GigaOM » Tech

Yo, RIM: Where’s your sense of urgency?

Ryan Kim — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 14:44:04 +0000

Research In Motion’s new CEO, Thorsten Heins, held his first conference call on Monday morning, reiterating his view that the company is not in need of a major shakeup but instead some improvement in processes, marketing and consumer focus.

Heins said he was open to licensing the BlackBerry 10 platform set to appear at the end of this year but is focused now on strengthening RIM’s integrated smartphone model.

“I don’t think there is some drastic change needed. We are evolving, we are evolving our tactics . . . this is not a seismic change, this is scaling the company further,” Heins said.

He said the company needs to focus on being more marketing driven as well as communicating to customers, especially consumers. Heins also mentioned he is looking to fill the open chief marketing officer position as soon as possible and wants someone who can listen as well as communicate and take RIM’s marketing up a notch.

Heins said RIM also needs to execute better on innovation. He thinks there needs to be a more orderly process of achieving innovation and then building a product, so the innovation discoveries can be applied to prototypes, not products in the midst of development. Heins, who was most recently the chief operating officer for Product and Sales, said he was not held back previously as COO.

One thing Heins is not interested in doing is separating RIM’s businesses. He said the company’s strength is in its integrated approach to hardware, software and ecosystem, drawing a comparison to Apple. He touted QNX, the basis of both the PlayBook operating system and the BlackBerry 10 smartphone platform, saying it could be applied to other markets beyond tablets and smartphones. He also touted QNX’s ability to handle true multitasking and said it will be able to run Android apps, which should address questions about the number of apps available on BlackBerry devices.

Heins also added that he was interested in building up a culture to empower employees to take appropriate decisions, take risks and be accountable for their decisions.

Again, this isn’t much different than the comments put out on Sunday night by Heins. But it again shows what RIM’s priorities are. The company doesn’t see a big problem on its hands, just something that a little more efficiency, innovation and marketing will solve. I hope that attitude is Heins’ way of being more deferential to former CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, because it seems like the company needs more than that to really compete.

There doesn’t seem to be a real sense of urgency on the part of Heins, and that could be a problem. RIM is falling behind, and it needs to transform itself quickly. If you have any doubt, just look at Nokia over the past few years: It may have had the right strategy, but it took far too long to execute it.

Heins seems to believe that RIM is going to be fine because it has an integrated approach, just like that “other fruit company.” But there’s a lot of distance between Apple and BlackBerry, and I don’t think marketing is the key differentiator here. RIM needs to put out some stellar devices with great software and apps. If you do that, the marketing comes more easily. Right now, RIM doesn’t have much of a story to tell, and a new CMO won’t change things. RIM needs to find something that it can do better than others. It can’t just reach parity with iOS and Android and hope it can compete again.

That’s why I’m worried about Heins. He doesn’t seem prepared to really light a fire under RIM. And with Lazaridis and Balsillie hovering over him, I wonder if he can break free of their legacy quickly enough and forcefully enough to matter. We will see. We just have words from RIM here. The real test is what products we see and how quickly they come to market.

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Polar Mobile bets on HTML5 with new $6M funding round

Darrell Etherington — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 14:36:58 +0000

Toronto-based Polar Mobile, which provides a digital media distribution platform powering the apps of some of the biggest media properties in the world, including Conde Nast, Sports Illustrated and The Wall Street Journal, announced a new $6 million funding round on Monday. The funding will be used to help Polar launch its MediaEverywhere product, an HTML5-based solution aimed at delivering content to an even wider range of devices.

Polar Mobile already covers a wide range of mobile devices. Its SMART platform provides turnkey solutions for launching native apps on iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry OS, PlayBook, Windows Phone and Nokia devices. It’s definitely a leader in terms of white-label native-app solution providers, but the new funding, led by Toronto-based Georgian Partners, will help it extend its reach further still.

Polar Mobile CEO Kunal Gupta told me the planned HTML5 integration of MediaEverywhere will help Polar Mobile’s clients access not only mobile platforms like those listed above, but also the new wave of connected devices, including gaming consoles, cars, TVs and household appliances, as well as social networks like Facebook. At the same time, it will also offer media companies more opportunities to “leverage audience intelligence (data and analytics) to enable higher engagement and monetization,” Gupta said. He thinks this will help companies improve delivery of personalized recommendations, leading to more profitable business models.

The beauty of MediaEverywhere is that it doesn’t force content providers to choose between apps and web-based offerings; it can work with both app- and browser-based media delivery, depending on what solutions Polar’s media company customers choose to target. When it comes to the debate about whether native apps trump cross-platform mobile websites or vice versa, Gupta isn’t taking sides. He says while “apps include richer advertising experiences, distribution channels and homescreen icon presence,” browser-based distribution offers “discovery and referrals from social networks and search engines, which for many media companies now accounts for over half of their incoming web traffic.”

Polar Mobile’s success is based on the recognition that users want their media accessible anywhere, on any device they happen to be using. The launch of MediaEverywhere will help the company extend the reach of its clients’ products further still, in a connected future where people will seek out the things they love on whatever happens to be in reach, via both the web and native apps.

In addition to launching MediaEverywhere, Polar Mobile also plans to use some of the funding to fuel its international expansion. The company expects to double in size from 40 to 80 people in 2012, and open new offices in New York City and London.

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RIM brings in new CEO but will it be enough?

Ryan Kim — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 06:14:05 +0000

Research in Motion, scrambling to keep up in a smartphone market it once led, has announced it has replaced co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie with Thorsten Heins, the current chief operating officer. Laziridis, who founded the company in 1984, will serve as vice chairman of the board of directors, while Balsillie, who joined in 1992, will stay on as a director. Both also served as co-chairmen but they will be replaced by director Barbara Stymiest, a board member since 2007, who will now serve as the independent Board Chair.

