Hasta La Gadget!

Oh RIM. Where did it all go wrong? The company has been flailing for some time now, but its dismal financials on the latest earnings call paired with the announcement that BlackBerry 10 won’t make an appearance until the first quarter of next year has almost certainly sealed RIM’s fate. It’s not quite the end of the road just yet, but the light at the end of the tunnel is growing dimmer with each passing day.

[Image credit: miggslives]

The sad fact is that all of this could have been avoided. The company was slow to act in the wake of Apple’s smartphone bombshell back in 2007, believing that consumers would always want a hardware keyboard. Steve Ballmer famously criticized Cupertino’s phone at the time, but even the Windows giant saw the writing on the wall and quickly moved to revamp its own mobile operating system. It’s fair to say that Microsoft has had an uphill struggle itself, still clinging to single digit market share numbers despite the recent launch of the Nokia Lumia 900 in the United States.

Now look back at RIM, a company with nowhere near the same resources that started developing its own answer to iOS and Android even later than Microsoft. Not only that, but the latest news from RIM marks the second time the OS has been delayed. Back in December 2011, RIM claimed it made a strategic decision to delay the platform until late 2012 to wait for a dual-core chip with LTE compatibility, yet a few short months later a wealth of smartphones with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon and LTE solutions hit the market. Perhaps the real reason is that RIM is simply struggling with the development of BlackBerry 10.

Sure, the company tried to dip its toe into the next-generation OS waters with the introduction of the Blackberry PlayBook, but it was met with mixed reviews and poor sales. The app ecosystem on the PlayBook is also looking quite dire, despite the company’s insistence that the majority of what’s available will be able to run on BlackBerry 10 when it does eventually launch.

“The additional delay might as well be the final nail in the coffin”

The additional delay might as well be the final nail in the coffin for the company. Phones like the HTC One X, Samsung Galaxy S III, and iPhone 4S are all vying for customers’ attention, and RIM’s competitors aren’t standing still. By the time BlackBerry 10 and associated handsets finally make it to market, RIM will have to compete with the next iPhone, the next Nexus device(s?) from Google, and Windows Phone 8.

But wait! BBM and the enterprise market are what’s keeping the company afloat, right? Even those areas are slowly being eroded. BBM used to be a strong selling point for the company, but once again the world has moved on while RIM has stood still. Apple introduced iMessage with iOS 5, taking a direct shot at RIM and bundled carrier text messages in the process. Even if you’re not an iOS user or don’t dig closed messaging standards, there are a wealth of alternatives that are cross-platform compatible: Google Talk, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Kik Messenger, even Samsung’s ChatOn. The fact of the matter is that BBM isn’t anywhere near as relevant as it once now that everyone has their own cross-platform solutions.

The enterprise and business markets will be the next to slip through RIM’s grasp. Make no mistake: Apple and Google are eyeing up both territories, with BYOD schemes already seeing employees swapping out their antiqued BlackBerry handsets for iOS and Android devices. It’ll take awhile for the tech giants to fully grasp the security needs of the business world, but you can bet that RIM’s competitors are busy working behind the scenes to make their devices business friendly.

Even in the face of financial turmoil, job cuts, and the BlackBerry 10 delay, RIM believes it can somehow license out the new operating system. Let’s just think about that for a second: it wants to license out an operating system that won’t even be released for at least another six months. Who would even consider jumping aboard BlackBerry 10? HTC and Samsung are quite content with Android right now, with both companies also occasionally flirting with Windows Phone. It’s hard to imagine Chinese OEMs like ZTE or Huawei touching BlackBerry 10 either.

And yet, despite all of this, RIM is a company that knows the jig is up. On yesterday’s earnings conference call, the company announced that it had hired JP Morgan and RBC Capital to explore options and find a way to leverage the company’s assets. The first port of call may be to try and license BlackBerry 10 – a move that most likely is going to fail spectacularly – but it’s clear that RIM is considering every scenario, including the possibility of an acquisition. And why not? The company has a healthy patent portfolio, networking infrastructure, and strong relationships with carriers across the world.

In which case the only remaining question is: who’s going to buy RIM?

So long, RIM, and thanks for all the phones is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Google’s IO 2012 keynote has been and gone, and while the developer event as a whole isn’t over, you can certainly tell where the focus is by what made it onto the opening agenda. I’d already laid out my expectations for IO over at the Google Developers Blog, but there have been some surprises along the way too.

Jelly Bean was the obvious inclusion, and Google balanced its enthusiasm about the new Android version from a technological perspective – with encrypted apps and the perfectly named “Project Butter” for smoothing out the UI – with features that will make more of a difference for end-users. The new notifications system should make a major difference to Android usability, meaning you spend less time jumping between apps, while the Google Voice Search should present an interesting challenge to Siri.

