RIM in trouble?

For a while now, people are saying RIM, the maker of blackberry devices, is in trouble. Many companies still use them though they are increasingly also offering iphones and android devices to their employees. Many people carry both a blackberry and another mobile device. Always, there have been rumors that RIM will make a come-back and retake the business market for mobile devices.

However, with the memory of the global outage still fresh in my mind, I'm now reading that analysts no longer think RIM will ever bounce back. Certainly this is not news. It is just a reminder of how troubled RIM is and how management does not seem to be responding to their imminent demise.

Personally, I am not a fan of the blackberry. It is not an attractive device and it is not fun to use. The style and shape of the blackberry has pretty much stayed very recognizably blackberry since it first came out in the market. I find its look unattractive. Then again, most people don't get a blackberry for its looks. So let's talk about functionality.

First of all, I find the touch trackpad response to be clunky. If I move my thumb across it, sometimes it will not respond and sometimes, it responds too fast. I've tried changing the sensitivity settings, but see no improvement. Contrast that to the iPhone touch screen and the blackberry trackpad just doesn't measure up.

Then there are the Options and Settings areas. In the iPhone, there is just Settings and the options per setting are simple enough. In the Blackberry, such things are divided between two sections: Options and Settings. Within Options and Settings, you are presented with a myriad of choices to play with. Pressing the Menu button also affords you more Options and Settings. So if you want to remember how you set something or changed something, you probably can't remember until you've played around with the device a bit. This makes setting up or troubleshooting the device a pain because you have to spend time figuring things out. Of course, you can say the blackberry gives you greater control whereas the iPhone doesn't, but the truth is, the iPhone doesn't because it doesn't need to.

Which leads me to my next point. The blackberry doesn't always work like it should when it comes to Enterprise Activation. I can't tell you how many countless hours I've spent trying to wrangle through issues with Enterprise Activation. It's not every device that has issues, but there are enough to make mobile technicians want to pull their hair out at times. Personally, I find it unintuitive to figure out how to get the subfolders to populate. At first, I couldn't figure it out so I wiped and re-activated the device, which failed. So I had to remove and re-add my account to BES and then redo the wipe and re-activation. Someone then showed me how to populate the subfolders. However, I have no historical emails and no calendar events now. I did some internet research and tried forcing the service books to be resent and also forced a slow sync. Nothing helped. Looks like there is nothing for it but another re-activation, which I am waiting to do. At least I'm getting my emails. Again, with the iPhone, there were no problems. Setup was extremely simple and easy and quick. Folders, calendars and tasks populated without problems or tinkering from my part. So if Apple can make it so easy, why can't RIM?

Internet browsing also sucks on the blackberry. I've tried to look up stuff or to go websites on the browser and will often get a connection error. I don't know if this is a carrier issue, but when I switch to iPhone, no problems - the page comes up right away!

Please note that I don't do anything on the blackberry aside from checking my emails, looking at my calendar and looking at my tasks - all for work only! I don't download apps or add personal emails accounts. When I use the web function, it is to use online tools that I need to access for work. Even if I were to stay away from the web function, at its most basic, I at least need it to work for my emails, calendar and tasks. What is the point of carrying it around if it doesn't help me do my job while on the go? Why would I want to carry this thing when I can just carry my iPhone which can do everything the blackberry can do but more and better?

The whole idea of the blackberry, for me, was to separate work from home. My iPhone is for home and the blackberry is for work. If only the blackberry works like it should...