The shuffle at the top was framed as an orderly passing of the baton and not a reaction to shareholder unrest, which has picked up as RIM’s stock has fallen by three quarters of its value in 2011 and its marketshare in smartphones has dropped dramatically. Lazaridis said that with the launch of BlackBerry 7 smartphones and the BlackBerry PlayBook last year, along with the upcoming launch of new BlackBerry 10 phones based on the QNX operating system, the time is right to hand the reins over.

Heins, a former CTO at Siemens Communications Group, came to RIM in 2007 and served as Senior Vice President for Hardware Engineering, before becoming Chief Operating Officer for Product and Sales in August 2011. Lazaridis said Heins has the right mix of experience, operational skills and leadership to guide RIM through the company’s next chapter.

Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis

Heins acknowledged some growing pains and challenges for RIM, but said the company was on sound footing, as it looks ahead to BlackBerry 10 devices, which are set to launch at the end of the year and PlayBook 2.0, the next update in its tablet software set to appear next month.

“RIM earned its reputation by focusing relentlessly on the customer and delivering unique mobile communications solutions. We intend to build on this heritage to expand BlackBerry’s leadership position,” he said in a statement. “Going forward, we will continue to focus both on short-term and long-term growth, strategic planning, a customer- and market-based product approach, and flawless execution.”

Heins said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that he is open to licensing the BlackBerry 10 software if it proves successful but isn’t looking to change the fundamental strategy Balsillie and Lazaridis have set in motion. Heins will also look to fill the chief marketing officer position that remains vacant.

“It’s going to be continuity, but it’s not going to be a standstill,” Heins he told the journal of RIM’s strategy.

Thorsten Heins

With RIM’s value plummeting, there’s been increasing talk of possibly selling the company or perhaps licensing its technology to other technology players. The latest rumor involved RIM trying to sell to Samsung, which promptly denied any interest.

The company is being left behind in the smartphone race by Google and Apple and is in danger of being passed by a resurgent Microsoft, which is looking to use its partnership with Nokia to turn its Windows Phone platform into a viable third player in the market. In the latest Nielsen figures in the U.S., RIM’s overall marketshare had slipped to 14.9 percent, and among recent acquirers in the last three months, it had just 6 percent of sales, with marketshare dipping month over month. That’s the challenge that RIM faces. It’s trying to compete against the leaders in the smartphone market, all of which have turned toward touch-based, media-centric app devices — features that are hardly RIM’s strengths. There may be hope in BlackBerry 10 but it’s woefully late and its delayed launch continues to raise doubts about RIM’s ability to execute on time.

Heins may just be acting polite to Lazaridis and Balsillie in glossing over the “growing pains” the company has experienced in the last couple years. But he will have to do better than just talking about staying the course, executing better and being consumer focused. With each passing month, the company falls more into irrelevancy and there needs to be an acknowledgement that the company can’t just beef things up a little and hope to compete. There needs to be a radical improvement in execution, some very mind-blowing ideas introduced and some real progress shown on the app developer front. Putting out a me-too platform and a set of devices later this year won’t cut it. RIM may be able to hold on in emerging markets, where it’s increasingly getting more of its sales. But if the same pattern continues, it will lose out to low cost Androids there too.

I think RIM has done the right thing in shaking things up at the top. Lazaridis and Balsillie have lost the confidence of shareholders and perhaps even some of the workers too. RIM, however, doesn’t seem to want to acknowledge that anything’s wrong. And that may be just about remaining deferent Lazaridis and Balsillie, who made RIM into a powerhouse. But unless Heins makes some real move to change what’s been going on, including the culture inside RIM, there’s not much hope the company can turn things around.

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It’s no fluke – iPhone closes the gap on Android in U.S.

Ryan Kim — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 12:00:25 +0000

IOS’ year end surge has helped close the gap on Android in the U.S., with December sales hitting 44.5 percent of all smartphones, just behind Android at 46.9 percent, according to new data from Nielsen. The numbers bolster a similar report from NPD, which announced last week that the iPhone had pulled within four percentage points of Android in October and November.

Among all smartphone users, Android still reigns supreme, with 46.3 percent of the market, compared to 30 percent for iOS. Among recent acquirers over the last three months, Android commands an even bigger share with 51.7 percent of the market, compared to 37 percent for iOS. But iOS took a big leap in the final quarter of 2011, with its share moving from 25.1 percent in October to 44.5 percent by December, eating into Android’s, which fell from 61.6 percent to 46.9 percent over the same period.

As any iOS fan will tell, Apple is more concerned with profits over marketshare. But the new data shows that Apple’s mobile operating system has made up some serious ground on Android in the smartphone market, particularly in December. Spurred on by the big release of the iPhone 4S on the three biggest carriers in the U.S., Apple showed it’s capable of competing even more closely with Android when it has wider distribution.

Android will likely regain some momentum in the U.S. as the iPhone line-up ages and more Android 4.0 devices hit the market. Demand for Android device might have slowed in anticipation of the next generation Ice Cream Sandwich devices, the first of which, the Galaxy Nexus on Verizon, didn’t appear until mid-December. We’ll have to see if this is just a temporary surge.

But this again confirms that for now, the smartphone race is still very much a two-horse competition. Research in Motion continues to give up more ground and only has 14.9 percent of the entire smartphone market, with just 6 percent of purchases within the last three months. That has to be concerning for RIM, which put out a new line-up of BlackBerry 7 devices in the fall. It has to hope those phones can keep sales moving until new BlackBerry 10 devices arrive in the second half of this year.

Overall, smartphone penetration hit 46 percent in the fourth quarter with 60 percent of recent acquirers buying smartphones. It won’t be long before more than half of all phones in the U.S. are smartphones.

Going back to the iOS vs. Android data, it’s still pretty amazing that Apple is competing so well with a limited line-up of devices against an army of Android devices. Now that Apple is cranking on Verizon and has Sprint in the fold, it’s available to the vast majority of consumers. Getting a T-Mobile iPhone, which is actually harder than it sounds, could level the playing field even more, though the effect would be more modest.

