George Orwell on the Newspeak of the modern era:

"Political language—and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists—is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one's own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase—some jackboot, Achilles' heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno, or other lump of verbal refuse—into the dustbin, where it belongs."

 

 

 The Apple cult. We can add as well the Google cult. Great firms to be sure. Apple was near dead in the 1990s – its operating-system closed to the Microsoft platform, its development eco-system limited to what Apple would approve, and its management arrogant and short-sighted. Times change. Businesses develop in spurts and have to suffer downturns [or recessions], in order to improve themselves. If building products and services was so easy, everyone and every business would grow to Applesque or Googleian proportions. This rarely occurs.

RIM's stock price has declined in 4 years from $75 per share to $15. Yet the poorly named products with funny numbers continue to do well. RIM has 75 million clients and is deeply embedded in the corporate market – unlike Apple. It is a very profitable firm generating over $200 million in quarterly profits.  It has proprietary and world leading technology in network delivery, security, wireless email and mobile application development. The Playbook is a very good tool and much more appropriate for business than the larger iPad – which needs a separate contract to be ubiquitously wireless making it more expensive than the RIM product. RIM's QNX's OS is going to be embedded into auto computers and the mobile-auto market has plenty of future potential. Traveling living rooms which are computerized activated by voice running on the embedded QNX OS.

There is plenty of time left to revitalize the BB eco-system. Personally my BB devices have proven themselves to be excellent in all aspects. I would never join the Apple cult and pay out the cult dues on new over priced units.

RIM's first problem is lousy marketing and the fact that the media drools over every Apple device. Apple could coat a stick with cow manure and wrap it in a box and the Media will chant that this is the greatest product ever. Apple did not invent any of its consumer products, Jobs et al improved on what existed. Good for them but the game is far from over. RIM's second problem is that they need new blood at the top. Basillie and Lazirids are great leaders but the firm has grown too large and is now in unfamiliar territory for the entrepreneurs. Never underestimate your competition - RIM will learn and grow.

Jenkins in the WSJ makes some excellent points about Apple and RIM:

“Open and closed were never the absolutes they appear to be. Remember, the Web and Web browser saved Apple as much as Steve Jobs did. And the iPod and iPhone would not have been so conquering if Apple had not been prepared to make iTunes available on Windows. The iPhone now wouldn't be clawing its way into corporate America if Apple weren't prepared to entertain email clients other than Apple's.

Today's ecosystem wars are in many respects just a revisitation of yesteryear's operating-system wars. Those wars also seemed to have a winner-take-all flavor—until Netscape came along to deliver access to a Web-based cornucopia of information and applications that didn't need Windows.

There's another reason for future openness we hesitate to mention: Antitrust regulators at some point will likely add their weight to the competitive pressure if they see the public being locked into a choice of only two ecosystems, Apple's or Android's, for all their TV, etc.

So the future may be friendlier to BlackBerry, Nokia and Windows Phone than it now appears. People don't want to dress the same. They don't want to carry the same device. The market may soon become welcoming to manufacturers making a multitude of gadgets for a multiplicity of tastes and preferences without requiring users to forgo membership in the Apple or Android clouds or both.”

There is more than enough market space for a RIM to survive and thrive. As Jenkins also suggests, it would help RIM to have an office in Silicon Valley. They need to fire whoever does their marketing. Management needs new ideas and energy. All of RIM's problems – product delivery, client expectations, rising costs, poor marketing – are soluble. It might be a brave man who predicts a RIM Renaissance, but it or more likely to be a foolish man who orders RIM's tombstone in 2012.