Remember last Spring, rumors of a new BlackBerry Connect enabled device code named RazrBerry, supposedly from Motorola, acknowledged RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie not to be the Motorola Q? I think his exact words were “Q and RazrBerry are not the same product”. “There are some very core differences.”
It seems like when the Motorola Q and the BlackBerry 8700 started picking up steam all talks about the RazrBerry seemed to die of. This is, in fact, the second time that I have written about what happened to the RazrBerry. I only bring it up because the BlackBerry Rumor Mill seems to be in full swing and the one of the top two guys over at Research in Motion kind of acknowledged its existence.
Has anyone heard anything?
It’s so hard to know where RIM is headed with their BB Connect solution.
I sometimes wonder if they know. The stories regarding BB Connect seem to surface from time to time, and then just kind of die out, like RIM doesn’t quite know what to do with it. RIM doesn’t seem to generate much lasting momentum for the BB Connect product. Maybe they want it that way, at least for now.
It seems to me like BB Connect is RIM’s way of having a backup plan in case other devices really do at any point begin to overwhelm BBs in terms of sales and adoption. Then they can at least try to salvage software sales.
It reminds me kind of what Palm attempted to do at one point in the late 90’s…they had these plans for Palm everywhere, for Palm software embedded in a whole spectrum of devices. It seemed that this plan was a bailout for when their PDA devices began to fade in terms of sales. Of course, that strategy failed, but they rediscovered the hardware side with the Palm Treo and saved the brand.
Hopefully, RIM won’t go the way of Palm, but will continue to build on their existing strengths and markets, all the while continuing to innovate and come up with fresh new products.