Apple is obviously selling a lot of iPhone 4Ses, but Nielsen said that those devices consisted of 57 percent of purchases by new iPhone users. So 43 percent of sales are going to older devices, which is still really impressive. People are willing to buy a phone a year or two old at a discount rather than a new device from a competitor. As NPD pointed out, the iPhone 4S, 4 and 3GS were the top-selling devices in October and November, beating out the Galaxy S II and other Android devices. This is another good sign for Apple as it prepares to report quarterly earnings next week. This battle is far from over, but as the numbers show, Apple may not just have to chase profits. It can take a bigger share of the smartphone market when it puts all the pieces together.

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RIM hopes content sharing can be NFC’s gateway drug

Ryan Kim — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 22:11:02 +0000

Near field communication (NFC), the short-distance wireless technology, is poised to have a break out year, with the technology built into more and more handsets in 2012. But despite all the hype around NFC mobile payments, it’s not going to be easy convincing consumers about the benefits of paying with a tap of their phone. What consumers need to understand and embrace NFC is a gateway drug, said Andrew Bocking, Vice President, Handheld Software Product Management at RIM.

I spoke with Bocking about RIM’s vision for NFC and he said that the company isn’t betting big on payments right away, though it has pledged support for the Isis payment system from Verizon, AT&Tand T-Mobile. The first step, said Bocking, is introducing NFC to consumers and getting them familiar with the process of waving a phone to initiate an action. Only then can consumers really embrace the more complex act of paying with their NFC-enabled phone.

“At a consumer level it’s about what will this do for me; it’s less about NFC and what capabilities it offers,” said Bocking. “A lot of people are interested in mobile commerce, but they’re not necessarily thinking of NFC, they’re thinking about what they can do with Visa and MasterCard and American Express.”

That’s where BlackBerry Tag comes in. RIM announced this week that with BlackBerry 7.1, it has now enabled content sharing between NFC-enabled BlackBerry Curves and Bolds using a new BlackBerry Tag application. Users can tap their phones together and share contacts, pictures, URLs and documents. They can also become BBM messaging buddies by tapping their phones together or pair their smartphone with an NFC-enabled Bluetooth device.

Bocking said the content-sharing function is useful because it can be enabled through just two phones, without having to wait for merchants to install NFC hardware. And it showcases some of the seamless magic involved in NFC, helping people get their head around the technology.

Tag “could be a great gateway drug or onramp to get people comfortable with the technology and open them up to more complex multi-party ecosystems and trust-required offerings like mobile commerce,” he said.

RIM has made a big bet on NFC, with more than half of its latest BlackBerry 7 devices equipped with NFC. Bocking said more of the company’s portfolio will feature the technology though he didn’t provide a time table for deployment. The company has also begun trials with HID to use NFC-equipped phones for physical access to buildings and rooms. And it will be supporting Isis as it begins its rollout later this year in Salt Lake City and Austin.

Even with use cases like Tag or Android Beam, Google’s equivalent for content sharing between NFC phones, it’s still going to be limited by the lack of interoperability between NFC sharing platforms. Bocking admits that’s a hindrance but he has hopes that Tag, Beam and Nokia’s NFC content-sharing system can ultimately work together if they stick to standards set out by the NFC Forum.

But he believes that 2012 will still be a pivotal year for NFC now that a lot of the heavy lifting has been done. Now it’s time to show off the technology, he said.

“What you’ll see in 2012 will be what many hoped 2011 would be,” Bocking said. “2012 will be transitional year, but one in which people will see the promise of NFC first hand. It’s going to be an exciting year for us.”

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Will demoting RIM’s CEOs save the handset maker?

Ryan Kim — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 17:19:46 +0000

Research In Motion is one of those rare companies with not only co-CEOs but co-chairmen, and all four roles are held by the same two executives. But after the year the company had, it appears Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie may be losing their chairmen titles, according to a report in the Financial Post.

The Post said the board, which has been reviewing a potential separation in the roles of CEO and chairman, is about to unveil a plan that would strip Lazaridis and Balsillie of their chairmen titles and replace them with a single independent chair. The new chairperson would be director Barbara Stymiest, former head of TMX Group Inc. and former chief operating officer at Royal Bank of Canada, who joined RIM’s board in 2007. The upcoming report is due by Jan. 31, with Lazaridis and Balsillie provided 30 days to respond.

The move wouldn’t be a complete shock, considering the year RIM had. After pinning high hopes on the BlackBerry PlayBook, sales have been sluggish, thanks in part to delayed software upgrades, which aren’t due until February. The company has also been slashing forecasts, with fourth-quarter estimates for smartphone unit sales expected to come in below the third quarter. And the long-awaited move to the QNX-based operating system for RIM’s smartphones has been pushed back until the second half of 2012, the latest in a line of delays for the company. Also, RIM’s smartphone marketshare in the U.S. and internationally continues to fall.

The question is whether removing Lazaridis and Balsillie from the board will be enough to turn things around and also instill some investor confidence. If this is just a way to appear sensitive to angry shareholders without a real change in the way RIM operates, it may not do much for RIM’s stock price over the long run. (The stock is up almost 9 percent today.) But more importantly, it doesn’t address concerns that RIM is responsive enough at the top and capable of executing quickly and effectively in the way that RIM needs.

RIM’s co-CEOs made a show of cutting their salary on the latest quarterly call to $1, but it didn’t impress many analysts. More damning were the delays to QNX-based smartphones and the belief that a stepped-up marketing campaign would help pull RIM out of its doldrums.

