When Research In Motion Ltd. brought the BlackBerry to the market, much of the way business used to be done is now anything but the same old, same old. Also, with its acceptance into business came its acceptance into the general population, but with that came the growth of many competitors looking to take some of the market share from the company. The objective of this paper is to do a TOWS analysis for this product, based on openly available information, to see where the product stands today, and where it may look to move tomorrow. Prior to 2002 the BlackBerry was simply a two-way pager with a thumb keyboard attached to it.
With the introduction of the 5000 and 6000 series BlackBerry, the abilities began to expand with the introduction of Java and the ability to transmit email. With the 7000 series came the integration of a full color screen, making web browsing a more enhanced experience. Followed by the introduction of the 7100 series, this is where the company began to market to the general consumer rather than just the business professional. Then, with the 8000 series, the market for the general consumer was cemented with the addition of features such as Wi-Fi capabilities, built in cameras, and memory expansion options. With today's 9000 series phones RIM has expanded the Blackberries capabilities with the addition of full HTML support for web pages, the ability to receive RSS feeds, and many enhanced online social networking capabilities (Vercillo, n.d.). With this history of innovation behind it, a SWOT analysis of this product may help us to see what the future holds in store.
Due to the innovative history of the BlackBerry up to this point, it's strengths have helped to keep it in the American consumers consciousness, with 37% of the US market for smartphones
as compared to its next closest competitor Windows Mobile at 26% (Hansberry, 2009). Much of this strength in market share comes from the business world, due to IT professionals pushing for its use because, "with BlackBerry Enterprise Server, IT administrators can enforce hundreds of policies on the phone, from disabling multimedia features like the camera and music player to restricting which websites users can visit" (Morisy, 2008). Up to this point none of the Blackberries competitors come even close to this functionality from an IT standpoint. Along with that RIM has looked to upgrade the BlackBerry's looks and general consumer appeal (Morisy, 2008), to help garner even more of the market.
The weaknesses of the BlackBerry can be attributed to some of the reasons that IT departments seem to show a real love for its capabilities, because as Hansberry, 2006 points out the IT department "aren't terribly interested in media, web browsing and other goodies that Windows Mobile and other platforms seem to handle better." Along with this, until the latest models of the 9000 series the BlackBerry did not have touchscreen capabilities, so it is yet to be seen if this latecomer to touchscreen technologies has a good solution in place (Vercillo, n.d.). Also, with only one BlackBerry model available with High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA), RIM has opened itself up to the multitude of cheaper offerings from other competitors that have been offering this capability; this may have been a misstep for them not to offer this capability in more models (Chan, 2009). Also, at question has been the BlackBerry's network architecture, since a worldwide outage took place in April of 2007. Although, such outages sometimes happen on a localized basis, it can be a huge liability to have the entire worldwide network go down (Blackberry outage, 2007).
One of the biggest opportunities for RIM and the BlackBerry line is the BlackBerry Partners Fund, which is being used to help create downloadable applications for the BlackBerry from independent companies (Gardner, 2008). Apples iPhone has really dominated this market, and the BlackBerry has been slow to adopt this model for creating applications, but with both an already commanding presence in the US market and the addition of useful applications the BlackBerry would be well positioned to gain even more market share. Also, based on some of the examples given earlier in this paper, the BlackBerry could certainly benefit from upgraded web capabilities, and overall multimedia capabilities.
With nearly every electronics manufacture from LG, to Nokia, to Samsung coming out with their own smartphones, the threats to RIMs BlackBerry are many fold. This is especially true with the already mentioned weakness in
its web interface. In the global market, the BlackBerry's market share rose by nearly five percent, at the same time Nokia's market share fell from 51.4% to 38.9%, showing that with the shear number of offerings available in this market, even when you have a near dominating hold on the market it can quickly fall away. With the BlackBerry's often late arrival to new technologies, such as the use of touchscreens, HSDPA, and the availability of add-on applications, to help maintain and expand their market share, the engineers and designers at RIM need to begin catching the technology curve and getting in front of it to help create more market share for their offerings.
While SWOT analysis can help to show many of the aspects of what is right and wrong with different products, businesses, or systems, what it fails to show is to what quantitative degree each of these aspects may hold sway. As can be seen by the growing market share that the BlackBerry is currently able to capture, the BlackBerry's current strengths outweigh its weaknesses. The real question at this point is, how long will it be before a star performer that excels in the areas in which the BlackBerry is lacking, starts to meet the level of security that many IT departments enjoy about the BlackBerry and being to eat at its market share? Or, will the team at RIM rise to the challenge and upgrade their interfaces and applications to the level that their security applications have risen? Thus, setting the stage for the BlackBerry to begin taking even more market share from its competitors. Only time and the ever-incessant demands for the new, the useful, and the innovative that permeate the market place will tell.