I’ll need to spend some proper time with “Google now” before I can decide whether it brings any real worth to the table. Proper understanding of context is sorely missing from the mobile device market- our handsets can do no shortage of tasks, but they still wait for us to instruct them – though there are potentially significant privacy concerns which I think Google will likely be picked up on sooner rather than later.

The Nexus 7 is a double-hitter of a device, the tablet response not only to concerns that Android developers were opting out of slate-scale app creation, but to Amazon’s strongly-selling Kindle Fire. $200 is a very competitive price, without cutting on specifications, and Jelly Bean comes with all the bells and whistles you need for a tablet OS.

Of course, OS support wasn’t what let Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich down, it was the significant absence of any meaningful tablet application support from third-party developers. The Nexus 7′s low price should help get test units into coders’ hands, at least, though it will take more than a fanfare this week to decide whether Android can catch up on larger screen content with Apple’s iPad.

As for the Nexus Q, I’ll take some more convincing on that. $299 is a lot for a device that also needs an Android phone or tablet in order to work, and Google’s awkward presentation didn’t do a particularly good job of explaining why you’d rather have a Nexus Q than, say, an Apple TV, a Sonos system, or even just a cheap DLNA streamer.

The big surprise today was Google Glasses. Sergey Brin’s “surprise” interruption of the IO presentation, sporting Project Glass himself and then summoning a daredevil army of similarly-augmented skydivers, stunt bikers, abseilers and others onto the stage was a masterstroke of entertainment, and you could feel the enthusiasm and excitement in the auditorium. That the segment ended with a pre-order promise – albeit one at a not-inconsiderable $1,500 – was a suitably outlandish high-point, though we’ll have to wait until early 2013 to actually see Google make good on those investments.

Google Glasses are a long way off. More pressing is how the Nexus 7 holds up to the Kindle Fire (and, though it may not be quite a direct competitor, the iPad) and how quickly manufacturers can get Jelly Bean out to existing devices. Google may be putting a new system of early Android update access into place to speed that process for future iterations, but it looks to have come too late for Jelly Bean updates. We’ll have more from Google IO 2012 over the rest of the week.

Make sure to check out SlashGear’s Android hub for our full Google IO 2012 coverage!

Unboxing Nexus 7 and Nexus Q:

Google IO 2012: Jelly Bean, Nexus 7, Google Glasses and Nexus Q is written by Vincent Nguyen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Microsoft is adamant: it has no plans to make its own Windows Phones, and anything to the contrary is baseless speculation. The Surface tablet announcement had hardly crossed the wire before rumors of a home-grown smartphone began to proliferate, culminating in a clear denial of any “going it alone” intentions earlier on Monday. Have no doubt, though: Microsoft may be denying own-brand Windows Phones today, but that’s not to say it won’t announce them tomorrow.

Let’s not forget, this is the same Microsoft that roundly denied any phone plans whatsoever… until it revealed KIN. The teen-centric handsets may not have been sales successes, but they nonetheless confirmed the dirty little secret in the tech PR game: that any denial, no matter how earnest sounding at the time, is usually only valid until the end of the day.

Surface is a misdirection, if you’re using it as evidence that Microsoft is planning a more aggressive attack on the hardware market. If the rumors are true then only WiFi Surface models are on the cards to begin with; no tricky carrier negotiations to deal with, no awkward positioning rivalries with cellularly-enabled iPads to confuse store shelves.

“Microsoft will do what it needs to to do make Windows Phone a success”

Microsoft will do what Microsoft believes it needs to do to make Windows Phone a success, even if it means throwing OEM partners under the bus to achieve it. So far it has a strong, easily moulded brand already in the smartphone ecosystem in the shape of Nokia, a company now so dependent on Windows Phone that it, more than even Microsoft itself, is primarily reliant on the platform becoming a sales success for its future. If Windows Phone stalls, Microsoft will find itself without a foothold in the smartphone space; for Nokia, meanwhile, it’s game over.

Whether that makes a Nokia buy-out more likely is the stuff of endless rumination. There are compelling arguments either way – greater control and an existing manufacturing base on the positive; responsibility for what’s clearly a struggling company, and the risk of alienating other OEMs currently onboard on the negative – and, if Surface really is the tell, then we’ll need to see how Microsoft reacts to the Windows market to get an understanding of its longer-term intentions. Opinion is split as to whether Surface is a short-lived motivator to spur OEMs into imaginative action or a longer-term commitment to own-brand hardware.