To be fair, an independent chair could help be an important check on Lazaridis and Balsillie and show the company is prepared to make big changes when necessary. But the proof will be in the pudding. Getting rid of Lazaridis and Balsillie’s chairman titles will buy the duo some time, but they’re still looking at a long 2012 with RIM’s next generation of smartphones potentially not hitting until the next holiday season. It’s hard to see how PlayBook sales will start flowing again without huge discounts, which is something RIM is now undertaking. But more importantly, it’s going to be tough to hold the line on smartphone sales in the coming quarters when consumers are being told something better is on its way later this year. RIM has a chance to keep expanding sales overseas, which is taking up a bigger and bigger portion of its business, but even that success will come under threat as cheaper Android devices proliferate.

RIM’s co-CEOs have to hope that 2012 can ultimately end on a positive note. But the way things are going, I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t get that far.

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By the numbers: Mobile apps in 2011

Erica Ogg — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 13:00:03 +0000

It wasn’t just here in the U.S. and it wasn’t just iPhone users; the app obsession has gone global and is now bigger than ever. We’ve already taken a look back at the big themes of app development in 2011. But here’s a look at some of the most interesting statistics involving the abundance of mobile apps we devoured this year:

We love our apps. By the end of this year, we hit almost 30 billion cumulative app downloads worldwide from the major mobile platforms. As of December, Apple passed the 18 billion mark and Android hit 10 billion. RIM passed 1 billion earlier this year.
iPhone and iPad users like free apps and like to spend money in them. The largest chunk of all revenue derived from iOS apps – just under half – comes from free apps that you make purchases from.
Android users are all about fun and game. Nine of the top 10 highest-grossing Android apps are games. (The only non-game is DocumentstoGo).
BlackBerry owners, on the other hand, need to loosen up a little. Not one of the top five most popular free or top five paid app downloads from BlackBerry AppWorld is a game, which is a significant outlier from the other top mobile platforms.
We saw the biggest one-day app download total ever this year. On Christmas Day, naturally, as people were presumably unwrapping their new phones and tablets, there were 242 million iOS and Android downloads.
Angry Birds were still everywhere on app stores, but this was the year of the photo app. Both of the apps named by Apple as the best App Store offerings of the year for iPhone and iPad respectively were photo-related: Instagram (which has Apple to thank for much of its success) and Snapseed.
We’re comfortable buying apps from third parties. Curated, third-party app stores made their presence felt this year: Amazon opened its limited Appstore of Android apps for its Kindle products, and GetJar had more than 350,000 apps available for all major platforms, saw more than 2 billion downloads total — and it grabbed some impressive exclusives.
You can have a ton of cool apps from big brands and still not dent consumers’ consciousness. Microsoft managed to get 10,000 Windows Phone 7 apps added to its store in the space of 40 days to bring the total to over 50,000. That’s pretty good momentum, and while those added include major brand names in apps, WP7 still has a long way to grab smartphone buyers’ attention.

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Top apps list shows Android users like games, BlackBerry lacks fun

Ryan Kim — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 15:57:43 +0000

We have seen some of the top download lists for mobile apps, but which apps were the best rated and most buzzed about in 2011? That’s a question that app-rating analytics firm Mobilewalla tackled, coming up with a list of the top five paid and free apps on four of the biggest mobile platforms.

Some of the results reflect overall popularity measured in downloads, but in other cases, there are apps that did quite well that may not be as familiar as Angry Birds. More interesting, I think, is the way the lists draw out distinctions between the different platforms and what that might mean, especially in the hunt for a third competitor after iOS and Android.

To be sure, this is a very small slice of the top apps, and larger trends would emerge if we looked at a bigger list of apps. Mobilewalla said it looked at store rankings, ratings, reviews, buzz on social networks and mentions on influential app blogs. Take a look at the lists based on the top Mobilewalla scores, and we will follow up with more commentary.

Android: top paid with score and release date

MADDEN NFL 12 (0.936) 09-01
Dragon, Fly! Full (0.929) 09-28
Earth And Legend (0.923) 09-28
Great Little War Game (0.9218) 10-04
SHADOWGUN (0.918) 10-28

Android: top free

Pixlr-o-matic (0.975) 09-28
Super Stickman Golf (0.975) 09-28
Smurfs’ Village (0.970) 09-30
Crime Story (0.964) 09-28
Marvel Comics (0.963) 10-14

IOS: top paid

Angry Birds Rio (0.939) 03-22
Tiny Wings (0.928) 02-19
Craigslist + Notifications. CraigsPro+ Craigslist + Photo Wall + Photo previews (0.917) 02-10
Where’s My Water? (0.910) 09-22
Lock My Photos — Password lock photos & picture data for peace of mind! (0.897) 05-21

IOS: top free

MLB.com At Bat Lite (0.960) 02-25
My Horse (0.952) 09-20
Family Feud & Friends (0.935) 10-19
Funny Videos & Pics by Break.com (0.927) 02-18
MetalStorm: Wingman (0.923) 05-12

BlackBerry: top paid

Sea Storm Animated Theme 2.0 (0.947) 07-06
Love Is Love — Great Offer of Valentine’s Day (0.919) 07-06
Playboy’s Animated Luck O’ The Irish (0.904) 07-06
Underwater HD Animated Theme (0.901) 07-06
Juicy Girl Theme — On Sale! (0.895) 07-06

BlackBerry: top free

Memory Booster Pro (0.951) 04-26
BlackBerry Protect (0.951) 03-08
Memory Booster (0.949) 02-13
AppsLock — Password Protect Applications (Full Version) (0.947) 07-31
Slider Lock Free — slide to unlock your phone (0.945) 10-27

Windows Phone 7: top paid

Phone 8 (0.923)05-17
Weather Live (0.917) 07-07
Fuse (0.890) 2011-08-29
IFun (0.890) 03-23
SuperTube (0.884) 03-20

Windows Phone 7: top free

TuneIn Radio (0.967) 02-23
Penguin (0.960) 06-24
Dictionary.com — Dictionary and Thesaurus (0.957) 06-27
GMaps (0.957) 04-22
PhotoFunia (0.957) 06-27

There are a couple of interesting things to point out on this list. Despite what Xyologic recently reported on Android users’ favoring nongaming apps, seven of the top Android apps between paid and free were games. That suggests that when Android users find games they like, they take note. IOS is evenly split between games and nongames in the top five. That shows that Android users do like their games, even if their platform doesn’t have the same reputation for gaming that iOS has.

