Skip to main content

So Blackberry survives but at what cost?

Just heard (on the radio, wow!) that Rim has ended its court battle with NTP by settling. (hey - it hasn't even made it onto their web site yet)

But is this a case of too little too late?

I got my first taste of Blackberry years ago - I loved their original (non-cell phone) device and lived on it for a good 2 years. This was before you could get Blackberry devices from your phone company and the like. Their stock was $10. Then it went to $180. Then they introduced phone devices. Then the competition started paying attention. BlackBerry still ruled back then but after the dotCom bubble broke. Down to $20 and now back to $81.

I stopped using my Blackberry because of poor customer service (I wasn't about to pay the equivalent price of a new device when I was simply "renting" mine for a repair). I only NOW have gotten to the point where I get the same results from my PDA (I use an ipaq but really rely on Google). Are my costs that much cheaper? Likely not. But there are so many more alternatives and hey, if I can do all of my computing on one device, then that would be ideal.

But I'm glad they are saved. I like RIM - great product but now they just look like another one in the great PDA community. Where's the innovation? I want them to make me go nuts just like they did with the original Blackberry.

Now THAT device Rocked!

Comments

Axinar said…
It was really sad to see them cave, but I understand the government swears by these things.

Actually I've been in the market for a new phone/PDA ever since my Nokia 6340i stopped being able to get on the Internet.

What exactly are you set up with?
March 3, 2006 at 8:12 PM
Andrew MacNeill said…
I run with an HP ipaq6515 - it has Bluetooth, GSM/GPRS , GPS and an SD slot where I use my WiFi card.

Also has a fairly decent camera.

Combined with gMail for mobile, it totally rocks!
March 4, 2006 at 9:03 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Elevating Project Specifications with Three Insightful ChatGPT Prompts

For developers and testers, ChatGPT, the freely accessible tool from OpenAI, is game-changing. If you want to learn a new programming language, ask for samples or have it convert your existing code. This can be done in Visual Studio Code (using GitHub CoPilot) or directly in the ChatGPT app or web site.  If you’re a tester, ChatGPT can write a test spec or actual test code (if you use Jest or Cypress) based on existing code, copied and pasted into the input area. But ChatGPT can be of huge value for analysts (whether system or business) who need to validate their needs. There’s often a disconnect between developers and analysts. Analysts complain that developers don’t build what they asked for or ask too many questions. Developers complain that analysts haven’t thought of obvious things. In these situations, ChatGPT can be a great intermediary. At its worst, it forces you to think about and then discount obvious issues. At best, it clarifies the needs into documented requirements. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Blogs and RSS come to Microsoft.com

MS has just introduced their portal and it's pretty comprehensive. Nothing quite like learning that some people use AIM instead of MSN messenger, or that there really may be a need for supporting 4 monitors ( Cyrus Complains ) However, it's really a great sign that MS is serious about supporting the blogging community which seems to have um, exploded in size in the past year. Blogs and RSS come to Microsoft.com
1 comment
Read more

I’m Supposed to Know

https://programmingzen.com/im-supposed-to-know/ Great post for developers who are struggling with unrealistic expectations of what they should know and what they shouldn't. Thirty-forty years ago, it was possible to know a lot about a certain environment - that environment was MS-DOS (for non Mac/UNIX systems). . There was pretty much only a handful of ways to get things going. Enter networking. That added a new wrinkle to how systems worked. Networks back then were finicky. One of my first jobs was working on a 3COM + LAN and it then migrated to LAN Manager. Enter Windows or the graphical user interface. The best depiction of the complexity Windows (OS/2, Windows NT, etc) introduced that I recall was by Charles Petzold (if memory serves) at a local user group meeting. He invited a bunch of people on the stage and then acted as the Windows "Colonel", a nice play on kernel. Each person had a role but to complete their job they always had to pass things back to h...
Post a Comment
Read more