This post is part of our Battle of the Brands feature. Let us know which brand you prefer, and check out other Battle of the Brands posts.
Research in Motion Ltd.'s (NASDAQ: RIMM) BlackBerry wireless email device has been a staple of the corporate world for years now. RIM, a Canadian company, took the function everyone wanted -- easy and superb access to mobile email -- and turned that single function into an entire industry. Of course, RIM's wireless units now handle voice calls, pictures, document editing and more, but that's not what customers buy BlackBerries for. The single function of secure, instant and mobile email is still the killer application for the BlackBerry.
Enter Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and its uber-popular iPhone that's been on sale for coming up on a year now. The company has sold way over 4 million of the devices since then and has taken a large swipe at the "smartphone" wireless handset category where the iPhone competes. Reminder: the unit has not even been on the market for a year. Apple has selectively released upgrades to the iPhone to make it more competitive in the business customer arena, and with the possibility of the iPhone being able to handle corporate push email, it may become an even bigger threat to RIM in the very near future.
Yet, the iPhone is still marketed as a consumer device -- not a business one. But that's Apple's magic: many of its products are meant for and marketed as consumer devices but as just as useful in a corporate setting. Perhaps that is Apple's secret: use the cloak of a slick consumer device to slowly but surely infiltrate the corporate space. So far, RIM really has not indicated that it's seen a threat from Apple's iPhone. The threat was there before the iPhone was launched last June, and it's growing every single month. This battle has only just begun.
Vote in our poll for iPhone or BlackBerry as your preferred brand, and let us know in the comments why you love it.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-29-2008 @ 12:11PM
slappy said...
Despite the votes being in RIMs favor for now. I sure its skewered in some way. iPhone is poised to dominate the market. Come June and later into the year, it will certainly leapfrog the competition by several years. It's the OS that makes this a remarkable product.
4-29-2008 @ 6:29PM
The Voice of Reason said...
I voted for apple but I'm somewhat uncertain of its dominance. It has failed to gain support with my large IT department. Perhaps the licensing of ActiveSync and the partnership with Cisco for VPN will push iphone over the edge this year. I hope so, Blackberry is a bit generic but right now it is secure and keeps computer nerds' jobs secure. Perhaps cool will become secure this year and the iphone will dominate???
5-01-2008 @ 12:26AM
Judy Mallard said...
I vote the Blackberry,
I would prefer the IPhone if it had a louder Volume on it for speaker phone option of conference calling.
5-01-2008 @ 4:19PM
Richard Brulato said...
After owning both, the iPhone is hands down the winner. If AAPL can get the business world to embrace the iPhone, RIMM would be out of business in a year.
5-31-2008 @ 2:19PM
Karie Roper said...
I have had a Blackjack but not the Blackberry. I now have the iPhone. About the only positive things I can say about it is I like it for things like holding all of my photos, the internet, size of the screen, seeing all voicemails at once and it looks cool. But the sound on the phone is not as clear for calls and the speaker phone is very low. And because the battery goes down so fast I barely ever use it for the things it was meant for like movies, games, music or anything else. And since I will have to send the whole phone away to get the battery replaced for nearly $100 I really am sorry I got the phone. Before I buy a new phone I will do a lot of research. I do plan to get a different phone as soon as I can. Maybe I can sell it to some one and at least get something out of it or keep it as an expensive photo album.
6-11-2008 @ 2:02PM
lomotbiz said...
The blackberry is better for its business related functions.
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