Is is a Phone? Is it a Tablet? No, it's Both!!

It is interesting to watch the cell phone and Internet tablet market. Cell phone have been around for many years and it has been fun to watch how the technology has improved, how the phone have gotten smaller and how the features have evolved. From the original Motorla "brick" released in 1973 to today's smart phone has been quite the evolution. And it seems that the evolution is reaching a point where these hand-held devices are so packed with features that the phone capabilities is a small component of the actual device. The ads often lists the features and you need to read the fine print to see any specs about the phone capabilities. Apple suffered the consequences of not focusing on the phone when they released the iPhone 4. Great toy but the phone was hard to use due to the antenna design.


Now with the introduction of the Internet tablets, the line between phone and computer is becoming narrower. Apple, once again, found that out the hard way when they did not have phone capbilities in their iPad. Of course people still bought them but were dissappointed with the lack of a phone and camera which seems to be the defacto standard for hand-held devices.
One player noticably missing from the mix is Microsoft. Bill Gates and company has been given much of the credit for the computer revolution but does not seem to embrace the cell phone market potential. Microsoft has never been innovators. Even their original software product, DOS, was a copy of CPM. They have tried serveral time to enter the market with dismal failure and a new attempt is on the horizon. MS is so far behind the leader, they will never catch up.

By the end of this year, the smart phone / Internet tablet market will be heating up. With iPad competitors on the horizon, MS in the market, RIM fighting to maintaining its smart phone lead, Apple releasing new devices and Nokia trying to maintain its cell phone market lead, it going to be a very interesting time for hand-held technologies.

Image via Wikipedia

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Blackberry in Trouble

Image via CrunchBase

In the past few weeks, Blackberry has been very dominant in the news. Rumors about a tablet PC started when RIM purchased the BlackPad.com domain name. RIM also introduced their latest Blackberry model to be known as the Torch. This model and their latest operating system is RIM's answer to the iPhone and the up an coming Android phones. But things are not looking good for the Canadian cell phone company. A recent statistic claims that half of all current Blackberry users are either considering switching to will be switching to different hardware.

An additional  nail in the Blackberry coffin is the problems RIM has been having with the United Arab Emirates. Because of the strong security on the phone, the UAE feel that the phone can be used by spies and circumvent security. Apparently RIM has come up with a solution to this problem or they could possibly lose 500,000 customers.

Blackberry are great phones (I use one but I'm in the 50% above). Cell phones have become more than just devices for carrying on conversations and organizing personal data. They have become Web surfing tools and social media organizers. These is something Blackberry did not keep up on and iPhone as well as other competitor has surpassed them on. Now, Rim is trying to get caught up and I think its too late. They should focus on being the choice for the business client with enterprise wide services. That is there niche and they have been very good at doing that. The personal Blackberry is fading and soon will be gone.

RIM made the Blackberry one of the first predominately used smart phones and because of that, they have huge market share. Unfortunately, they sat back on their laurels for too long without seeing the potential of the single-user. These single-users need a different set of tools than used by the business client and thus, will be switching to a phone that can provide that need.

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