RIM, or Research in Motion, reptorted that sales of all Blackberry mobiel devices jumped by over 2 million devices over the past year. The cell phone giant shipped out 41.9 million units in Q2 of 2008, which toppled their total of 39.8 millions in the previous year. This number indicates significant growth for RIM in the US, a market already fully saturated by mobile phones- It also puts the company over the 10% mark in terms of the US Domestic Mobile Phone market share. For more Q2 market info check out this Reuter’s Mobile News Article.
Technorati Tags: RIM, research in motion, blackberry, thunder, market share, verizon, mobile phone, pearl,
August 12th, 2008
Research In Motion, the company behind Blackberry, is expanding its product line and releasing 4 completely different phones for different types of users. All 4 will be released by the end of the year, and all of them sound pretty sweet in their own right. Here’s a brief rundown…
The first, coming within the next couple weeks, is the Blackberry Bold, or 9000. Rumors of a release date have the Bold coming out on July 25th, but seeing as that refers to tomorrow, I couldn’t really say for sure. Other sources point to the following week on the 29th, which seems more reasonable. Anyway, the Bold is a continuation of the classic Blackberry Curve, highlighted with more power, a better, brighter, quality screen, GPS, and a new OS. It still has the full QWERTY keyboard and all the tested software that Blackberry provides, and is targeted toward the business oriented person.
The next, which is also in the upper price range, is the Blackberry Thunder, or 9500, which is expected to come out sometime in November or December. As I’m sure you know, the Thuder is defined by its touchscreen interface, and has been coined by many to be the ‘iPhone killer’. In actuality, this device was built more to say “we can do it too” than to try and dominate the iPhone– Blackberry will still rely mostly on its Pearl, Curve, and Bold sales over those of the Thunder. At any rate, the screen is supposed to have better quality than the iPhone’s, but for right now, most of the talk is just rumor.
The third on our list is the newly unveiled KickStart, which is the first flip phone that Blackberry has ever put into production. It will be more of a mid range phone in terms of pricing, and is tentatively scheduled to release in September. Again, most of the Blackberry features will be included, and the keyboard will be the same as that already featured on the Blackberry Pearl.
The final Blackberry product to come is the basic, inexpensive Javelin, which will release around the same time as the Thunder in November or December. It is, to be short, a simplified version of the Blackberry Curve that will have all the same capability, with slower speeds and not quite as amazing quality parts. Again, most of the talk about the Javelin is still just rumor, but it is definite that the phone will release sometime in the next months.
And that concludes the Blackberry summary…
Technorati Tags: blackberry, blackberry thunder, blackberry bold, blackberry kickstart, blackberry javelin, blackberry pearl, blackberry curve, RIM
July 24th, 2008
It looks like the new Blackberry Thunder 9500, which is supposed to be RIM’s iPhone 3G killer, is the furthest thing from it at this point. Boy Genius was able to get amazing inside information once again, quoting one of his “RIM ninjas” as saying “Thunder is in no way, shape, or form market ready. If bold was any indication, Thunder won’t be ready for at least another 4-5 months.” The source even went on to say “most of the people who have handled it think it’s a joke.”
Apparently, there are several serious problems with the phone at this point. The keyboard is very difficult to type on, the screen shows ripples whenever it is touched, and the accelerometer within the phone is overly sensitive, making the phone go completely out of whack whenever it is moved. There are also half second delays that consistently occur while navigating through the operating system. Let’s hope these bugs can be worked out… I’d really like to see the Thunder emerge and actually challenge the iPhone! It’d be a shame if it fell into the other group of minor touchscreen wanabees. For more from Boy Genius click here.
Technorati Tags: blackberry thunder, blackberry 9500, iphone 3g, boy genius, boy genius report, RIM
July 9th, 2008
Someone sent this pie graph to me earlier today, and I thought it was pretty interesting. In fact, our whole team is still talking about it. Before I get into anymore details, let me show you the chart first.
Are you surprised that RIM has such a huge smartphone market in the US? I am not. It did surprise me that Apple actually lost market shares between Q4 2007 and Q1 2008 though, but that’s not my point. What did surprise me is the following chart:
Nokia owns 52.9% of the World Smartphone Market? That’s huge! I guess US only covers a small portion of the world mobile industry. In fact, 44.5% of the US market is only equivalent to 11.4% of the world market!
I believe that Bharti Airtel and China Mobile alone already have more than the total number of US mobile subscribers combined, so the numbers do make sense. Just not what I had imagined, since Nokia smartphones aren’t as popular here in the US. I guess world domination is more important!
Technorati Tags: smartphone, china, india, news, graph, cell phone
June 12th, 2008
Here we go again. Blackberry Thunder news, but this time it’s for real. Official. No more rumors!
Actually RIM basically confirmed all the rumors that we have been posting for the last couple weeks regarding the new touchscreen Blackberry, known as the Blackberry 9500 or Blackberry Thunder. It is officially going to launch on Verizon and Vodafone (so I guess you can also call it Verizon Thunder or Vodafone Thunder too).
Basically the rumors are true. In terms of how it looks though, that’s still up in the air as far as I know. But again like I revealed a couple weeks ago, Boy Genius Report made a mock design:
Get ready, iPhone. Your competitor is in sight! And our source for this official annoucement? Thank you PC Magazine!
Technorati Tags: blackberry, blackberry thunder, thunder blackberry, verizon, vodafone, verizon thunder, cell phone, smart phone, mobile, mobile phone, iphone
May 29th, 2008
It’s official. Just like everything else, once it gets on The Wall Street Journal, it gotta be real! Here’s a part of the article from The Wall Street Journal:
Research In Motion Ltd. plans to introduce a touch-screen version of its BlackBerry device, according to people familiar with the matter, answering the challenge posed by the popularity of Apple Inc.’s iPhone. Read the article on The Wall Street Journal.
The bottom line? Just wait everyone, the Blackberry 9500, aka the Blackberry 9500, aka Verizon Thunder (I guess it could be Vodafone Thunder too, since they are getting that in Europe) is on its way! Just to recap, the Blackberry Thunder is supposed to have a touchscreen, just like the iPhone. For more info on the phone as well as the potential picture, you can read our old entries.
Technorati Tags: verizon, blackberry, RIM, research in montion, iphone, blackberry thunder, blackberry touchscreen, blackberry 9500, wall street, verizon thunder, cell phone, news, phones
May 16th, 2008
Now that’s a bold statement. Given that the mobile space is so competitive, I am not sure how this is going to happen. On the other hand, if there’s someone that’s able to pull this off, it would most likely be Microsoft. Their super deep pockets and manpower is second to none.
“Around 118 million smartphones were sold last year, according to market researcher Canalys. Symbian captured 67 percent of the OS market, while Microsoft came in second at 13 percent and RIM took 10 percent.” Read the whole article here.
And then you have to factor all the other things that are happening: growth of the iPhone, Google and their Android operating system, as well as the fact that Symbian and RIM don’t look like they are going anywhere any time soon. But who knows, maybe they will surprise us all.
Technorati Tags: news, microsoft, industry news, iphone, google android, android, google, smartphone, mobile, cell phone, phone, cell phones
May 14th, 2008
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