Ok, the headline's a cliché. I apologize for that. But given RIM's announcement of the new Blackberry Bold (AKA Blackberry 9000) at their developer conference, what would you expect? RIM has had the number one position in Smartphones (approx 41% market share) for a long time. They remain well ahead of everyone --iPhone included --in volume. They've done this by focusing on corporate users and making sure that their push email service is easy to use.
While RIM has had a few high profile outages, they've done pretty well by sticking to the knitting and not getting distracted. That's often meant putting consumer features on a lower priority than corporate needs. Over time, RIM has added music, wifi, camera, but never with all the features on a single device. The Blackberry Bold appears to be the first device from RIM that really has it all:
-3G on AT&T and T-Mobile
-Wifi
-GPS and mapping
-Full keyboard
-Rasor sharp display (480 x 320)
-Light weight (4.7 ounces)
-2MP camera with flash
-MP3 support
And the price looks like it should be available for under $400. While that's still a lot of dosh for a phone, sales for RIM just keep going up. And perhaps to Wall Street's surprise, that's in spite of the growth of the iPhone. No doubt it will be an interesting summer in this space.
Posted by Zack Urlocker on May 21, 2008 10:37 AM
