Today the Blackberry 10 is coming to save Research In Motion. The company which now owns only 5% of the smartphone share, thanks to Apple and Android, can expect a few things from this phone.
Does this look like iPhone somehow? Photo: tested.com
Firstly, they are throwing away the physical keyboard which was so deeply and associated with Blackberry brand.
The company is also basing its hope deeply on Blackberry balance. This is a new concept introduced by the company. With a touch you can switch between your work life and your personal life. While work life wil have all your work related apps installed, like the email or the stock market watch, the personal tab will have Facebook and other personal leisure apps installed.
The business side will be accessible to appropriate authorities who will be able to remotely administer the data and apps stored there. Right after firing an employee, one IT manager can simply log in to his phone remotely and erase any confidential data. The data stored in the personal side will not be within the reach of that manager. This way any user can have just one device which can serve any purpose.
But, how good will this be for the company, the experts seem to differ. Charles Golvin called the phone ‘beautiful’ while Ray Sharma, who previously worked with RIM, uttered word of caution, “If it’s good, not great, I will be concerned.”
It is a fierce competition in the smartphone domain as all the leading brands and many smaller ones are also putting their best foot forward. RIM, which once was priced $160 in the stock market and now sells for $15 or so, needs to take a gigantic step forward to get back its previous glory, or even a part of it.
P.S. We were noticing how the investors react to the launch and it seems the launch was not at all satisfactory to them. Before launch the shares were $16 apiece and after the launch it fell to $14.25 which is a 11% decline in one day. If anything can be judged by this, the worst fear of Blackberry is yet to materialize.