$RIMM marketing: get aggressive against Apple

Here's an exclusive publication on RIM: http://seekingalpha.com/article/275733-catalysts-for-a-rebound-in-research-in-motion-shares

Another marketing executive left RIM. This gives insight on how the company will approach its cost-cutting: the marketing department.

That said, a clean-house in the marketing department can mean good things for consumers if RIM gets aggressive. A user posted this comment (prior to this announcement) about what RIM can do in marketing:

But their marketing department could use a bit of an overhaul. They need to be much more in-your-face. Trade any iphone for a BB promotions. Trade any ipad for a playbook promotion. 10 free apps with every purchase, regardless of price. Max cost for new phone without plan = $200, not $600. Go for volume. Offer deals to Bell et al if they shun Apple products -- you know that's done in the states.

The major drawback from the BB OS is it doesn't feel as 'silky' as the iphone OS. The Playbook fixes this, and the ports to other phones of that OS has to happen NOW, not months from now.

And in marketing faux pas, RIM decided (wrongly) that its v6 OS would not be made available to phones before the latest Bold, crapping on all the new Tour et al owners. This is the type of mentality that has to stop.

Why $RIMM Will Not Go Away

The popularity for Android and iPhone resulted in a massive decline in sales of Blackberry in North America. That, and slow operating system updates and a relatively slow refresh cycle for newer models of the device resulted in RIM's demise Friday.


RIM, however, is not dead. It will not die, as most would wish, because of three reasons.


1. Battery life is very good, provided a user does not install a "leaky" app (unlike with Android).
2. No presumptuous spell check system (iPhone)
3. Some users will not give up a keyboard


Here's a comment summing up what went wrong with Blackberry over the last 8 quarters:

I had a Blackberry for years (for business) and loved it, then made the switch to Android thinking it's the next generation smart phones and would be better. WORST MISTAKE EVER! Android and Windows phones are made for 12 year old girls who like to gossip and send pics to each other. Blackberries are the no nonsense utility phones. Unfortunately RIM lost sight of their strength and started competing directly with the others by coping their models and thus its failure. They should have stuck to what they did best.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-rims-astounding-collapse-in-the-us-2011-6#ixzz1PolRqS00

Two Publications

Two articles were accepted by SeekingAlpha for publication. The RIM piece was ready after using the Playbook for over a hundred hours and after gaining the experience of updating 3 generations of Blackberry Phones and moving the devices over to RIM's Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) 5.

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