Uh oh. More bad news for BB? Plastic Mobile ponders RIM’s future…

This week RIM announced that CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis will step down from their positions, though they will maintain majority of their shares and stay on as board members.

Thorsten Heins will take on the daunting role as RIM’s new CEO. In spite of seriously declining share prices, Heins has signalled that he will largely stay the course set by Balsillie and Lazaridis.

In a Star interview, Heins notes that RIM is still a solid financial performer and that it is the number one smartphone in many countries outside of the US. He goes on to say the their problem isn’t technology, it is in their communications and that is where they need to focus their efforts. “The perception just doesn’t match the reality,” Heins told the Star. “We’ve got $1.5 billion in the bank, and virtually no debt. We’ve also got a 75 million subscriber base.”

Regardless of this assurance, shares dropped even further after the announcement of the RIM pioneers’ resignation. Ugh. Sorry RIM, we can’t help but think the future looks grim.

What do you think? Will Heins be able to pull RIM out of its US despair? Tweet us with your thoughts @plasticmobile.

Today was a big day at Plastic. The Marketing Intern brought in homemade chocolate chips cookies so we were all on a major sugar high for the launch of “ETF Central,” our latest app that was created in partnership with Claymore Investments, a subsidiary of Guggenheim Funds Services Group, Inc.

Because a part of our mandate is to pioneer innovative products and solutions that allow the financial industry to expand into the mobile space, we wanted to be sure that ETF (Exchange-traded Funds) Central met all of the user needs, in an engaging and easy-to-use format.

So, employing both tech and creative wizardry (our magical formula for super apps) we created a sophisticated tool that sets the bar for excellence in the financial space. Voila! ETF Central. A new, free, customized, dual-purpose mobile app available on BlackBerry, PlayBook, iPhone and iPad.

ETF Central satisfies both the need to better educate users unfamiliar with the relatively new exchange-traded funds, as well as allows them to manage their ETF investments easily and conveniently. The app puts all Canadian-listed ETFs into the user’s palm, allowing them to view market prices of all TSX listed ETFs, create and track their ETF portfolio, view ETF educational resources, link to all online brokerages to trade ETFs, track upcoming ETF events and more. Ultimately, it’s a pretty outstanding financial gadget.

The leading force behind the app creation, and our very own “Queen of Apps,” Melody Adhami was excited to launch ETF Central as ETFs represent a sizable industry, but public awareness about them has been limited. She and our team here at Plastic Mobile set out to create a tool that would both educate and manage ETFs for the average user/investor. To read the full media release, click here.

In the news:

Advisor

Investment Executive News

CNW News

Digital Journal

The buzz continued to circulate over the weekend about RIM’s future in the mobile space. Research In Motion Inc. is currently meeting with a stock price that values the company at less than the by and large regard of its assets. After myriad product delays and an international three-day service outage, RIM’s stock price has fallen more than 68% this year and was trading this morning at about $18.61 per share.

However, two weeks back an article in the Los Angeles Times suggested that, although the faster iPhones and Android devices have been raking in market share from Research in Motion’s once-addictive and adroitly nick-named “CrackBerry,” analysts and executives are not ready to count the smartphone out just yet.

Further commentary over the weekend seemed to imply the that upcoming BBX operating logic, which will run on a new line of RIM’s BlackBerry tablets and smartphones, might just be the company’s salvation, bringing a third contendor back into the current two-man race.

BBX Photo Leaked on The Verge

As reported today, “People reckon it’s a melting ice cube,” Leon Cooperman told  Bloomberg. ”We reckon the new operating logic is going to surprise people.” BBX, which is set to launch early next year, will enable apps built for Google’s Android operating logic to run on BlackBerry devices. The new line of BBX phones will also focus more on touchscreens and less on physical keyboards, which have been a hardware trademark of BlackBerry phones. Those fairly lacklustre items aside, we still know very little about the BBX. But that isn’t deterring Leon Cooperman, RIM investor and hedge-fund manager slash founder of Omega Advisors Inc., which bought a sizeable stake of about $28 million in RIM last quarter.

According to the Dow Jones Newswires, he also recently reported a purchase of 1.43 million shares in RIM in a regulatory filing, betting that the BlackBerry-maker’s new devices are attracting customers. “We bought (the shares) because we think (the stock) is undervalued, and we will be proven right or wrong in a few weeks when they report results,” Cooperman is quoted as saying in an article in businessmobilebriefing.com.

