool. They were being greedy going the consumer way, they should have focused on their unique selling point and core competency which is data security and stick to corporate customers. They are the most secured mobile platform out there. Government of countries like UAE, Russia etc had agreement with RIM to relax the security so as to monitor activities.

Organisations that are security conscious like the MI5, FBI and CIA deploy BES where data is encrypted end-to-end and unhackable. More reason, you can't see the Obamas of this world with iPhones and Androids that can be jailbroken or rooted to gain admin privileges.

denzel2009:

BB is not really for fashion but a business tool. They were being greedy going the consumer way, they should have focused on their unique selling point and core competency which is data security and stick to corporate customers. They are the most secured mobile platform out there. Government of countries like UAE, Russia etc had agreement with RIM to relax the security so as to monitor activities.

Organisations that are security conscious like the MI5, FBI and CIA deploy BES where data is encrypted end-to-end and unhackable. More reason, you can't see the Obamas of this world with iPhones and Androids that can be jailbroken or rooted to gain admin privileges.

Lol @ your fallacy!

RIM has been dying for about 2 years now. It's only in African countries where the consumer base are ill-informed (about what makes a good tech product) that they've maintained sales.

1. They lost market share in the developed markets waaay back to the iPhone and Android platforms, among others.
2. They short-sightedly restricted their only addictive product BBM to blackberry hardware only (instead of opening it to other phones -- kind of the way itunes cross-platform popularity helped boost Apple's overall growth).
3. They are not an innovation-driven company. No constant excitement from their products, or in the news.
4. Their share value lost about 70%(!!!!) last year. Those are bankruptcy levels. Rumors of selling the company has been around since then, and their CEO confirmed this week they would consider that option.

I never saw any tech benefits to blackberry (except BBM, which wasn't enuff though to pull me from my brand), so I never owned one. My current Nokia E6 knocks 'em dead, and the Nokia/Microsoft Lumia I'm getting next, buries them, (while also meeting my business needs, like running my enterprise Windows Apps on the go...).

(Una "happening" people wey dey pose with BB, carry on ooo.)

Crackberry is a gonna... apart from pinging crackberrry is practically empty n its a toy. I used a nokia e72 n m using samsung galaxy s2. Wackberry cant compit with these fones.

very informative comments here.I'm glad that the BB saga is not for everyone.anytime someone asks why I don't use a BB, I reply that a BB is for the technologically inferior.what's about the sales of their playbook?

Reality Check: RIM is not giving up on the consumer market

by Bla1ze | 30 Mar 2012 07:24
79

If you were to go ahead and look up some of the results from RIM's Q4 2012 financial earnings, you'd instantly be blasted with the news they're exiting the consumer market. Yup, they're done. It's all over now. These dramatic reports are highly inaccurate. The worst part of it all is the fact that the dramatic headlines were spewed across some major news outlets stating it as a fact, some even before the Q4 2012 financial calls were done. Exaggerations of the mind, and irresponsible reporting -- point blank.
The reaction from RIM on the matter was on point, as noted by Patrick Spence, RIM's Managing Director of Global and Regional Marketing via his Twitter account:
"We remain committed to all of our Customers (consumer & enterprise) and are enhancing our support/solutions for enterprise."
RIM can't afford to exit the consumer market at this point, and while Thorsten Heins did state RIM would be revitalizing their enterprise efforts, that in no way signals an exit from theconsumer market. RIM will NOT be changing their game plan in terms of the consumer market though, they will be focusing on what they do great in that area while improving their efforts in enterprise as well.
Instead, think of it as a more targeted consumer effort.
BlackBerry 10 is a platform as a whole, it can be supported by enterprise as well as the consumer market. Apparently, everyone forgot the fact that BYOD fits into both those catergories as well, which was a key point of the RIM earnings call.
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http://crackberry.com/reality-check-rim-not-giving-consumer-market
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@OP mind the title you give your posts.