Michael Koby

Let me preface this article by letting everyone know that in my house, my wife and I both own BlackBerry devices (her the Pearl and the Curve for myself).  I have used an iPhone, played with several, and have had the privilege of using jail-broken iPhone.  I think the iPhone is a nifty device, but not the end all be all.  The iPhone has caused carriers to rethink their device strategies and I am thankful for that.  Now on to the article…

In the past week, I have read several articles that have said pretty much the same thing.  That "thing" is that the iPhone is going to be a serious threat to RIM in terms of market share now that the iPhone has Exchange functionality and and development kit that will give it third party application support.  Let me make this plain and simple the iPhone will NOT be a serious threat to RIM and I will explain why.

The Main Reason

The main reason that the iPhone is not going to take much more market share away from RIM is quite simply RIM already has an install base in the enterprise.  The fact is, IT departments do not do well with change.  They are not going to redo an entire infrastructure just because the iPhone now has Exchange support.  On top of that, through RIM’s BlackBerry Enterprise Service (BES), administrators can control the nitty-gritty of what is allowed and not allowed on their company BlackBerry devices.  Finally, last but not least, the iPhone is a consumer device.  It was built with consumers, not the enterprise in mind.

Quite simply IT administrators are going to want to limit the phone to do what they think their employees should be allowed to do.  I find it difficult to believe that IT departments the world over are going to jump at letting their employees place music and video on enterprise phones.  Yes, you can do this with the BlackBerry but an IT admin can disable the Media Player on newer BlackBerry devices from BES.  Also BlackBerry devices built with the enterprise in mind (BlackBerry 8800 series) do not have media functions on the device at all (BlackBerry 8800 does not even have a camera).

What Could Hurt RIM

Now, RIM has not been doing so well lately.  In fact, there have been a couple of outages in the past year that have left a sour taste in several users’ mouths.  However, several of these people are not in a hurry to switch from their BlackBerrys to something else.  I think a major reason for the outage is RIM’s new consumer focus.  They have released two consumer pointed devices in the past year or so, and so more non-enterprise folks are using a BlackBerry.  I do not think Research in Motion was prepared for this.

Though, if RIM does not get a handle on their problem soon, it could spell disaster for them.  That’s a little too "doom and gloom" actually, realistically people will just start looking at other options.  Research In Motion needs to really focus on their infrastructure if they hope to maintain a competitive edge in the enterprise.

The Future

I think that it is great that Apple is really trying to give customers what they want.  Support for Microsoft’s Exchange Server and other enterprise features, as well as a development kit is really going to give the iPhone the groundwork to become a driving force in mobile.  Apple has a solid device but even with the new features I would not expect to see it in the enterprise on a massive scale for a couple of more years (2 at least).

This gives the folks at RIM some time to come out with new devices that can compete with the iPhone’s "wow factor" and if early patents are any indication, they are not sitting on their hands.  I expect that we will see some form of a touchscreen device (with a tactile keyboard of course) from RIM this year.  So please folks, stop saying that the iPhone is going to take market share from BlackBerrys in the enterprise.  It may happen, but its not happening this June.

Last week, Engadget had post about a possible second generation iPhone leak (New iPhone Design Leaked on iTunes? Highly Unlikely).  In the comments of this post you’ll find a couple of people really dissing Apple in an extremely horrendous way.  This is something that seems to have become sort of sport on the internet lately.  How bad can you insult Apple.  It is basically nothing but trolling, and normally one should not feed the trolls but I just had to post something because lately this kind of thing has really gotten to me. 

Read more »

So lets take a look at how my predictions came out:

• iPhone - Apple has a winner in the iPhone and everyone is expecting some form of news around the device. I expect that at the very least we will see some cool firmware updates and at most we’ll see the release of the 2nd generation device. I think that the release of the second generation iPhone is possible, but it might be simply an announcement with a release later in the year (similar to the original iPhone announcement). As for firmware updates, I expect that the release of the firmware updates that have been rumored for the past 2 weeks will see the light of day (cut & paste, multiple contact SMS, etc). Also, possibly expect a 16GB iPhone.

Well I was 1/2 right here.  We saw the release of the rumored firmware but the 2nd generation phone was no where to be seen.  Neither was the 16GB iPhone.  Total score? I got one out of three (1/3)

• MacBook Tablet - The rumors have been circulating for this one for a little while but, in the recent Wired iPhone article there is mention of a engineers working on a tablet device and telling Steve that they could get the interface to work on a phone. I expect this will device to be announced. Another reason to think this device will be announced is due to the release of last week’s 8-Core MacPro and XServe servers. It’s MACworld so we need some Mac related releases

No tablet but we did see the MacBook Air announced.  Not quite a tablet but not really a “laptop” either.  This is a new kind of Ultra-Mobile PC (UMPC).  Score was none out of 1 (0/1)

• Several people have pointed out that Apple’s Cinema Displays are up for a refresh. While this will more then likely be announced, I expect it to be in passing.

Missed entirely.  Though this might come as a silent update in the next week or so.  Still, no points for silent updates.

• I would not expect much iPod news. They just released (back in September) a new iPod line. I would not expect major changes to these devices. At most expect a firmware update

I was dead on the money here.  We got a firmware update to go along with another announcement.  But no new iPod products.

• Finally, iTunes Movie Rentals. I think that this is going to be one of the 2 main points of the keynote (the first being the MacBook tablet). There are confirmed rumors on this front, and usually Steve will announce even if things aren’t finalized (see iPhone announcement), if only to steal the thunder from the bloggers. If this is announced, you can expect that the iTunes movies being included on DVD-Rom content of DVD video movies to be included.

We have iTunes movie rentals with all the major studios backing the project.  Fox also announced iTunes ready files on upcoming DVD releases (starting with the Family Guy Star Wars spoof DVD).

We also got an Apple TV refresh which when tied with the movie rentals is going to probably show Netflix a little competition with their own set top box (assuming we ever see it).

So my total score was like 4 out 9 (if you count my SDK addendum, which there was a small mention of the SDK but no firm release date).  So for the first of Almost, Not Yet Macworld Predictions, not a bad score.  Yes, it’s less than half, but Apple announcement have been known to be changed at the last minute so who knows.  You pretty much have to predict a lot of stuff to get even one thing right it seems with these things.  It was fun and we will definitely do it again next year.

I would like to add an additional prediction to my list.  This one goes to the iPhone category.  I expect that Steve Jobs will make some sort of official announcement as to when developers can expect the release of the iPhone SDK (development kit).  He has previously stated that we would see the development kit for their hot device in February of this year.  So I think that he will mention more details (maybe not a solid date but something) tomorrow during his MacWorld 2008 keynote.

That does it for my MacWorld 2008 predictions.