I’ve read articles in the tech news about RIM has a long history of creating great business software and devices – specifically the famous Blackberry messaging devices and smartphones.
The thing is, these last few years for RIM haven’t been good and they’ve just slashed their outlook for Q1 2011.
I’m not sure why RIM doing poorly should be the slightest bit surprising. From a user interface perspective there hasn’t been any breakthoughs. I’ve used my wife’s Blackberry enough to know how stiff and devoid elegance it really is. Yes, the home screen has some unique iconography, but once you get into the email program – the Blackberry’s bread and butter – it’s like taking a time warp back to the 90’s.
Just to put it in perspective, when RIM was winning, this was the smartphone competition:

Just sayin’.