Is RIM quitting the consumer market? Erm...

[#1]

If, like me, you were listening to BBC Radio 4 this morning, in a semi-slumbering state, you might, like me, have been jolted awake by the news that RIM is "withdrawing from the consumer market."

RIM, maker of the iconic BlackBerry, started out as a B2B product; but it became increasingly popular among British youth, who loved the classic BlackBerry keyboard for texting and the bundled BBM service. (Interesting, those who hadn't noticed this trend found out about it from coverage of last summer's English riots.)

This new consumer focus became a healthy part of the company's revenue. However, the rise of the iPhone and Android smartphones has taken a huge toll on consumer BlackBerry sales more recently.

The BBC News website says:

Just three months after his appointment, chief executive Thorsten Heins said the company would now focus on its traditional core market of corporate customers rather than on individual consumers.
  

Now however, RIM has made a statement, clarifying its position:

Whilst we announced plans to refocus our efforts on our core strengths, and on our enterprise customer base, we were very explicit that we will continue to build on our strengths to go after targeted consumer segments.
...
Whilst we announced we would refocus on the enterprise business, we also stated part of competing in the 'bring your own device' segment is to create a compelling consumer offering.
  

No media outlets seemed to have noticed that yesterday. All the headlines I saw were variations on:

RIM to exit the consumer phone market
RIM says it is pulling out of the consumer market
RIM exits consumer business as losses hit $125m
 

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Richi Jennings, editor of Input Output UK, is also an independent analyst, specializing in blogging, email, spam, security, and other technology topics. His writing has won ASBPE and Neal awards. You can encircle him at +richi, follow him as @richi on Twitter, pretend to be his friend at Facebook.com/richij or just use boring old email: io@richij.com.

[#2]

I was that slumbering co listener, I doubt they would declare that we are leaving the market, better to internally shift and then watch the market.

[#3]

Definitely not by choice.

[#4]

Laurence, glad it wasn't just me. But it wasn't just Auntie Beeb that came to that conclusion. There were countless headlines this morning, all with the same story: RIM exciting consumer business.

[#5]

Ahhhh RIM... You so nearly had it all. I remember well the first time I came across them - October 1999 at the Microsoft Exchange conference in Atlanta. They had just launched their first Exchange integration product and were loaning people a BlackBerry handset to try it out. They were the talk of the show. Such a shame they've fallen down a deep hole. It's all about focus - if you're not good enough to stay ahead of the big boys in consumer features, you need to have the corporate side sewn up. BYOD has bumped them off the top of the pile, leaving them pretty much nowhere.

[#6]

Yes I remember a time when they called them 'Crackberries" because everyone wanted one, and the people who did have them couldn't put them down. Oh to fall so far.

[#7]

I think that the problem with RIM was to be too confident of their monopoly in the professional market. When they started to see that it wasn't so (BYOD anyone?) they were too slow to adapt to the new reality.

[#8]

Over the past twelve months I have spent some time looking at RIM's issues, particularly since their last social media disaster which they mishandled in every sense of the word. They even made my top of the pick for the 'Top Social Media Disasters' video of 2011 and there were some pretty heavy contenders at the time. There has been intense speculation over the last few months whether they would throw in the towel and join someone else, using the last card they hold (their secure servers) as a bargaining point. The move to target the enterprise sector which once was the core of their business, coming at this time is just as wrong. For a start they no longer hold the exclusive on security (Apple has made headway on that front) and they can no longer afford to be competitive. If anything they appear to be a brand in decline making business decision makers think that whatever choice they make with Blackberry now will have to be made again in the near future. The fact that they are trying to backpedal from the news angle of this story only shows that, once again, here's a former heavy hitter, at a loss how to manage social media, the lateral flow of information and their image in an age when news is no longer controlled by Press Releases (yeah, they actually made an announcement that they would issue one at the height of the crisis with their customers, last year).

[#9]

RIM has just completely failed to market features that it has that are really good. They have the best smart phone for messaging that there is, the Bold keyboard is awesome. Their email and security are also among the best. But they haven't been able to market this successfully against the 800 lb gorilla.

And I think that they way Apple has twisted the arm of the carriers to place their products in your face and force everyone to subsidize them has hurt. I think that many people just buy an iphone...