While we at Plastic Mobile love a tale of the underdog rising to acclaim, we’re not convinced we’d bet our beer money on the new BBX operating system.

Tweet us @plasticmobile with your verdict – will Cooperman and RIM be high on a much-needed success, or will they live to eat their BlackBerries?

Congratulations are in order as Research In Motion’s Blackberry App World has finally reached 1 billion downloads last week. For those who don’t follow tech news, RIM has been struggling for the past several months (understatement). Approximately three years ago, RIM shares were trading at $150.00 apiece; currently they are trading at roughly $26.00.

Shareholders must be ripping their hair out!

Although we are happy for RIM, we cannot side track from the fact that it took about two years to accomplish this whereas, Apple’s app store has a total of 15 billion downloads to date and hit it’s 1^st billion in just nine months. Google’s Android has a total of 4.5 billion downloads to date.

In the latest shareholders meeting, RIM confirmed that it is planning on releasing seven new phones in the upcoming months. SEVEN? RIM hasn’t stated what new smartphones they will be launching but they are most likely to be upgraded models. The two most talked-about Blackberries to be released are the Bold 9900 and the Torch 2 (9860), as for the other five, we will just have to wait and see.  Also, RIM announced that the new Blackberry OS 7 would be the OS running on the Bold 9900.

We are thrilled to see the new operating system but rumor has it that current blackberry users would not be able to upgrade to OS 7. Let us hope that this is just a rumor.

But could this be the beginning of a comeback or the coming of Rimageddon?

Most will agree with the latter, it’s just too difficult to stay optimistic! Just a couple of days ago, RIM announced they plan to lay off 2,000 employees, which is equivalent to approximately 11% of their workforce. The intended purpose for this is to help RIM achieve higher growth, realign strategic objectives, and restructure senior management. These lay-offs will allow RIM to reduce costs and supposedly, introduce products to the market in a more timely manner (i.e. faster).

The next couple of months should be exciting.

Good or bad move by RIM?

Good luck RIM, you’ll need it.

Our team huddled around the table when our own PlayBook arrived in the mail. Despite all the mediocre reviews on RIM’s tablet, the first day sales exceeded the low expectation.  Here’s a quote from Postmedia News:

“Checks of 70 retail stores found 11 per cent of the locations stocking the device were sold out, according to Mike Abramsky, analyst at RBC Capital Markets. He estimates day one sales of 50,000, including pre-orders, and that RIM is on track to ship 500,000 PlayBooks in the first quarter of fiscal 2012.”

In the next 60 days, there will be an update to offer PlayBook users stand-alone email, rather than having to go onto web-mail or the Gmail app. In the meantime, make sure to download our popular Rogers Sportsnet Hockeycentral app.

Check out the rest of the photos on our Flickr page

Research In Motion introduced its BlackBerry Payment Service, enabling developers to monetize their software via in-application purchase options.

According to RIM, BlackBerry App World developers can offer in-app digital goods including content such as ebooks, magazines, and photos, as well as other services like video streaming or voice transcription.

However, RIM does not allow BlackBerry developers to sell virtual currencies or in-app credits, physical goods or services, and digital goods used across multiple applications.

In other news, RIM is giving BlackBerry users work-life Balance through their new feature, BlackBerry Balance.

Research In Motion will allow its handset owners to split work and personal data stored on the devices using this new feature.

The decision to separate work-related emails sent using the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) from personal photographs, social networking activity and web browsing is BlackBerry’s bid to stay competitive in both the business and consumer markets.

Balance is expected to make its debut onto handsets in North America in the next two months, but there is no indication of a wider release yet.

It is expected to be available on all BlackBerry devices in the future, including the company’s as-yet unreleased PlayBook tablet.

The BlackBerry handset maker, RIM is looking at potentially buying Gist, an app that manages a users’ professional contacts in a “social inbox” style, based on GigaOm report.

This purchase would be the second most recent acquisition made by RIM for the purpose of improving the user experience; as earlier this month, RIM bought The Astonishing Tribe, a user interface specialist based in Sweden.  

Gist’s social inbox management tool unifies a users’ contacts and allows them to organize the various feeds of information coming through. Since RIM’s main focus has always been on how businesses communicate and network, this feature would definitely fit their target users.

