RIM v. Apple: Why Apple is Positioned Well for the Fight

Implications: The RIM versus Apple battle is the current smartphone battlefield (unless Nokia can enter the fray), with Microsoft and Palm bowing out due to an inability to innovate and deliver products that capitalize on the shifting pro-sumer or business / consumer market.  Now that Apple is making a move into an enterprise-level product, pro-sumers will now have an opportunity to carry only one product that can be used for both in-office and out-of-office activities, something that the Information Week article did not delve into -- the shift in consumer usage.  While conceding a RIM lead over the foreseeable future, this analysis will examine some of Apple's advantages as the playing field shifts.

Analysis:

I will state up-front that the RIM versus Apple battle is an exciting one, one that will be great for business.  It is true, as the article states, that six months is a long-time to wait for the enterprise class release, and this will allow RIM to defend their ground.  However, it is not as if RIM could just turn a switch and counter Apple’s attack.  After all, they’ve known this was coming since the original release.

 

RIM has a huge lead in email, which is vital to business users, and they should likely keep that lead.  I, for one, enjoy the iPhone’s email capabilities, but I readily admit that RIM is better.

 

In the face of that lead, one that RIM will retain for the foreseeable future, and the years of battles that these companies will face, I offer a few reasons why Apple is well positioned for the fight.

 

1)   Consumers don’t want to carry more than one device.  Consumers do this today, but why would anyone want a personal mobile phone and a business phone?  The Blackberry is an excellent business phone for today, as business encircles email and Blackberry is certainly the best emailer and a worthwhile though not innovative personal organizer; however, it is not a good consumer phone for today, as consumer use encircles much more.  RIM, to its credit, has finally begun to innovate its line with the Curve and the Pearl, but they were painfully late to the innovation game and face a forceful opponent in Apple.  As consumer applications, such as blog reading, Internet usage, photos, and new applications, cross over into the business segment, the iPhone is positioned well to attack the smartphone space.

2)   There are only two real competitors in this space: RIM and Apple.  Motorola and Palm are near irrelevant.  Palm’s Treo, after several years of excellent development, peaked and then failed to introduce a new, useful product.  Motorola is deeply troubled, with its failure to move on from the RAZR model-type and the horrid Q smartphone.  They’ve been losing market share by the heap, and the Windows Mobile browser has been obliterated by iPhone’s Safari browser.  This is a stark advantage for Apple, as they gear their resources to attack RIM.

3)     Do not underestimate Apple users.  The Information Week article discusses how workers are asking for company IT personnel to reimburse and/or support their iPhone purchase.  I did this as well, prior to starting my own company (which will eventually support the iPhone).  The reason that the IT department gave in rejecting my query was that Apple did not have enterprise class support, including security.  Within six months, that excuse will be gone.  This bottom-up request from employees is quite powerful, and most IT personnel that I’ve talked to enjoy the phone as well, even if they were not willing to support it until the enterprise upgrade.

4)      Internet is the killer mobile usage.  We’ve been discussing the move from voice to data for a long time.  Until now, the only real uses for mobile phones were email and text.  That was “so first decade, 21^st century.”  In the coming decade, if not over the next couple years, larger-scale Internet usage, including the usage of Google Gears and other online to offline “widgets” will become the most important use for mobile.  Video will grow in utility. 

5)      User interface is the key.  RIM has a great user experience for email, but they have a poor user experience for everything else.  Though In-Stat’s Hughes had difficulty seeing this, applications are better on an iPhone because of the user interface.  Apple’s multi-touch interface allows users to interact in a very different way with their phone.  Applications on an iPhone will also have more utility because users will be more likely to interact with these devices, and therefore businesses will have more motivation to accelerate development or encourage usage of business-useful, on-device applications.