While RIM continued its downward slide, losing approx. 11% of its total value to close at $61.50/share, it was hardly the only technology company in our sphere to get hit. Apple dropped 17.4%, while Google and Adobe dropped around 11%.
For the employees and families of all those companies involved, we hope something can jumpstart the U.S. economy before things get worse. Check out our current Weekly Contest and let us know if you think RIM will be okay.
The latest report from mobile advertising agency AdMob ran through some numbers based on the four billion ads they’ve served up. As you can see, Nokia remains top dog in mobile browsing activity, capturing a solid 34% of the global share thanks primarily to heavy adoption in Africa and Asia, followed up closely by Openwave (AKA WAP) at 29%. BlackBerry took a sad little 3% slice of the pie, right along side Motorola, Palm’s and Apple’s browsers. The BlackBerry 8300 and BlackBerry 8100 are still on the American Top Ten handsets list, though the top four spots are taken by Motorola. Even internationally, the Pearl does alright, getting 9th. place. In terms of geography, Indonesia has seen about ten times more traffic than last year, and Asia on the whole has seen a significant increase in activity.
RBC’s Michael Abramsky is encouraging investors to look beyond the BlackBerry Bold as an indicator of RIM’s future progress, citing the BlackBerry 8200 (Kickstart) and BlackBerry 9500 (Thunder) as the big things to be looking forward to.
Abramsky considers ‘concerns over BlackBerry Bold’s pricing, features vs. iPhone 3G as overdone,’ arguing that the Bold is ‘an evolutionary 3G Blackberry targeted at upgraders and prosumers/business users while the iPhone 3G is a consumer-focused device targeted at media-centric
Smartphone consumers.’
The ongoing iPhone 3G comparison is a little bit off - we definitely felt more at home putting the BlackBerry 9000 against the Nokia E71. The real head-butting won’t come between Apple and RIM, Abarmsky argues, but rather between the two of them and Nokia and Motorola. They are the bigger fish in the consumer pond, and could easily become targets as RIM and Apple gain traction in that market. Abramsky’s holding an ‘outperform’ rating for RIM’s stock with a $165 price target.
Mac users rejoice! Entourage 2008, designed to emulate much of Microsoft Office, can now support syncing for BlackBerrys released as of May through PocketMac. Devices running OS 4.5 reportedly work like a charm for getting contacts, tasks, and calendar items off your Mac and onto your BlackBerry via Entourage. iTunes support is also in there, although it’s kind of funny that PC users got the iTunes Media Sync first. This is pretty awesome for Mac users everywhere, considering the complete lack of love they tend to get from RIM. Hopefully this will keep enough of them from going with the iPhone instead… Hey, you can always make your BlackBerry look like an iPhone with themes like iBerry in Today, Icon and Zen styles. Head on over to the PocketMac site to download version 4.1.25.
HSBC, the gigantor multinational banking firm, is considering making the jump from BlackBerry to iPhone for upwards of 200,000 of their employees.
“We are actually reviewing iPhones from a HSBC Group perspective … and when I say that, I mean globally… You know, it’s a big decision, especially when you have an existing fleet out there,” [HSBC's Australia and New Zealand chief information officer Brenton Hush] said. “We always explore the potential application of new technologies and this is no different.”
This is not only a big deal for RIM who could be losing a major customer, but could easily set precedent for other major companies who would see that the iPhone works for serious business. Many enterprises are not willing to give up BlackBerry’s rock-solid security, but it’s interesting to see that a financial firm that’s dealing with sensitive numbers all the time are confident enough to consider the iPhone a solution. Of course, no decision has been made yet, and the it’s still a pretty low priority for the HSBC CIO, but we’ll all be watching to see if the change is made. Some remain optimistic that RIM’s push into consumer territory will be more successful than Apple’s move into enterprise, and how this HSBC deal ends up will decide if that’s true.
