RIM's Mike LazaridisMike Lazaridis, CEO of Research in Motion, gave a keynote speech here at the Mobile World Congress that set him apart from other mobile moguls in the same way big newspaper industry speakers stand out among online media chiefs. He waited to take the podium until the tech people could turn on a rock music blast accompanied by a light show. While every other speaker spoke about the societal benefits of mobile, he gave a 20-minute sales pitch for Blackberry. And just as newspaper execs harp on the beloved credibility of their paper products, Lazaradis focused on how efficiently the Blackberry handles bandwidth -- hardly top-of-mind topics.
RIM and newspapers were both the big dogs in their fields. The Blackberry still hangs on as the most popular smartphone, although hot sales of the iPhone and Android phones could change that. Newspapers still are read by a huge percentage of Americans, but the number dwindles with each new online development. The Blackberry booth here is tell-tale -- cleanly designed, at the front of the telephony hall... and underpopulated. Around the corner is the chaos and popularity of the main Handset Heaven.
The calm Blackberry booth
The noisy competitionThe good news is that RIM is changing and so can newspapers. Today Lazaridis announced the company is giving away its server software and has come up with a new browser that integrates social networking and calendaring into the Blackberry's famous e-mail interface. More to the point, RIM has taken off its gloves and is ready to fight for its crown.
Our love affair with Apple is all well and good, but I think we may want to keep a better eye on Lazaridis and Co. This may be the biggest example of a franchise-defense fight we can find.
Comments
Clyde, thanks for this great
Clyde, thanks for this great coverage.
I think Lazaridis touched on a key point worth considering: bandwidth. Yes, Blackberry is hugely popular and probably will remain so for awhile. But he's right, it does handle bandwidth efficiently.
Increasingly, bandwidth is becoming a key consideration for mobile media, especially in the US. AT&T's iPhone experience shows that carrier networks can buckle under heavy data demands. For instance, I'm an iPhone user in the Bay Area, and AT&T's 3G network is a joke here. When I can get it, it's prone to sudden dropouts and it rarely seems much faster than the Edge network anyway.
Any online media producer or distributor needs to consider low-bandwidth options for content. The kind of stuff that doesn't require a fancy browser or hefty data plan with strong broadband access. The kinds of stuff designed to work on feature phones, or that degrades gracefully to work well on feature phones and is easily available to smartphones on request. Because mobile bandwidth simply isn't dependable. I'm surprised how many smartphone users opt for low-bandwidth options to accommodate poor network access or just to save battery power.
- Amy Gahran
You have an amazing way of
You have an amazing way of sharing ideas. And I definitely like it.
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