References
Blackberry outage exposes weakness for RIM. (2007). Retrieved July 23, 2009, from: http://www.blackberryblast.com/articles/2007/4/2007419-Blackberry-outage-exposes-weakness.html
With the introduction of the 5000 and 6000 series BlackBerry, the abilities began to expand with the introduction of Java and the ability to transmit email. With the 7000 series came the integration of a full color screen, making web browsing a more enhanced experience. Followed by the introduction of the 7100 series, this is where the company began to market to the general consumer rather than just the business professional. Then, with the 8000 series, the market for the general consumer was cemented with the addition of features such as Wi-Fi capabilities, built in cameras, and memory expansion options. With today's 9000 series phones RIM has expanded the Blackberries capabilities with the addition of full HTML support for web pages, the ability to receive RSS feeds, and many enhanced online social networking capabilities (Vercillo, n.d.). With this history of innovation behind it, a SWOT analysis of this product may help us to see what the future holds in store.
Due to the innovative history of the BlackBerry up to this point, it's strengths have helped to keep it in the American consumers consciousness, with 37% of the US market for smartphones
as compared to its next closest competitor Windows Mobile at 26% (Hansberry, 2009). Much of this strength in market share comes from the business world, due to IT professionals pushing for its use because, "with BlackBerry Enterprise Server, IT administrators can enforce hundreds of policies on the phone, from disabling multimedia features like the camera and music player to restricting which websites users can visit" (Morisy, 2008). Up to this point none of the Blackberries competitors come even close to this functionality from an IT standpoint. Along with that RIM has looked to upgrade the BlackBerry's looks and general consumer appeal (Morisy, 2008), to help garner even more of the market.
The weaknesses of the BlackBerry can be attributed to some of the reasons that IT departments seem to show a real love for its capabilities, because as Hansberry, 2006 points out the IT department "aren't terribly interested in media, web browsing and other goodies that Windows Mobile and other platforms seem to handle better." Along with this, until the latest models of the 9000 series the BlackBerry did not have touchscreen capabilities, so it is yet to be seen if this latecomer to touchscreen technologies has a good solution in place (Vercillo, n.d.). Also, with only one BlackBerry model available with High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA), RIM has opened itself up to the multitude of cheaper offerings from other competitors that have been offering this capability; this may have been a misstep for them not to offer this capability in more models (Chan, 2009). Also, at question has been the BlackBerry's network architecture, since a worldwide outage took place in April of 2007. Although, such outages sometimes happen on a localized basis, it can be a huge liability to have the entire worldwide network go down (Blackberry outage, 2007).
One of the biggest opportunities for RIM and the BlackBerry line is the BlackBerry Partners Fund, which is being used to help create downloadable applications for the BlackBerry from independent companies (Gardner, 2008). Apples iPhone has really dominated this market, and the BlackBerry has been slow to adopt this model for creating applications, but with both an already commanding presence in the US market and the addition of useful applications the BlackBerry would be well positioned to gain even more market share. Also, based on some of the examples given earlier in this paper, the BlackBerry could certainly benefit from upgraded web capabilities, and overall multimedia capabilities.
With nearly every electronics manufacture from LG, to Nokia, to Samsung coming out with their own smartphones, the threats to RIMs BlackBerry are many fold. This is especially true with the already mentioned weakness in
its web interface. In the global market, the BlackBerry's market share rose by nearly five percent, at the same time Nokia's market share fell from 51.4% to 38.9%, showing that with the shear number of offerings available in this market, even when you have a near dominating hold on the market it can quickly fall away. With the BlackBerry's often late arrival to new technologies, such as the use of touchscreens, HSDPA, and the availability of add-on applications, to help maintain and expand their market share, the engineers and designers at RIM need to begin catching the technology curve and getting in front of it to help create more market share for their offerings.
While SWOT analysis can help to show many of the aspects of what is right and wrong with different products, businesses, or systems, what it fails to show is to what quantitative degree each of these aspects may hold sway. As can be seen by the growing market share that the BlackBerry is currently able to capture, the BlackBerry's current strengths outweigh its weaknesses. The real question at this point is, how long will it be before a star performer that excels in the areas in which the BlackBerry is lacking, starts to meet the level of security that many IT departments enjoy about the BlackBerry and being to eat at its market share? Or, will the team at RIM rise to the challenge and upgrade their interfaces and applications to the level that their security applications have risen? Thus, setting the stage for the BlackBerry to begin taking even more market share from its competitors. Only time and the ever-incessant demands for the new, the useful, and the innovative that permeate the market place will tell.
References
Blackberry outage exposes weakness for RIM. (2007). Retrieved July 23, 2009, from: http://www.blackberryblast.com/articles/2007/4/2007419-Blackberry-outage-exposes-weakness.html