Nonetheless, while the denials may come thick, fast and obstinate today, be under no illusion: all that could change in an instant if Microsoft’s soothsayers decide the company’s fortunes are better served with an in-house product.

Forget Denials, Microsoft’s Windows Phone is still a contender is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

First Apple, then Microsoft, and now it’s Google‘s turn: three weeks of back-to-back mobile strategy with each of the big three companies laying out their stalls for smartphones and tablets. It’s arguably never been such an interesting time in mobility, but nor has there ever been so much at stake. Ecosystems, openness and long-term support have all divided opinion, as we’ve seen what the devices of tomorrow (but not necessarily today) will be running, and while Google is coming last to the table it also has the opportunity to outshine everything its rivals have demonstrated. That’s far from being a given, however.

Apple kicked things off in early June with its WWDC 2012 keynote, making no mention of new mobile hardware – the new iPad is still only halfway through its expected lifecycle, and the iPhone is, if the rumors are to be believed, still a few months away – but detailing iOS 6 which, for many, will be much like a new device when it hits their phones and tablets this fall. The company is known for its incredibly polished software experience, and with iOS 6 rolling out to iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPad 2 and new iPad owners (with a few omissions depending on the age of your hardware) it’s a comprehensive blanket upgrade that focuses attention on what both Microsoft and Google do for existing owners.

That point was hammered home the following week, when Microsoft grabbed the spotlight for two events: the debut of Surface, its Windows 8/RT tablet, and Windows Phone 8. The twin launches echo the duality of strategy in Microsoft’s approach to mobile. Phones get Windows Phone, tablets get Windows; in contrast, Apple pushes iOS 6 for both iPhone and iPad. The shared core is a step toward tying up the disparate strands of Microsoft’s phone and tablet lines, though it comes at a cost: Microsoft throwing Windows Phone 7/7.5 early-adopters under the bus with the admission that they won’t ever get a Windows Phone 8 upgrade.

“Are platform updates a privilege or a right?”

The reasons behind that are complex, and tempered somewhat with the existence of Windows Phone 7.8 that will bring many of the UI enhancements to the existing smartphones. Nonetheless, Microsoft’s decision to again break with the past as it claws away at the smartphone OS market has prompted no small amount of discussion around whether platform updates are a privilege or a right.

Such a discussion has already weighed heavy around the neck of Google and its Android partners, with flagship devices like the AT&T Galaxy S II only now getting updates to the latest version of the OS (with Google apparently mere days away from announcing its successor, no less). Like Apple, Google has taken the one-OS-for-mobile approach, but it has only been halfway successful; Android phones are flying off shelves, but Android tablets have failed to locate their tipping point.

So, what can we expect from Google at I/O this week? And, perhaps more importantly, what does the company need to do to end the June mobility triptych on a high rather than a dud note?

Jelly Bean, the next version of Android is a given. That should bring a spring to the step of Galaxy Nexus owners, tipped to be first in line for the new update (and who have felt somewhat overshadowed in recent months with the high-profile launches of HTC’s One X and Samsung’s Galaxy S III). Ice Cream Sandwich marked a significant evolution of Android in terms of usability and aesthetics, though few users have actually seen both given the paucity of phones that have seen a 4.0 upgrade and the smaller-again subsection of those that haven’t been reskinned by the OEM involved.

“Hardware is not the problem: a shortage of compelling apps is”

Jelly Bean will no doubt tick some of the boxes Apple’s recent iOS releases have opened up, such as a virtual personal assistant system (believed to be codenamed “Majel”) to take on Siri, but it’s what it can do for bigger screens that’s key. Google needs a comprehensive tablet strategy and it needs one fast; two generations of Android (3.0 and 4.0) have failed to make a dint in the iPad’s marketshare. Hardware is arguably not the problem – though as Microsoft demonstrated with Surface last week, a little high-quality magnesium goes a long way – but a significant shortage of compelling applications is.

Google I/O is, of course, the ideal time to address that. Having copious developers on hand is a given, but Google is also expected to unveil a Nexus-branded tablet – a 7-incher made by ASUS, if the rumor machine is to be believed – that should promote the pure Android experience at a price tag ($199; again, according to leaks) that will encourage those developers to finally pick up a test mule to work on.

Windows 8 threatens to split developer attention even further, however, and Google can’t count solely on Android’s broad footprint in phones to carry it. Both Apple and Microsoft have multi-platform strategies with their own credible strengths, and that’s an area where Google is playing catch up. Time hasn’t run out for Android tablets, but the window of opportunity is narrowing fast.

SlashGear will be bringing you all the news from Google I/O 2012 this week.

Apple, Microsoft, now Google: I/O 2012 closes the mobility triptych is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.