But Anindya Datta, the founder and executive chairman of Mobilewalla, said the Android findings might reflect the fact that Google’s operating system is pushing into a lot of developing countries, where games are more accessible than more-sophisticated apps. But he said Android users are still focusing on a narrower band of apps at the top, something we wrote about earlier, while iOS users tend to discover a wider range of apps. He said the year-end data confirms this, which is still a challenge for Android developers.

Another interesting finding was that the BlackBerry paid app list was dominated by wallpaper apps while the free app list had more utilities. Datta said that one of the challenges for RIM is that BlackBerry users don’t turn to their phones for fun and passing time. That might not surprise anyone, considering BlackBerry’s enterprise roots, but it could be an issue if RIM wants to challenge iOS and Android as a third platform, ahead of Windows Phone 7. Increasingly, the battle includes apps, and it is important to have a good, large and diverse library of apps. If BlackBerry wants to compete broadly, it needs to show it can be a place where people can enjoy all manner of apps, especially the popular ones like games and entertainment that bring fun to people’s lives.

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It’s a 1 million mobile app world

Ryan Kim — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 16:59:08 +0000

We had mobile apps before the iPhone, but the modern mobile app market really began with the App Store in 2008. Three years later, we’re swimming in apps and poised to hit a big milestone: 1 million apps available to users.

Mobilewalla, a mobile analytics firm, said iOS, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7 have collectively hit 991,524 apps available in their stores, with the big milestone set to be reached sometime next week. This is not a complete list, and leaves out Symbian apps and older Windows Mobile and Palm software. But it’s still a reminder of just how big this modern market is and how much it’s grown in just a few years. Developers have already built more than 1 million apps on iOS and Android alone, but a good chunk of apps have been pulled over time.

Apple continues to lead the pack with 59.6 percent of the market, with 591,428 apps and Android follows with 321,020 apps or 32.3 percent of the market, according to Mobilewalla. BlackBerry has 43,544 apps, good for 4.4 percent of the total, while Windows Phone 7 had 35,248 apps or 3.5 percent. Apple’s developers are adding about 1,000 new apps a day while Android developers are uploading about 1,400 a day, said Mobilewalla’s founder and executive chairman Anindya Datta.

He said the market for apps has doubled this year, which started out with 484,000 apps. There are 150,000 app developers and companies responsible for the apps on the market now, according to Datta. The top app categories across all platforms are Entertainment (16.68%), Games (13.36%), Lifestyle (8.02%) and Utilities (7.13%).

Again, we had an app market before the iPhone. But it reached more of a niche audience, nothing like the mainstream phenomenon we’re seeing now. Companies are now making huge money in mobile apps including Rovio, which reportedly turned down a $2.25 billion acquisition offer from Zynga. Gartner has said it expects mobile apps to bring in $15 billion in revenue this year, while Juniper Research believes app revenues can hit $32 billion by 2015. It’s a mobile app world and we just live in it.

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RIM takes $485M charge on PlayBooks, lowers guidance

Ryan Kim — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 14:29:55 +0000

The hits keep on coming for Research In Motion, which announced on Friday that it was writing down the value of its BlackBerry PlayBooks, taking a mostly noncash charge of $485 million or $360 million after taxes, due to lower-than-expected sales of its tablet. The company also lowered its guidance for the most recent quarter and outlook for the year and said it doesn’t expect to meet its full-year earnings forecast.

The news is another reminder of just how much RIM is struggling as it tries to introduce a competitive tablet offering and keep up in a smartphone market dominated by Android and iOS. The PlayBook continues to be a tough product to move, due in part, said RIM, to the competitive landscape and the delayed release of PlayBook OS 2.0, which has been pushed back until February. RIM is now resorting to deep discounts and promotions, which it hopes will start juicing sales. So far in its third quarter, which ended Nov. 26, RIM said it sold into channel 150,000 PlayBook units, below the 200,000 in the previous quarter. But recent promotional activity has pushed sales higher than that number, stoking increased demand, which means it’s moving some of the existing inventory retailers bought in previous quarters.

Those paltry numbers still pale in comparison to iPad sales or even what the new Amazon Kindle is expected to do this holiday season. Since it debuted with sales of 500,000 units in its first quarter, the PlayBook has failed to catch on in the market without significant deep discounting. That’s now how RIM hopes to accelerate sales: by writing off the value of the PlayBooks and sticking with these big promotions like its limited-time $199 price. Said Mike Lazaridis, the co-CEO at Research In Motion:

RIM is committed to the BlackBerry PlayBook and believes the tablet market is still in its infancy. Although a number of factors have led to the need for an inventory provision in the third quarter, we believe the PlayBook, which will be further enhanced with the upcoming PlayBook OS 2.0 software, is a compelling tablet for consumers that also offers unique security and manageability features for the enterprise. Early results from recent PlayBook promotions indicate a significant increase in demand across most channels. We look forward to continuing to grow the installed base of PlayBook users and to attracting more and more developers to expand the volume of applications, content and services that leverage the power of the industry leading QNX-based platform.

RIM also updated its third-quarter guidance and said it shipped 14.1 million smartphones, within its previous guidance. But it said it will come in below its previous revenue guidance of $5.3–5.6 billion in the third quarter. It said in addition to the PlayBook charge, it will also take a charge of $50 million related to the multiday service outage it experienced in October.