WiAV Solutions has recently unloaded both barrels of legal action on RIM, Apple and Palm regarding what’s called Adaptive Multi-Rate compression, a GSM voice compression technology. AMR is used to detect silence rather than sound, altering music to accommodate voice, and power management. Up to ten patents are supposedly being infringed upon, but AMR was included in the GSM standard back in ‘98, so you have to wonder how it will all end up. WiAV only actually owns two of the offending patents, while they’re dragging their liscensor, Mindspeed, into the case to defend the rest of the technologies. On the whole, it sounds like this is a shaky case already, and probably won’t get too far. If you’re fluent in legalese, you can take a look at some of the court papers here.
The latest trick coming out of the new Plazmic developer’s kit is Flowberry. Pretty shiny, huh? Too bad they took out the bottom bar that earlier version was showing. Still, a pretty slick design for those Mac-users in the house who just can’t get enough of the coverflow-style interface. Not bad, but I think I’m going to stick with Crossbar. If Mac is your bag though, go ahead and get your Flowberry on, or if you miss that bottom bar, try out Finder.
In a recent interview regarding the BlackBerry Bold’s launch versus the iPhone 3G, RIM’s Chief Operating Officer Dennis Kavelman is still in line with the attitude that Apple’s just giving BlackBerry more press.
“‘I want to buy them a drink,’ he said, adding he hoped people would walk into shops looking to buy a competing phone but walk out with a Bold. … ‘It’s great to do the glitz; anybody can build toys and just focus solely on the multimedia stuff - and lots of people want to buy toys - but I think what we’re trying to do is say here’s everything that makes a BlackBerry a BlackBerry, and we’ve packaged it in something that looks really fashionable … and you don’t have to give up all the multimedia stuff.’”
This has been the long-standing angle RIM has taken when it comes to Apple, and it’s either stupid or admirable that they continue to shrug off the iPhone as not a big deal, especially when they’re making a full-blown wannabe.
A survey by UBS Investment Research of 100-odd US iPhone buyers last weekend revealed that of the five BlackBerry owners there, only two would be making the full switch. That number went up slightly in the UK, to 3.6%. This might be good news for RIM, since they’re clearly not losing customers, but it also goes to show how much of the market Apple is penetrating with their recently-launched iPhone 3G. That being said, it could easily be paving the way for the touchscreen BlackBerry Thunder when it comes out later this year. One way or the other, the RIM stance of a mutually exclusive customer base could turn out to be true after all.
“Although our sample size was limited (relative to the global launch), we believe these results give a decent indication for the market share obtained by the iPhone on Day 1…,” [UBS' Jeffrey Fan] said. “As it relates to RIM, the survey results are consistent with our view that the BlackBerry user base today largely differs from the iPhone user base.”
If you really dug the standard Icon iBerry theme, Bplay just busted out a Today version of the iBerry Blackberry theme, letting you get a better view of your incoming messages, meetings and calls on your home screen. On top of that, you get four of your top apps shown in a bottom dock, just like the classic iPhone style. For the full-blown Macophile, the Finder theme has also returned, featuring a familiar bottom dock and icon set. Of course, the iBerry theme might be admitting some defeat to the iPhone hype, wouldn’t it? You could always scope out the re-released Crossbar theme, or some other fresh Next Gen themes like Reflex Today Plus.
Mac users rejoice! 
WiAV Solutions has recently unloaded both barrels of legal action on RIM, Apple and Palm regarding what’s called Adaptive Multi-Rate compression, a GSM voice compression technology. AMR is used to detect silence rather than sound, altering music to accommodate voice, and power management. Up to ten patents are supposedly being infringed upon, but AMR was included in the GSM standard back in ‘98, so you have to wonder how it will all end up. WiAV only actually owns two of the offending patents, while they’re dragging their liscensor, 
In a recent interview regarding the BlackBerry Bold’s launch versus the iPhone 3G, RIM’s Chief Operating Officer Dennis Kavelman is still in line with the attitude that Apple’s just giving BlackBerry more press. 
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