RIM Dropping Blackberry, Going For Android??!!

By Thea Neuman (Google)

RIM is yet to be out of the woods and into bright light – it appears that the company itself doesn’t know how long it will take to bounce back. In an interview with The Telegraph, Thorsten Heins talked in depth about his company’s long term plans, goals, and existing troubles, but what created the headlines was Heins statement in which he confessed that at one point of time his company did consider ditching its own Blackberry OS in favor of Android OS, which is big time captivating interest of people.

He further added that after being in a quandary for some time, RIM finally made a choice and preferred to go ahead with its own BB OS instead of Android. It is quite apparent that if he would have opted for Android, the company would have saved a lot of precious, time but in the opinion of Heins, Android doesn’t cater to the needs of BB users in the way RIM does. BB smartphones are known for offering exclusive business phone features and hence BB users are not much keen about gaming and other entertainment media.

Sophisticated and unique business-friendly phone features make BB smartphones stand apart from the others, and opting for another OS would be losing its USP. Heins was trying to prove his point by stressing that switching over may not look like a big deal, that too knowing about Android’s growing popularity and user-friendly and extensive application ecosystem but after weighing the pros and cons, he felt that they should not lose the USP just because things are not working in favor of RIM currently.

He also confessed that Apple and Samsung have achieved a lot more than RIM, but he is positive that RIM has a lot more to offer.

Heins also mentioned that his company is pondering over licensing out forthcoming BB 10 operating system to third-party manufacturers. RIM needs support from an organization that can optimize their production by minimizing the costs.

Declining market share is something which is a constant source of worry for this Ontario-based company, but when it comes to regions like Asia Pacific, they can relax because it’s a market where BB is witnessing growth in enterprise as well as consumer markets.

It takes a lot of guts to admit your weaknesses, and Heins certainly deserves accolades for that. But deciding about the OS is something which is the most crucial decision which can be a game changer.

Looking at RIM’s deteriorating condition, people started speculating that it would follow the footsteps of Nokia which decided to give up its OS in favor of another OS, but RIM decided to follow another path.

Well who knows that in long run RIM’s decision pays off, but right now another major concern is there about the timeframe. While RIM is delaying the launch of Blackberry 10, its competitors are launching better and more innovative products in the market.

I personally feel that Blackberry needs to reduce its data rates a bit, since they are much higher than the ones available on Android and iPhone. Apart from that, some really cool apps and games would be nice. Blackberry App Store does have some games, but they are nowhere near the games offered by iPhone and Android.

RIM decided to pass on the decision of implementing Android for now. Is it a good decision? What do you think?