If this acquisition goes through, it’ll be a great fit for RIM, given Gist’s focus on enterprise users. Also, as RIM is currently facing greater competition in the market than ever before, this acquisition, along with PlayBook’s launch will carry them through the year.  Only time will tell what the playing field will look like in the upcoming months.

Since the release of the Apple iPhone in 2007 the world of smartphones has changed dramatically. Apple, Google Android, RIM and Microsoft Phone have been competing for market share by advancing not only their OS and user interfaces but in general the overall usability of cell phones. Let’s have a brief look at what they are offering to the users now.

Mirosoft Phone 7
After an successful attempt with the launch of its past Microsoft Mobile OS, Microsoft came up with a new strategy and a new product to make up for what it did wrong the first time. Microsoft is re-entering the market with a totally new OS: “Windows Phone 7”.

With a totally new user interface the Windows Phone 7 OS Version 1.0, will become available to users on multiple phones November 8, 2010. Among those will be the Samsung Focus, LG Quantu, HTC HD7 & 7 Pro and the Dell Venue Pro.
Microsoft built Windows Phone 7 entirely from the ground up; to prevent significant delays in release, they were somehow forced to leave out features that we take for granted on smartphones nowadays. Yet, Microsoft has brought new elements to the Smartphone category, and as everything is a matter of individual preference, some may prefer these new features over any other Smartphone.
According to first hand-on impressions by industry specialists the Windows Phone 7 impresses. A real plus of the Windows Phone 7 is its customizable home screen, which allows users to customize their information as per their preferences in live tiles which contain widgets, applications and live information as per the user preferences. This is a completely new experience and extremely user friendly. Android uses live widgets and is customizable as well.
Some of the disadvantages of the Windows Phone 7 are that it does not allow third-party applications to run in the background and pauses them until you return to the application, which is a huge disadvantage; it disallows multi-tasking. Windows Phone 7 doesn’t have a Copy/ Paste functionality as we know it from other Microsoft Programs. Windows Phone 7 uses Microsoft Maps, which has many disadvantages, most notably the large global audience of the popular Google Maps. Windows Phone 7 does not support Adobe Flash or even Microsoft’s own Flash-competing technology, Silverlight which is a huge disappointment for both users and developers.

iPhone 4
The new iPhone 4 is a complete renovate of its predecessor (iPhone 3GS) in every aspect. Initially when released the phone came with some major problems, the biggest proclaim was the poorly placed antenna, which reduced reception and the proximity sensor problem which caused users huge problems. Both of these major issues were addressed and resolved by Apple.
The iPhone 4 is noticeably slimmer, slightly narrower and at about the same weight as its predecessor. It’s 960×640 pixel IPS display is a revolution and has brought the highest resolution to the industry.  Another great feature is the “Retina display” that improves the sharpness, clarity and visible detail of images. The real difference this will make is for people who’ll spend time reading on the iPhone.
The newest feature of the iOS 4 is the introduction of multi-tasking, which however is limited compared to other phones such as RIM or Android based models. Apple’s new proclaiming feature of multi-tasking, doesn’t exactly do true multitasking. In most cases Apple puts third party applications to sleep until the user reopens them, except in some critical applications such as VoIP or Navigation Systems or Background music.
Another major improvement is the upgrade of the camera from a 3 megapixel to a 5 megapixel one and the addition of LED falsh backlit sensor, as well as the augmented reality feature of the iPhone. The camera also allows shooting of High Definition movies at 720p with 30 frames / sec.
Another real beneficial addition is face time, which allows free video conferencing among iPhone and now as recently announced all Mac users.
Real disadvantages of the iPhone 4 are lack of expandable storage, improper multi-tasking, no Adobe Flash support, no WiFi Hotspot capability.

Android based phones
Google states that Android has been its best investment ever. Android brings all Google applications and gadgets from the Internet to the phone. Android’s home screen alike the Windows Phone 7 is totally customizable by the user through the use of customizable live widgets. Samsung Epic 4G, Samsung Galaxy S, Motorola Droid X and T-Mobile’s G2 are known to be the best hosts of Google’s Android OS.
Android-based Smartphones have most of the features the others have combined and therefore this platform delivers an excellent user experience.
The Android platform is the only platform that allows the use of Adobe Flash and it’s the only platform challenging RIM’s Blackberry multitasking capability.  Android-based phones can do multiple things in the background without being paused or shut down and they are the second after the iPhone to have augmented reality integrated in their OS. Another added value is the integration of Google™ and Facebook calendars with the OS Calendar. Google Talk brings Video Conferencing and Google TV and will add additional free TV service to the platform; Also, highly developed touch screen technologies, typing advances and further features make Android a real threat to all the competition.

