Comments on: RIM: 50 Million Served Since '99 / Apple: 30 Million Served Since 2007

By: Weekend Update, 3.21.09–March Madness Edition | Beth Callaghan | Digital Daily | AllThingsD

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 00:11:46 +0000

[...] onstage and a live photoblog to back it up. DD noted that sales of the iPod Touch and iPhone have outstripped RIM’s (RIMM) combined BlackBerry sales by a factor of…well, by a LOT. Kind of supports the data that says mobile Web use doubled [...]

By: Matt Stark

Matt Stark — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 04:19:54 +0000

I am logged in and making this comment from my iPhone and yes I did buy into the hype.

This story reminds me of the days of the compaq ipaq, handspring and palm pda’s. The PDAs all having touch screen, mp3, Internet, full color screens with streaming video and wifi support.

Rim merely had a crappy monochrome device with a scroll wheel and a physical qwerty keyboard. It was always so behind the times yet it came out on top.

I think apple is doing amazing – no debate there – but in a lot of ways I think they just created a new playground for rim to participate in and profit off.

Rim is almost complete building their palm pre killer – has a low end non 3g curve positioned at ~20 to ~40 dollar premium to a standard wireless contract.

I’m personally shorting apple right now and buying rim. The #s are just too compelling. iPhone user comment signing off!

By: Sam Harrison

Sam Harrison — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 20:13:24 +0000

apple took its knocks in the pc wars and lost to windows (% marketshare and $$$ revenue)

so if they come back and start to dominate the portable computing market (i don’t call them ‘phones’) then hey, hats off to steve jobs and the crew

if rim wants to compete then it needs to innovate and get away from milking its old platform

By: asd asd

asd asd — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 05:00:40 +0000

Half a million “NO” votes on the “Layout Vote” Facebook app. vs. 30, 000 yes. Wonder if the devs will listen?

Richie
Make Money Online

By: Mel Krewall

Mel Krewall — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 12:33:10 +0000

Well, these numbers mean more in terms of the software that was discussed yesterday. This is a large installed base of application buyers and Apple did some significant things to open the door for new types of applications and innovations that will sell lots more software through the iTunes Store, in turn driving more hardware sales.
It seems unlikely that Apple considers RIM its main competition, in that the vast majority of RIM sales are to businesses, most of which are locked down by the IT department and don’t generate any post-purchase software sales.

By: Luis Diaz

Luis Diaz — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 05:11:39 +0000

Hold on a minute. Does the 50 million served by RIM include those pager like devices that aren’t even made anymore? And what good does making a barrage of incompatible platforms do for RIM?

The advantage of the iPhone & iPOD Touch is one platform one set of code. Not so in the RIM’s world.
I’d bet you couldn’t watch a decent thumbnail sized video on a BB Pearl.

I mean we’re talking yesterday’s news, RIM, versus the future, Apple.

By: Robert Elliott

Robert Elliott — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 03:24:29 +0000

Well my iPod touch seldom leaves my side, I used it every day at work, maintained my schedule, checked and wrote e-mails, looked up map info for clients, and used it to keep track of various documents.

That seems like PDA functionality to me. So I’d say it does compete in the same market. Just the low end of it.
I can’t see paying a large monthly fee for a blackberry package when I have WiFi in all the places that matter.

But I agree that the PDA/Smartphone market has really exploded in the last 3 years and so comparing Blackberry’s 8 years to Apple’s 2 is a bit misleading. But John is known for his hyperbole and it should be a given that it is occurring.

But I do see the iPod Touch as being in the same category. I highly doubt the iPhone is being used for the same thing as the Blackberry by a large portion of it’s users.

By: RIM: 50 Million Served Since ‘99 / Apple: 30 Million Served Since 2007 [Digital Daily] | heave-ho.org

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 00:46:05 +0000

[...] Here is the original: RIM: 50 Million Served Since ‘99 / Apple: 30 Million Served Since 2007 [Digital Daily] [...]

By: Bill Carlin

Bill Carlin — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 00:35:14 +0000

Apples and Oranges (or Blackberrys in this case).

Your comparisons paint an exaggerated picture.

First, the ipod touch does not compete with Blackberry, so the real comparison is 50 million vs. 17 million.

Second, RIM sold over 7.5 million Blackberrys last quarter which is double the number of iphones that Apple sold in the same period. Comparing the last two years and the prior 8 years in the same thought is completely misleading. RIM invented the market and built it up from nothing, so of course the earlier years yielded lower numbers. But your presentation of the numbers make it sound like Apple is gaining on RIM whereas in fact Apple is losing market share to RIM. I’m not knocking Apple. They did well in two years, but you are totally getting caught up in the ususal hype and distortion (that surrounds Apple) by presenting the numbers in this manner.

By: Mark Sigal

Mark Sigal — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 23:18:49 +0000

My read on today is that Apple is so totally clicking on all cylinders with iPhone/iPod touch that the preview was a thinly disguised “block the kick” announcement.

What’s a block the kick? It is an effort to do such a good job of persuading your core constituency (in this case, developers, consumers, carriers) that any perceived momentum of the competition (read: Android, Palm Pre) pales in comparison to your own that you block the competition’s nascent momentum in its infancy.

Apple is just running up the score, lest the competition find its footing with developers, something I blogged about in:

Analysis of iPhone 3.0 SDK Developer Preview
http://bit.ly/ANdMz

Check it out if interested.

Mark