Today, Blackberry maker Research in Motion (RIM) announced their next generation operating system: BBX. I used to be a Blackberry fan. I had a smartphone be so rock-solid stable. Back when the smartphone selection consisted of Windows Mobile 5, Palm OS and Blackberry, it was pretty easy to see how RIM’s future was secure. They produced a solid OS, offered more security features, stellar messaging and some of the finest typing experiences on a phone. That was five years ago. RIM has failed to keep pace, let alone innovate.
A similar event occurred with Palm OS back around 2002. Palm had pioneered the PDA industry, handily dominating the market for most of the ’90s. It licensed the Palm OS to Sony in 2000 and Sony began to make Palm’s hardware look like last century’s devices. Sony began including music players, cameras, virtual Graffiti areas, illuminated keyboards, memory card slots and faster processors. They were innovating and it was great. A few years later, Palm was still playing catch-up, but seemed more concerned about corporate divisions, re-mergers and acquisitions than in actually developing hardware – let alone the Palm OS. They did not keep pace, let alone innovate. Palm OS 6 was announced in 2004 with significant upgrades, including a built-in phone dialer – it never made it to market.
Five years later, Palm finally gets around to innovating – they introduced webOS. But while Palm lay in bed dreaming up webOS, Apple and Google were rolling out new operating systems and new devices to capture the market. In many ways, webOS was superior to iOS, Android and Blackberry, but it arrived nearly DOA. Devices running webOS, sold like sand to bedouins. Even HP with its deep pockets and marketing power could not effectively save Palm’s legacy. WebOS now sits languishing in a closet somewhere at HP.
Blackberry is staring at the same fate in a couple of years if they don’t turn things around. They’ve had a series of unfortunate missteps not keeping up with a rapidly changing market, producing a lackluster tablet and – most recently – serious outages in their service. Blackberry CEO Mike Lazaridis had a chance to really put some momentum behind Blackberry at this week’s Blackberry DevCon. He didn’t. He announced an all new Blackberry OS, but pulled out no devices running this OS – not even a picture of one, not even a picture of one they’re thinking about. At least we got screenshots of Palm OS 6 when it was announced. The good news is that, in a rapidly changing market, a few key decisions can really accelerate your business. RIM really needs a homerun device running BBX just to keep pace with the market because right now they look more like Research in Reverse.