Unless you’re Google, these look like rough times to launch a mobile operating system. That puts Palm in an awkward position. Things have not been going well for the beleaguered smartphone maker, whose founders arguably kick-started the smartphone revolution 12 years ago. Eighty percent of its sales come from the troubled U.S. market, its Treo phone has given up market share to the BlackBerry and it has lost buzz to the iPhone.
What’s the killer app on a BlackBerry? … Citigroup analyst Jim Suva has a note out today detailing his experience testing the forthcoming Research in Motion (RIMM) BlackBerry–the “Bold.” He says one of his tests involved watching the comedy movie “Talladega Nights” about race car driver Ricky Bobby, which showed off the pretty screen on the device. (It is nice, I’ve seen it.)
Suva has recently made known his belief that the Bold will be an important factor for RIM in the second half of 2008.
Ice-hockey player Jim Balsillie, who’s also the co-chief executive of Research In Motion Ltd., said in a recent media interview that he plays offense on the ice, not defense. “There’s no glory in defense,” Balsillie commented, according to Bloomberg News. The same could be said about Research In Motion’s leadership position in the smart-phone market, where the long-dominant BlackBerry has been under attack by Apple and its popular entry, the iPhone.
In a few weeks, the Apple faithful and other gadget mavens will line up as part of the mad rush to be among the first to buy the new 3G iPhone on July 11. Contrast that with the rest of the wireless business, where once-hot device makers such as Motorola Inc. cannot even give away many of their products.
Along the lines of can’t-really-be-answered-but- gosh-they’re-fun-to-ponder questions like, say, “Who’d win in a fight, Batman or Spider-Man?” or “Star Destroyer vs. U.S.S. Enterprise?” here’s one regarding the iPhone: What historical Mac is a current iPhone most analogous to, spec-wise? I.E., complete this sentence: “An iPhone is like having a tiny ____ in your pocket?”
The invite to the media event next week suggests that Apple has figured out how it wants to tap demand from all those corporate types that wish their employer would support the iPhone as well as other devices such as the BlackBerry. Evidently, since the event is also about the launch of the much-awaited iPhone software developers kit, Apple is banking that third-party software (and possibly the ability to update it–the map image shown on the invite includes a place called “Software Update”) is how it will differentiate the iPhone from the BlackBerry. Makes sense: the iPhone–essentially a Mac in a tiny, keyboard-less package–is more of a general purpose computer than is the BlackBerry. Who knows what new apps corporate programmers will come up with to exploit the iPhone’s many talents?
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