linuxrants7xpg, on 25 April 2012 - 05:16 PM, said:
I disagree. All you have to do is maintain an adequate product (it doesn't even have to be good) as well as a continuing sales pitch telling you how great the product is. People are already roped into the product because they were convinced it was great to start out with, and they've now invested in the platform. As long as they don't have something change their mind such as an extremely bad release, or a competing product that absolutely dwarfs it (a product only marginally better won't due), people will continue to believe the pitch. All that depends on whether you believe the pitch given to you by the salesman of course. Trouble with that is, if the salesman isn't good, you're in a whole lotta trouble.
I honestly can't believe what I'm reading here from you Linux. Seriously, you have such the clouded view. There is a reason Apple beat Blackberry in sales and profit. People aren't as dumb as you're making them out to be. Compare a blackberry to an iPhone today. I have a Blackberry Curve sitting right here on my desk next to my iPhone 4S. Let's compare if you like. The reality is the iPhone is far more dynamic. Apps install much more easily. It's by far faster, more elegant, better able to deal with today's social media even though the Blackberry has Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare all are no where near the quality, speed and fluidity of the iPhone apps.
The iPhone is winning customers because customers can easily see the better product. What is better? That's up to the individual. And last quarter, 35.1 million people decided the iPhone was best. That blows away the sales of the Blackberry. It completely obliterates the Windows 7 sales. Right now, the people have decided that Android of various flavors and the iPhone are the top of what they expect and desire out of their smart phone.
If customers didn't agree with that, sales would drop off sharply. Blackberry used to be known as Crackberry because those that owned them, myself included, couldn't live without them. I used to pay in excess of $200 a month to own my Blackberry with BES and a subscription to hosted Exchange. Now I can go to Virgin Mobile and buy a Blackberry curve for $99 and pay them $35 a month to have 300 minutes, unlimited data and text for the Blackberry. The MARKET has set the price for Blackberry very low. The supply is there, but the demand is not. Thus the price goes lower. And now RIMM looks to be circling the drain.
Blackberry is full of good features. Yet it is failing. With BES I can see my exchange email instantly. I have an indicator light telling me I have a message. I don't on my iPhone. You have the Blackberry holster, which is a lot like a smart cover and RIM was first with it years and years ago. RIM has sync with tasks, notes, right now today. With all of these great features why is RIM failing? According to you just maintaining an adequate phone, not even a good phone along with a good sales pitch is all that is needed. Why then is RIM dying?
The reason they are dying is their product "was" good. It's time is passing. What the market expects from a smart phone is vastly different from when the Crackberry was king. RIM has not evolved well. It's the same reason Microsoft has completely dropped their old phone design in favor of the more ZUNE like product. They also had adequate products and sales pitches. They are after all number one in the enterprise space, certainly if anyone can sell a Microsoft phone it would be Microsoft. Yet it isn't happening now is it?
I realize you can't stand Apple, but you've let it completely cloud your thinking. I have completely switched from Android. Yet I will give Android props. It's just not for me. I use a Mac, and yet I continue to try Linux over and over again. I like what that community is doing. I still own Windows machines and I still use them often. I just happen to prefer to carry a MacBook Air. It's light, and I can open my client's InDesign files, make edits, use Suitcase Fusion 4 to manage fonts, and basically get the job done well.
When I get into the office, I have a BOSE BlueTooth SoundLink, that works with BlueTooth. As soon as my iPhone gets near it, sound transfers from my headphones to the speaker. No WiFi needed. In other words, I buy what works the way I want to work. It's quite likely why everyone else buys what they buy. I wouldn't want to work with products that made my life horrible.
Another example. I'm on my 5th athletic watch. The Garmin Forerunner 210. I used to use Nike+, then various GPS apps, then some other gizmo I forget what's it called, then an IronMan and now a Garmin. And I finally found a product that covers all the bases I need in one product that works easily enough that it's not a pain. All those other providers made some money from me. But they don't anymore. And they won't in the future. Garmin will win my future business. Lot's of companies can make a little money for a while, but that consistently make money do so because they go beyond the mere promise of doing what they say. They actually deliver. And when you see a company growing well past the S&P500 for years in a row, you can take it to the bank that only a company that truly gets it will accomplish such a feat. There is a reason Apple went from $93 a share pre-iPhone to to over $600 a share now. And the earnings multiple is still the same as it was when it was $93 a share. Apple is simply earning more money per quarter now. Last quarter being over $40 billion. In fact, it wasn't so long ago that Apple was hoping to have revenue for a year in the $10 billion range. Now they make more than $10 billion in profit alone and in a single quarter. You don't get to $110 billion in cash and short term investments by being just an adequate company.
Help
