BlackBerry... don't you hate it when I'm right?
A LOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooOOOONG time ago I said BlackBerry should have gone about making their popular BBM messaging app cross platform as a means of securing additional funds. They almost did that just recently and it has been an overwhelming success. Supposedly 10 million people have already signed up.
Maybe two weeks ago one of my brothers said that they didn't feel BBM was relevant any more. That there were too many alternatives in the cross platform messaging space. And yet, 10 million downloads already. Enough that I'm seeing a bunch of people on Facebook posting their new BBM Id's despite the fact that I know they don't actually own BlackBerry devices. For an app from a has-been on the verge of extinction this screams volumes about how much people loved BBM.
They released it for free. Which explains the huge download base. But, had they done this a year or 2 ago, before their demise was so obvious, and I think they could have had the same results from a paid app and if they had done it 2+ years ago I think they would have charged virtually anything they wanted and still rocked the market.
And frankly, I think that could have saved their hardware division as well. The new generation of phone users is increasingly social. If you had the market cornered on the #1 cellular social service it could have drawn a lot of younger buyers in and repaired a major image problem. Now I feel they are in a similar boat as Microsoft where most people don't even consider their products any more.
There were only really 2 things people loved and continue to love about BlackBerry; BBM and the keyboards. They snubbed the keyboards by releasing the Z10 first and making the Q10 more expensive, and they seriously injured the profitability of BBM by keeping it in-house this long.
It is the right move. But I think at the wrong time and executed a little sloppily.
Maybe two weeks ago one of my brothers said that they didn't feel BBM was relevant any more. That there were too many alternatives in the cross platform messaging space. And yet, 10 million downloads already. Enough that I'm seeing a bunch of people on Facebook posting their new BBM Id's despite the fact that I know they don't actually own BlackBerry devices. For an app from a has-been on the verge of extinction this screams volumes about how much people loved BBM.
They released it for free. Which explains the huge download base. But, had they done this a year or 2 ago, before their demise was so obvious, and I think they could have had the same results from a paid app and if they had done it 2+ years ago I think they would have charged virtually anything they wanted and still rocked the market.
And frankly, I think that could have saved their hardware division as well. The new generation of phone users is increasingly social. If you had the market cornered on the #1 cellular social service it could have drawn a lot of younger buyers in and repaired a major image problem. Now I feel they are in a similar boat as Microsoft where most people don't even consider their products any more.
There were only really 2 things people loved and continue to love about BlackBerry; BBM and the keyboards. They snubbed the keyboards by releasing the Z10 first and making the Q10 more expensive, and they seriously injured the profitability of BBM by keeping it in-house this long.
It is the right move. But I think at the wrong time and executed a little sloppily.
Comments
Post a Comment