Blackberry is synonymous with suits. Suits love it. It has a huge market share in its enterprise offering. Perhaps it enjoys the monopoly amongst them. A corporate pocket without blackberry is almost unheard of.

Lately, after iPhone and Android, RIM has become interested in getting a piece of consumer cake as well. traditionally it has been an enterprise company. Thus, it is facing hiccups on jumping into the consumer bandwagon. This is evident from reviews of torch and OS 6.

The RIM’s solution of push email got traction because when it was launched, the handheld devices were lacking computing power. Now a handheld device has 1 Ghz cpu and decent memory. Which signifies that all the computing task that has been delegated to RIM’s servers, can be performed on device itself. This makes the concept of push email redundant. Devices are giving same email experience as outlook or any other desktop client. Sooner rather than later, a simple https connection between the device and email servers would achieve same thing as that with blackberrys.

RIM should focus on its most loyal customers, the enterprise folks. It should put the muscle behind making their lives easier rather than loosing focusing towards consumer market. There are plenty of facets of innovation in enterprise space. Noone else is in better position to do so apart from RIM. They already hold the market. Just need to push towards designing features for the suits. They would love it, and would not mind paying (a lot of) money for the same.Otherwise, RIM would join the palm soon.

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If you did not get the title, google blackberry torch. They launched blackberry OS 6 tonight(for the late readers, 3rd day of August 2010). They also launched a phone to buckle up OS 6, which is name torch (torch?? i was hoping for a better, sensible, and meaningful name. Don’t be surprised if next blackberry phone is named after a monstrous 20 wheel automobile called truck or trailer). I must admit i was hoping for this launch since some time now. I have been using a blackberry bold 9000 since some time now. I must admit that my hopes with them took a downward spiral today. I was sincerely hoping that they would come up with a platform with could at least stand in the same line as droid X and iPhone4, if not give them a run for their money. After going through their official blog post, i could help myself jotting down my thoughts on my macbook, at almost midnight IST. I am still struggling to understand the novelty in their blog post regarding something that is named after a device whose only similarity with the handset is the fact that it too is powered by NiMh batteries. The blog post, at the time of writing this post was available at http://blogs.blackberry.com/2010/08/blackberry-torch/.

Following are the excerpts from the post, followed by some notes by an idiot, who still found it tough to get the broader picture (if any)

Today, I am thrilled to introduce the world’s first smartphone with a BlackBerry® keyboard and full touch screen – the BlackBerry® Torch™ 9800.

First, there is a big I in it. I thought that there was a big team behind it. Second, World’s first smartphone with Blackberry keyboard and full touch screen seems analogous to world’s first smartphone with android keyboard and touchscreen(the very first android had that).

It comes with the new BlackBerry 6 operating system and there is a lot to be excited about. BlackBerry 6 has something for everyone and personally, I am particularly enjoying the new universal search and auto-wrap text zoom features.

Wow! either iPhone and android are not available in Canada, or they somehow become invisible when they come in reach of RIM. I would have really appreciated if such an statement would have come from someone from North Korea (oops, they call it Korea. Many there do not even know that there is a country called South Korea). Also, it is hard to believe that it is 6th version of their OS, and still struggling to match 2nd version of android!

We spent a lot of time talking with customers, testing and re-testing the software to make sure we could deliver the new features users want without losing any important aspects of the user experience that our customers already know and love. BlackBerry 6 delivers a stunning visual design and the teams here have done an incredible job implementing the amazing array of enhancements, including our new WebKit-based web browser which was first previewed at MWC earlier this year.

BB Engg:- Sir, we have tried to build a browser on restricted hardware, but still, it is far from mosaic 1.0(read netscape).

CEO:- What are other’s doing?

BB Engg:- They are using webkit. and it works really good.

CEO :- Then why the fuck are you wasting my time! Lets use it too. You go ahead and port it! I’ll take care of using some new adjectives during the launch.

With the new BlackBerry Torch smartphone, we also believe our hardware team has delivered the best combined touch-qwerty experience available, seamlessly incorporating our signature BlackBerry keyboard and precision trackpad in a striking design that simply feels great in your hand. One of the things I love the most about the BlackBerry Torch design is the way it allows me to easily transition between using the touch screen, trackpad and keyboard interfaces. I can switch between them and interact with the handset and applications in a very natural way.

Tell me, who in this world would first use the phone in fashion as put up! A free beer to the person!

The BlackBerry Torch is also the first BlackBerry smartphone to ship with our new web browser and we invested a substantial amount of time and effort to engineer a WebKit-based browser that can operate quickly, beautifully and efficiently. In fact, Peter Rysavy today released a new study reporting on the efficiency of the BlackBerry 6 Browser with respect to data usage. We continue to believe that efficiency is an important advantage for our customers and an imperative for the wireless industry.

With all due respect to webkit, guys! RIM! you did not invent webkit! You first ported the fact that webkit can be a good mobile browser, and then you ported webkit.

At RIM we have a long history of building groundbreaking technology, and we are passionate about our products – each day, thousands of RIM employees are focused on enhancing our software, services and smartphones in order to continue meeting your changing wants and needs. The launch of the BlackBerry Torch with BlackBerry 6 is one of the most significant launches in our history and this amazing new smartphone brings together many of RIM’s core strengths into one fluid and superior user experience.

Well! RIM have put some weight on the fact that it is not necessary that early movers are not always the in best innovators. No one doubts them being pioneers of, if not smartphones, wireless email devices. Messaging if the only core strength of RIM. If they continue to “innovate” in this fashion, they might loose it too!(in fact they have almost lost it too! They held an advantage when traditional email did not work properly on handhelds due to many limitations like HTML rendering etc. Current smartphones do not have any of them, thus i feel that messaging experience at par with desktop is not far. )

After reading the specs of torch on mobilecrunch, 624MHz CPU struck me most. Bold 9000 had it too. So, in short, they have same hardware platform, with new OS 6!(which seems like ios and android morph).

I had high hopes on them. Being a long time blackberry user, i have decided not to continue with them. Even Samsung galaxy is a better one as of date.

Disclaimer 1:- I had applied to RIM as a product manager last year, but my application was gracefully turned down.

Discalimer 2:- Old monk with coke is good food for thought and typos!

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Lets start with an adage. “I was so occupied in work that i did not get time to blog!”.

Now some details.

• I have moved migrated to a better server machine for this blog. The last machine was hacked and became part of a botnet for some 2-3 days. Really ashamed to disclose this. The machine was running and pretty old version of Ubuntu dirtro. It was time to rebuild, and upon some research, i decided to migrate instead of rebuilding. First migration after 4 years.
• I suddenly decided to play with iPhone apps. I had a pretty old apple developer account. I bought a macbook, courtsey my younger brother
• Got a new Wii, and spend a couple of nights first playing with it, then modding it, and then playing again It now runs linux and mplayer as apps.
• I realized that movable type is not my piece.
• I learned erlang, android and iphone.
• I got a blackberry bold.
• I got a new car (actually swapped with Dad’s new car).
• I gained a lot of weight and latest tests report increased LDL cholesterol and alarming triglyceride levels. Have started exercising again since last one week.
• Said goodbye to many friends imigrating abroad for studies and work.
• Have experienced how doctors in US and India make fool of patients.

And i finish this post by yet another cliche. “I promise i will resume blogging again.”

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