Excluding those factors, it expects diluted earnings to come in at the mid to low end of its previously guided $1.20 to $1.40 per share range. More troubling, RIM said it expects fourth-quarter unit sales to come in below the third quarter, due to current sales trends and RIM’s outlook on fourth-quarter demand. The company said it does not expect to meet its full-year adjusted diluted earnings per share guidance of $5.25–$6.00.

As I’ve written before, RIM is struggling to transition to products based on its QNX operating system. The PlayBook got off to a rough start, shipping without basic software like native email support, and the needed upgrades have been delayed until February. It now faces a market that is migrating to either the iPad on the high end or the new Amazon Kindle Fire on the low end.

On the smartphone front, RIM is facing an onslaught of Android devices and an iPhone 4S that is available now on three carriers. New BBX-based phones are rumored to be shipping in the third quarter of 2102, and the wait for that new platform makes it hard for consumers to latch on to the latest BlackBerry 7-based devices. The coming quarters are going to be even more grim and will put more pressure on the stock, which is down more than 7 percent today in premarket trading and is off 68 percent this year before Friday. For RIM, it appears it will have to look ahead to Christmas 2012 to really cheer itself up at this point. This year has been a lost cause.

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RIM offers device management for iOS and Android

Ryan Kim — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 14:13:11 +0000

If you can’t beat iOS and Android devices in the market, you might as well secure them. That seems to be the stance of Research In Motion, which is launching a device-management and security service for IT departments called BlackBerry Mobile Fusion that builds off its BlackBerry Enterprise Servers.

The move is a big step for RIM, bringing its strengths in corporate security to rival platforms through one product that can serve BlackBerry devices as well as smartphones and tablets running on operating systems from Apple and Google. It’s an important bid to remain relevant in a bring-your-own-device world in which many employees are coming to their IT departments with devices that are not BlackBerrys.

This allows RIM to still utilize its BlackBerry Enterprise Servers to help IT managers oversee their diverse fleet of devices. But it also seems to be a recognition that RIM, which used to have a lock on enterprise mobility, can’t assume that its devices dominate in business anymore. BlackBerry Fusion probably won’t help RIM sell more BlackBerry devices, but it may keep RIM and its servers relevant inside IT departments. RIM said more than 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies deploy BlackBerry devices today.

BlackBerry Mobile Fusion, which will become available in the first quarter of 2012 for an undisclosed price, will allow IT leaders to manage their device fleet from one web console. It will augment the core security features of each platform and will offer a number of features already available to BlackBerry devices. From the press release, features include:

Asset management

Configuration management

Security and policy definition and management

Secure and protect lost or stolen devices (remote lock, wipe)

User- and group-based administration

Multiple device per user capable

Application and software management

Connectivity management (Wi-Fi, VPN, certificate)

High scalability

RIM said it will also introduce a new self-service functionality for employees to secure lost or stolen BlackBerry smartphones and tablets. The company is now accepting customers into a closed beta program starting in January, with general availability to follow in March.

This pits RIM against other device-management providers such as Good Technology, which has also enjoyed a lift from bring-your-own-device policies. And it builds off the May acquisition of Ubitexx, which at the time RIM said would pave the way for a multiplatform enterprise solution.

RIM is obviously still going to compete hard to sell smartphones and tablets. And it may see a turnaround if it can start cranking out new smartphones on its new BBX platform, which will replace BlackBerry 7. The move to open up and manage other devices is a logical one at this point for RIM, which can trade on its reputation for mobility security. But it seems like RIM would not be as eager to try this move if it was seeing the same kind of dominance it used to have in the enterprise. If RIM can’t get its device sales going, this might be the consolation prize for the company: becoming a device manager, not a device seller for IT departments.

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Android accounts for more than half of smartphone sales

Ryan Kim — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 15:18:45 +0000

One in every two smartphones sold in the world is an Android device, according to Gartner, which said that Google’s mobile platform has surged to a 52.5 percent market share worldwide in the third quarter. Android’s blistering growth, which doubled from 25.3 percent a year ago and is up from 43.4 percent in the second quarter, is coming at the cost of almost every other smartphone platform, including iOS.

Overall, the smartphone market grew 42 percent year over year to 115 million smartphones sold in the third quarter. But with Android outpacing the market, other competitors are having a hard time keeping up. IOS grew by almost 4 million unit sales in the third quarter to 17.3 million iPhones, but its share of the market slipped to 15 percent, down from 16.6 percent a year ago and 18.2 percent in the second quarter, when it sold 19.6 million units. Apple lost some momentum with the later-than-usual fall introduction of the iPhone 4S, but it should rebound in the coming quarter now that the 4S is out with expanded distribution. Samsung’s Bada was actually up to a 2.2 percent market share, up from 1.1 percent a year ago, putting it ahead of Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7.

The rest of the market fared far worse. Symbian continued an ungraceful decline with its market share plummeting to 16.9 percent from 36.3 percent a year ago, with unit sales dropping by about 10 million devices. The platform was expected to suffer with Nokia’s move to Windows Phone 7, but the quick abandonment of Symbian by consumers is still pretty stunning and raises questions about how many Nokia smartphone users will be around when the company starts really cranking out WP7 devices.

Research In Motion’s BlackBerry OS was also down, with its market share slipping to 11 percent, down from 15.4 percent a year ago. Unit sales were basically flat over the past year, meaning that while the smartphone market has been on fire, RIM is just treading water. With more BlackBerry 7 devices coming out now, RIM might see some better performance. But with the transition to BBX phones next year no big secret, customers may well hold off to get their hands on the next operating system.

Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 has its work cut out for it. Microsoft sold just 1.7 million devices in the third quarter, representing a 1.5 percent share of the market, according to Gartner, down from 2.2 million units a year ago. Now with the Mango update available and Nokia starting to release Windows Phone 7 devices, we should see some lift for Windows Phone 7. But at this point, Microsoft has a lot of catching up to do.

