Apple recently “announced a partnership with IBM to extend its reach into the enterprise mobility market through IBM’s MobileFirst for iOS solutions,” Price Point writes for Seeking Alpha. “I think that the enterprise partnership between the two tech titans will have significant impacts on many areas of the market. While the partnership would be a severe setback for some of the companies, such as BlackBerry and Microsoft, for BlackBerry in particular it is a match made in hell.”
“In the partnership, IBM would develop more than 100 iOS industry specific apps in addition to providing IBM cloud services, such as device management, analytics, security and mobile integration, which would be specifically optimized for iOS. The deal will integrate Apple’s cutting edge iPad and iPhone hardware with IBM’s services such as big data, cloud storage and security infrastructure,” Price Point writes. “I think the deal is a win-win for both companies, as Apple would benefit from IBM’s huge sales force and support organization to sell its smartphones and iPads in enterprise, an opportunity that still seems nascent. IBM, on the other hand, would now be able to provide its enterprise customers with a more secure and safer way to access their data and provide business solutions in a more creative way.”
“For BlackBerry, this partnership is anything but a win,” Price Point writes. “The IBM-Apple partnership has vastly negative implications for BlackBerry’s new business plan to grow into an enterprise software vendor supplying Mobile Device Management or Mobile Application Management. Commenting on the partnership, Ross Gerber, CEO of wealth management firm Gerber Kawasaki, said, ‘Apple just took a sword and just stabbed it right in the heart of BlackBerry and said ‘you’re done.””
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Bloodbath.
Dead Company Walking. – MacDailyNews Take, August 5, 2010
It’s kind of one more entrant into an already very busy space with lots of choice for consumers… But in terms of a sort of a sea-change for BlackBerry, I would think that’s overstating it. – RIM Half-CEO Jim Balsillie remarking on Apple’s newly unveiled iPhone, February 2007
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
Not sure which headline I prefer — the original:
Apple Stabs BlackBerry In The Heart
or MDN’s:
Apple pounds final nail in beleaguered BlackBerry’s coffin
How about: “Apple Stabs Blackberry in the Heart, Just Before Pounding the Final Nail Into the Beleaguered Company’s Coffin.” (Too long?)
BlackBerry: stick a fork in their ass, turn ’em over; they’re done!
Apple Drains Juice from Blackberry
Apple makes BlackBerry jam?
Since BlackBerry is already a zombie (Dead Company Walking), we debated using the more accurate headline:
Apple shoots beleaguered BlackBerry in the head
Oh well, maybe next time. 🙂
Now THAT is kewl. Way to go MDN, the human(e) touch, the completion of the cycle.
There’s a long list of people who will want to talk to you about this or that, so welcome to the party.
That didn’t take very long to put BB in the grave. Now to shovel the dirt on them.
I think it is time for a retrospective on iPhone comments by competitor’s CEOs, like Microsoft, Palm, RIM, Nokia.
No matter how much you know, be very careful putting foot in mouth.
If you are not prepared to sprint, you’ll never stay in the game.
These competitors fall into two categories, and it is the first one that we love to quote. These are:
1. Managers of companies that are severely affected by Apple (in a negative way), but are simply oblivious to this, convinced that their product is superior and the upcoming device would prove this;
2. Managers of companies that are severely affected by Apple (in a negative way), who are painfully aware of this and are required (by their fiduciary duty) to tell the world how their product is superior and the upcoming device would prove this.
The difference is rather small, but significant. We love to quote those who were all blustery and full of themselves, who confidently predicted Apple’s imminent demise, totally oblivious of the reality. On the other hand, it is always fun quoting those who clearly saw the writing on the wall, but took pains to soldier on, trying to convince the world (if not themselves) that they are eventually going to come out on top.
And here are some examples:
Ed Colligan (Palm): ““PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.””
Roger McNamee (Elevation Partners, major investor in Palm): “You know the beautiful thing: June 29, 2009, is the two- year anniversary of the first shipment of the iPhone. Not one of those people will still be using an iPhone a month later.”
Jim Ballsilie (co-CEO of RIM/BlackBerry): “”It’s kind of one more entrant into an already very busy space with lots of choice for consumers … But in terms of a sort of a sea-change for BlackBerry, I would think that’s overstating it.”
And our favourite, Steve Ballmer (former CEO of Microsoft): “There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It’s a $500 subsidized item.”
And a bonus Ballmer (a few months later): “$500, fully subsidized, with a plan! That is the most expensive phone in the world and it doesn’t appeal to business customers, because it doesn’t have a keyboard, which makes it not a very good email machine.”
And let us not forget our Thorsten Heins (ex-Blackberry CEO), from as recently as last year:
“In five years I don’t think there’ll be a reason to have a tablet anymore. Maybe a big screen in your workspace, but not a tablet as such. Tablets themselves are not a good business model.”
But the real surprise is that all these guys have gone on to do such wonderful things.
Well, maybe nothing is the best they can (should) do.
at least Blackberry didn’t steal ’s IP, unlike Slungdung.
It is astounding how incompetent the BB executives truly are of ANY company.
The users have all but abandoned RIMM. Most of the Blackberry ex-fanboys in my neighborhood are now crackheads and heavily tattooed. They’re not planning on rejoining the labor market anytime soon.
The POTUS still uses a BlackBerry and I’ll bet he won’t be switching to an iPhone any time soon.
So? He may be POTUS, but he’s just one person.
Because of the extraordinary long procedure required to certify devices for use by the office of the POTUS, it may be long time until iPhone is properly certified for use by him, so unless BlackBerry just suddenly goes out of business (not an entirely unlikely scenario), the American President(s) will likely keep poking at those tiny buttons for years to come.
Apple didn’t kill BlackBerry, they committed suicide. They were the big fish in a small pond and made all the wrong moves when Apple unleashed the flood. Their reactions to Apple and later Android were a comedy of errors and they have only themselves to blame.
Their reaction to sudden mass competition will become a textbook case in how not to react. Apple didn’t kill them, their own arrogance and complacency did.
BlackBerry’s latest claim to fame is a phone with a square screen. I’m actually embarrassed for them.
If Blackberry and Microsoft didn’t have such dead-beat leaders for so long, they may have earned a bit of respect from me. But both companies suffered from arrogance and short-sightedness.
We all know BlackBerry suffered from brain damage at the management level, but I’m having a tough time wrapping my mind around Microsoft’s decisions and can’t even believe Ballmer was that stupid.
Microsoft has had an “interesting” mobile strategy. Mutually incompatible phone and tablet operating systems, a flat laptop that looks strikingly like the tablet it’s not compatible with, give all its operating systems the same UI (thereby giving its bread and butter operating system a multiple personality disorder). Microsoft then gives these three mutually incompatible operating systems the same name. Windows.
WTF?!
What were they drinking or smoking to be high enough to think that this was a good idea? I would have thought that such a high level of pollutants in their blood would have killed them first.
IBM should buy GOOD
IT’s mostly used by iOS rather than Android or Windows Phone users to access corporate Exchange servers — the non iOS OSes are not really used much in corporates.
Everyone keeps talking about phones, what about tablets. RIM has said that they would not make tables after the disaster of their first one. MS not making one with phone and GPS capabilities shows just how clueless they are. There are a lot of “out in the field” jobs that could use a tablet. IBM can sell the software and services they need, something no one else is doing now. Then start selling the phones to their customers. So far tablets have been sold to early adapters. When people start to see the “real work” tablets can do then they will take off. This is about iPad not iPhone.