serious dud

• Research In Motion, Blackberry-maker, and supposed star of the corporate productivity scene has seriously boggled the launch of its newest smartphone: the Blackberry Storm. The phone saw major supply line issues/backorders and terrible reviews despite a relatively sizable marketing effort by both Verizon and RIM.
• Over a nearly three week period, RIM is the odd man out among the major handset manufacturers as its stock (Nasdaq: RIMM) was the only to experience negative growth.
• What RIM may have lost more than points on its stock price is the respect of the IT community.  Blackberries have been traditionally known for their reliability, simplicity, and funcionality. The Blackberry Storm is none of these and having had the opportunity to test the device over the past few weeks I can affirm that it is indeed, as David Pogue of the NYT and many others have said, a major dud.
• Over the weekend RIM tried its best to spread news of a crucial firmware upgrade of the Storm to the masses.  However, what it accomplished in fixing glitches across a few Blackberry Storm devices it also accomplished in notifying the web of its general failure.
• What Apple lacked in enterprise it more than made up for with multimedia. Just the opposite, RIM has enterprise covered and needed to strengthen it’s multimedia offerings. The major difference between the two?  People dont lose their jobs when User X can’t listen to the latest Kanye LP they downloaded the night before.  Enterprise reliability was the wrong chip to gamble with RIM. Serious business users dont have patience for experimental, clicky typing and complex menu arrangements.
• Lastly, since RIM reduced its revenue predictions for its upcoming Q3 earnings statement analysts have made further reductions of their own.

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