RIM Might Survive as a Software Company
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But perhaps RIM would do better getting out
of the hardware business entirely. Perhaps the company could license its
software to other companies, and retain control of the BlackBerry data-delivery
network. BlackBerry Enterprise Server would be impossible to replace for many
of RIMs biggest customers and BlackBerry email works better than pretty much
everything else.
Moving to a software-only licensing model
would mean that RIM would be a smaller company, but it could provide the
software platform that its customers depend on, a level of security thats not
available elsewhere and give its customers confidence that the company isnt
going away. It would also prevent existing and potential customers from
abandoning BlackBerry purchases, since they would know that their devices would
keep working, even if someone else started making them.
Right now, the biggest fear that BlackBerry
users have is that theyll be abandoned. If RIM dies, they dont just have an
orphaned device, they have a device that can make phone calls and send Short
Message Service communication and not much else. Those functions that depend on
BlackBerry servers, and that includes all email, will die with it. That alone
is enough to have existing customers looking at alternatives. If your existing
customers abandon you, youre toast, because you lose the revenue to keep the
network running.
Fortunately, RIM still has options. The
company has $2 billion in the bank and no debt. With the cutbacks that were
announced along with the earnings call, the company can stay alive a while
longer, but doing so may be like eating your seed corn: You stay alive, but
theres nothing left to build on for tomorrow. Your life is prolonged, but the
ultimate outcome doesnt change.
What this boils down to is that RIM needs to
make some tough decisions, and it needs to make them quickly. They can sell the
company to someone else, perhaps Microsoft, which badly wants to be a force in
the enterprise phone market. They can move to contract manufacturing, which
would save money, and perhaps result in greater agility and maybe even a better
product. Or RIM can become a software company. But at this point, it doesnt
seem that going it alone and hoping for salvation in the form of BlackBerry 10
is the right answer.
Wayne Rash is a Senior Analyst for eWEEK Labs and runs the magazine's Washington Bureau. Prior to joining eWEEK as a Senior Writer on wireless technology, he was a Senior Contributing Editor and previously a Senior Analyst in the InfoWorld Test Center. He was also a reviewer for Federal Computer Week and Information Security Magazine. Previously, he ran the reviews and events departments at CMP's InternetWeek.He is a retired naval officer, a former principal at American Management Systems and a long-time columnist for Byte Magazine. He is a regular contributor to Plane & Pilot Magazine and The Washington Post.