Gartner said Samsung was the top smartphone maker, with 24 million units sold to end users, thanks to strong sales of Galaxy S devices. There have been some questions about how many smartphones Samsung has actually sold, because the company didn’t report those numbers.

The smartphone market continues to look like a two-platform race, with Android setting a torrid pace with its vast collection of devices and iOS the only challenger that can hold its own. This quarter should see a lot more iOS sales, but the big test will be next year for rivals like Microsoft and RIM. They need to turn things around and start to see some real progress with their new operating systems. Android and iOS are not waiting, and the market is now turning away from early adopters and tech-savvy consumers to more basic, price-conscious mobile users.

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RIM gets desperate to move BlackBerry Playbooks

Ryan Kim — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 15:03:26 +0000

Research In Motion has a bit of a problem on its hands. It’s got a bunch of PlayBook tablets sitting on shelves and little reason for people to buy them, especially now that some needed software improvements won’t come until next year. So stoking demand for the unloved tablet is getting harder, which explains why RIM is introducing a new “buy two, get one free” offer on PlayBooks through the rest of the year.

RIM is also throwing in an additional bonus for buyers, allowing them to get a free premium accessory for each tablet such as a leather sleeve, charging pad or HDMI cable. This follows ~~is on top of~~ discounts and rebates that it was helping underwrite for retailers who were struggling to move the tablets. After shipping 500,000 tablets in its first quarter of sales, RIM moved just 200,000 in the most recent quarter, with many sitting on shelves.

RIM might have been able to get people interested in the PlayBook if it had pushed out an update for the OS in time for the holidays. But the company acknowledged on Tuesday that the BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 has been delayed until February to ensure that the update meets the expectations of developers and customers. So that means RIM still won’t be able to offer native email, calendar, contacts and BlackBerry Messenger on the PlayBook until at least then. Users will continue to have to rely on BlackBerry Bridge to connect email and BlackBerry Messenger.

With the software delay, I’m not sure a new discount will help move sales. It’s a lever to pull for RIM, but it just shows how desperate the company is to clear out some inventory. I don’t think customers are going to be inspired by this when the device is still crippled. The PlayBook has some features to like for end users, but this is being offered to enterprise customers who can afford to buy two devices at a time. And for those corporate customers, many have had plenty of time to decide whether or not PlayBooks are a smart investment, and I doubt this will change things.

RIM is going through a very difficult transition year, and yet it keeps hurting itself with its inability to execute, combined with some letdowns like a huge service outage. I’m anxious to see how the new BBX phones built on the QNX platforms perform, but with this increasing habit of missing deadlines, I’ll have to see those devices in the flesh before I start believing in their potential. I’d like to think that RIM still has a chance to stay competitive, but it can’t keep shooting itself in the foot. And offering desperate discounts won’t change things. They just make you look, well, desperate.

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New headache for RIM: Trademark lawsuit over BBX name

Ryan Kim — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 14:16:15 +0000

It’s not like Research In Motion needs any more headaches, but it has another one with a trademark lawsuit over its new BBX operating system name. Basis International, a New Mexico software company, has followed up with threats against RIM with a lawsuit claiming that it owns the trademark to the BBX name and would be harmed by RIM’s product name.

Earlier this month, RIM unveiled its next generation operating system built off its purchase of QNX and called it BBX. Software developers will be able to use a BBX SDK to build apps for the platform. Basis’ BBX is a set of tools and languages that help developers write programs for multiple operating systems. Basis has been using the BBX name since as early as 1985 and was granted a trademark in 1995.

RIM previously told Reuters that it doesn’t think there’s a conflict because the two companies compete in different markets. But Basis is arguing there’s enough overlap to cause confusion in the minds of consumers. It wants an injunction to stop RIM from using the BBX name along with damages.

It’ll be interesting to see how RIM deals with this, if it goes to court or just comes to an agreement with Basis, similar to how Apple worked out concerns with Cisco over the original iPhone name. But either way, it’s another distraction for RIM, which has been going through a rough patch lately with a huge outage earlier this month, declining sales and market share losses. Naming a next-generation OS should be the least of RIM’s problems, but that’s not the case here.

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RIM’s free app apology shows more tone deafness

Ryan Kim — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 22:00:30 +0000

Research in Motion just got through its worst outage ever last week and responded by giving away $100 worth of apps, mostly a bunch of games. Oh, and it’s throwing in a month free of tech support for enterprise customers and a free trial of customer support for people who don’t have it. We still don’t know if more compensation is on its way, but this seems like an unsatisfactory and incomplete way to address such a big outage.

RIM is taking a big downtime in service and trying to smooth things over by pointing people to apps in a store that many people don’t care for. If users wanted apps above all else, they’d be on another platform already. It’s like a car dealer apologizing for a faulty auto part by offering you free coke from their vending machine. Throwing on tech support also seems hollow, considering it wouldn’t have been helpful in this case and it won’t prevent this issue next time or speed up a solution. Now, there could be more compensation going on with carriers, though it’s unclear if anything will trickle down to end users.

RIM’s corporate messaging needs work

It seems like the handling of RIM’s worst network failure is another case of tone deaf communication in the face of a tough situation from the smartphone maker. RIM has been struggling through a rough year with declining market share and sales and it hasn’t managed the turmoil well. Co-CEO Mike Laziridis walked out of a TV interview in April after encountering some unwelcome questions from an interviewer. At the launch of the PlayBook tablet, Laziridis and co-CEO Jim Balsillie pulled out of formal comments at the last second and instead worked the room, which again made people wonder what was going on. The CEOs have dismissed most concerns about their co-CEO working arrangement, even a very pointed letter from an anonymous executive, though the company has conceded a little by launching a committee to explore splitting the roles of co-chair and co-CEOS.