A major disadvantage of Android based Smartphones is security issues and privacy. Just a few weeks ago,  it was unveiled that users of Android applications can easily be tracked, e.g. where did they go last? What did they buy last? Etc.

RIM’s all new Blackberry Torch
Canadian Research In Motion (RIM), the company behind Blackberry and the leading rival of the Apple iPhone in the past years, from the very beginning separated its market segmentation by focusing on high security encrypted business phones that merely focus on emailing and messaging features and almost ignoring Internet usability and other smart-phone features. The company always tends to be very conservative when it comes to newest technologies and does not want to put their device security at risk by doing too much of what they don’t know about.

With Apple launching the iPhone 4, RIM announced a new version of their current phone series, the Blackberry Torch 9800.  RIM had to bring out a mobile phone with similar technologies to meet client demands; as a result RIM launched the Blackberry Torch, and included a touch-screen display with an Apple like scrolling interface and other added benefits. The phone has a similar design of both the Blackberry Curve and Storm phones. However a key new feature is the new vertical slide-out keyboard.   As compared to the iPhone and the current crop of Android phones, the Blackberry’s Torch’s ability for dealing with music, photos and video is limited. The Torch’s 5-megapixel camera may be its best feature.  Another good new feature is the search ability of the mobile which is quite unique. For instance in the search link enter your friend’s name and all their pictures, emails, sms messages and relevant documents, facebook shortcut, etc. will show up in a list. Another key feature of the new torch is its integrated link between social media and news networks. At a touch of a finger you can switch between your email, facebook, twitter or RSS feeds basically staying in touch with all that is important to you parallel. This Blackberry device offers true multi tasking and all open applications fully operate in the background, even when you are not on them. Android based device are the only rival to this feature.

The biggest disadvantage of the Blackberry is definitely using the web browser; optimized sites can take up to 10 seconds to load, three times longer than on the iphone. Another major disadvantage is the complexity for developers to build applications, which leads to lesser applications for Blackberry users.  Perhaps on piece of advice would be to stop changing their screensizes…that would be a start.

The Blackberry Torch 9800 is not necessarily a better Blackberry, or a competitor to phones running more sophisticated touch operating systems like Apple iphone, but similar to previous Blackberry devices, it will continue to definitely satisfy business users.

What does all of this mean for the Smartphone market?
The competition is tight in the Smartphone market and each of the companies are coming up with new solutions and strategies to target users and increase their market share.

Microsoft’s first attempt to come back to the market has been fair with having been more user centric and allowing users to use what they want; however, to survive they have to advance further.
Android seems to be a strong and aggressive competitor to all; however, it is suspected that security issues will withhold many users from using Android.
RIM should also rethink some of its strategies and definitely work on the usability factor of “Mobility” as their phones have lost their edge in that category and are becoming “chatter-boxes”, quite sophisticated ones though.
It seems Apple is still leading the way and will be running to swallow market share by offering acceptable security, privacy, ease of use, elegance, creativity, and beauty in design.  Apple seems to be an expert when it comes to one of the most important factors of the future of Mobile Technologies: “Usability combined with simplicity”.  The question now becomes, “How long will this suffice, before the next breakthrough technology dominates the market?”

According to BusinessWeek, it looks BlackBerry App World might be launching at the CTIA 09 next week on April 1st. Plastic will be at CTIA 09 in Vegas and it’s going to be very interesting to see what RIM will be bringing forth for both developers and consumers.  As a consumer, we hope to see apps that are rich with functionality and have a well-designed mobile user experiences – things that we’ve become used to thanks to the iPhone.

As a developer, we hope to see a better development arena (IDEs, debugging tools, frameworks, etc.). At Plastic, we develop mobile applications for many platforms (iPhone, Andriod, Windows Mobile, …) and by-far we put the most effort (man-power) on our BlackBerry projects. For instance, comparing development for the BlackBerry vs. iPhone… we see a multiple of 3-4 times the effort needed. I hope RIM is listening and catch up to Apple and other developer-friendlier platforms.