The company has struggled internally with how to handle the marketing around the PlayBook, and whether it was a consumer or business device. That lack of clarity has not been dispelled over time and it’s likely that has helped contribute to lackluster sales of the device. The Wall Street Journal had a great look at the inside struggles over the PlayBook marketin, quoting an executive who said: “There’s an internal war going on around the marketing message. Even the guys at the top don’t agree.”

An apology with more oomph

This latest outage has also exposed more problems in the way RIM communicates. As my colleague Bobbie Johnson pointed out, the initial communication out of RIM was more of a slow trickle of information, and it took the CEOs too long to address the issue before Laziridis issued a video apology. Today’s apology is of course helpful but it seems like overall, a better, more targeted address of the issues or at least something more substantial in the way of a giveaway could trigger more confidence from users and investors. The stock slid 6.5 percent Monday following the apology.

So what could RIM have done? I think it could have offered up something more valuable to users like real compensation. Or as Roger Cheng at CNET suggests, RIM could work with retail and carrier partners to get customers early upgrades to new BlackBerrys or hand out some free BlackBerry devices or accessories to the best customers. For people who lost productivity and real money, even that may not temper their anger, but it would surely seem more meaningful and relevant than providing a narrow list of apps, even if they are popular.

Monetary compensation may still be in the cards, but I think the first big act of contrition can set the tone and it seems like RIM’s initial attempt is disjointed. Better to issue an initial apology and put together a more thoughtful package, even if takes a little longer, than to put out something that seems whipped together. Apple took its time before offering free bumpers following the “antennagate” issue and while it was faulted for taking a while to respond, Apple seemed to do enough in the eyes of most people to allow them to move on. Steve Jobs made a point of prizing the company’s relationship with users even when it seemed like he wasn’t convinced he needed to go to the lengths Apple did.

Time is running out

This is a critical time for RIM to learn from its mistakes. It needs to figure out how to communicate to its audience of prospective and existing users their importance to the company. Right now, there’s little reason for many consumers to look at a BlackBerry, and now with email service recovering from a big outage, RIM has to ensure that its message is clear. More than at any time in the past, BlackBerry users need some reason and assurance for why it makes sense to choose RIM.

RIM still has a daunting task in terms of providing the actual devices people want and creating a platform that works well on tablets and smartphones. But that just means it shouldn’t be stumbling on something more basic like communicating goodwill to users. I’ll be interested to see what else RIM demonstrates at its developer conference this week. Let’s hope it’s something with more clarity and ‘oomph’ because right now, RIM not only needs some great hardware and software, it needs to know how to better communicate and connect with customers.

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Updated: RIM stares into abyss as BlackBerry blackout spreads

Bobbie Johnson — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 08:49:25 +0000

When a few of BlackBerry’s European users started losing service earlier this week it was irritating for those affected, but the company was confident that things would be back to normal almost straight away. In the space of just a few days, however, the blackout has done precisely the opposite — and now that it has spread to millions of users around the world, it has become impossible for Research in Motion’s top executives to ignore.

Yesterday the Canadian company trotted out CTO David Yach to talk to the media. He assured everyone that the problem had been identified, that “engineers are working around the clock” to fix it, and that while messages might be delayed, none of them were lost.

“We understand the frustrations our customers are experiencing through the delays with the messaging and browsing…
I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize unreservedly to all those people affected by this situation. We’re taking this situation extremely seriously and we’re doing everything we can to restore normal operation of our service.”

It’s something, at least. But is it enough? It’s not clear how long the problems will take to clear completely, but perhaps the damage has already been done.

This blackout is, obviously, an entirely different sort of problem to the company’s recent struggles with the Playbook tablet, or coming under fire for the way its messaging service was used in this summer’s London riots. But the company’s inability to deal with a glaring error is exposing some of its failings in the most brutal way possible.

For a start, this problem seems to be entirely of its own making. While the company is not immune to security problems, it says the original problem started not with a hack but with a failed server in Britain. That initial flaw was rapidly compounded when backup systems failed as well, pushing the impact of the glitch out to users in the Middle East, Africa and India. But things didn’t stop there, and now the problem is of a different order: the backlog of email that users have been trying to send during service disruptions have led to a cascade of blockages in America and Asia. It’s the domino effect writ large and exposes what must surely be some bad planning at the core of the business.

Secondly, its assurances mean little. Yes, as Yach says, its “engineers are working around the clock to fix the problem”. But so they should be: when your products are unable to perform their core function, you’d better treat your business as if it’s just had a heart attack. In the meantime, the impact is getting more serious day by day: whatever the engineers are doing, it isn’t working.

Third, the damage to the company’s relationship with customers is incalculable. Businesses reliant on the BlackBerry — the core users who propelled it to success — will be counting the cost of lost productivity. And its other big base, youngsters addicted to its messaging service, are having their loyalties tested. What is a phone without the ability to communicate? Why stick with a device that can’t perform the basic function you bought it for?

But over and above all of this, I think the biggest problem is in the company’s response to this crisis. The slow trickle of information from the business has been disappointing, but it’s only because there seems to have been a real leadership gap over how to handle the affair.

Sure, executives have started going on the record to make their apologies, including Yach, CIO Robin Bienfait and UK boss Stephen Bates. But the really big bosses have yet to make an appearance — despite the fact that RIM has not one but two chief executives.

Where are Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis? Why can’t at least one of them take command of this issue? It’s all very well appearing in public to launch a product, and when the wind is in your sails… but when your already-frazzled users are denied service, their fears are something that need to be dealt with at the very top. It would be bad enough if there were one CEO who had gone missing — but the bigger this problem gets, the more the inability of either man to take it on seems like willful neglect.

Sure, crisis management is tough. You don’t always want leadership to be associated with a problem that was caused further down the chain. But if RIM can’t find a way to get either of its top executives to spare subscribers a moment, what message are they sending?

Updated: Shortly after posting, Lazaridis actually issued a video apology in which he says the company let down users but can’t give a promise of when the outages will be resolved. It’s better than some corporate apologies… but is it enough?

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