Ariel Segall.com Blog by Cloud Mobile Forms

Image courtesy from Crackberry

Open letter to my Friends at Blackberry :

Dear Sirs :

I have been a LOYAL Blackberry user since the days of the 950 pager.  Today, I own a Bold 9000 and I have been dreaming for the last 2 weeks on my new 9800 .

Presently, my household owns 2 iPhones ( my two teenagers – obviously ) , one 9700 that belongs to my boss ( read my wife ) and my super duper 9000.  Oh yeah, and I almost forgot – I bought myself an iPad, which is just the best gadget my hands have ever touched.

The oxymoron for this story is that , I make a living selling Blackberry Apps and Solutions.  Yes, you read it right….. I make a living selling Blackberry Solutions so that my Kids can play with their iPhones .

But now, I also read my news and research the web ( for my business ) using my iPad.  HEY !! Jim & Mike – please do not stop reading – keep on reading !!!

If we are to compare ” Apples to Apples ” or in this particular case ” Apples to Berries ” , I will still  keep my Blackberry as long as my friends at RIM really listen to the market and make some smooth adjustments to their marketing and merchandising departments.

I am not a professional blogger, and I wish you could see my notepad with all my ideas and concerns linked together as a drawing board to write this article… Yes, I now that there is an App for that, but will do my best to just point out my ideas and let you link them together.

1 ) Please Guys – Make some noise !!!

6.0 + 9800 not only is a big deal for me, but could represent the survival last resource for RIM in this fast pace mobile market, where sometimes,  sexiness and vanity  rules over reliability  and committment .

Marketing Rule #1 – it is not about your product , it is about how your clients will perceive your product

An iPhone is a content delivery, productivity and personal management tool that also can place calls, and sarcastically it includes the word “phone” as part of its name .

Blackberry is always referred first as a smartphone …. ????

Marketing Rule #2 – whatever you promise, make sure you deliver .

iPhone does it consistently and  coherently .  They have playgrounds called Apple Stores to help you to dream and fall in love, and then once you leave that store, people keep dreaming not wanting to wake up by experiencing an ongoing customer experience with no hurdles on the road .

What Hurdles …. let me just illustrate some :

a ) Memory – even at 512 Mb ( not to make reference to my frustrating 128 Mb on my 9000 ) you are limiting my ability to compulsively download and purchase apps. A profitable behavior that I learned from Apple.

I just hope that the 9800 will allow you to have as many apps as memory you could hold on your SD card.

Blackberry memory issues for the New Blackberry 9800 ? I hope NOT !!!

It is just UNACCEPTABLE that as per latest Distimo Report , these two apps – Memory Booster RAM Optimizer and QuickPull Free made the top 10 list of most downloaded applications at Blackberry App World.

b ) The other night my two kids asked me to watch a You Tube video of  Blackberry’s 6.0 on their iPhones.  These two sophisticated early adopters actually acknowledged the upcoming UI and expressed some positive attitude, but I couldn’t comment on when, what, where is going to be the big event of getting one for our household.

I just miss  those memories of standing on a line since 5 am at Boca Mall to purchase the first Apple and similar experiences for last two releases as well.

c ) Two of my best ” mature adopters ” friends that work for a Fortune 500 company named with 3 letters,  just bought the latest 4.0 iPhone . You want to know why ? Because the company announced that they will honor 2000 iPhones to be incorporated to the company’s exchange server.

Please note that these baby boomers had regular phones prior to their new acquisition.  Not even Apple expected such a reaction on the 4.0, and my best guess is that the gross of the mature market adopters are starting to accept these new devices. Where does Blackberry stands ?

2 ) Business Wise – Blackberry Rules  - Hands down no more words…..

When it comes to C-level mobile needs, speed, reliability and security, there is no better smartphone to deliver emails, keep notes and manage collaboration calendars than the Blackberry .

Yes indeed, iPhone and Android are escalating the enterprise world, but when they will match Blackberry’s security levels and user will realize that IT Policies no longer will allow them to use all those “sexy” apps, then everything will boil down to traditional ” exchange tools ( for now ) ” and then they will realize that :

.- screen real estate for composing emails  on all three smartphones – is about the same

.- BB Messenger – excels when compared to any other mobile messaging  tool

.- Blackberry’s email app functionality and connectivity with 3rd party services hasn’t been matched yet by any competitor

.- Any other productivity application that really matters for the enterprise will be touch screen friendly as long as pre-selected options are accessible, otherwise an actual  Keyboard will be much more wanted than a touchscreen UI.

Bottom line, I will buy my next 9800 instead of an iPhone 4.0 with my AT&T upgrade incentive and I will still recommend anyone to buy a Blackberry , but I implore at my friends at Blackberry to help me not to have second thoughts and to help to educate your clients, why Blackberry still rules.

I decided to leave for my next article :

a ) Why carriers still love the Blackberry over the iPhone

b ) How much cost carriers to maintain an iPhone in their networks as opposed to a Blackberry

c ) My mobile activities benchmark report when comparing an iPhone vs a Blackberry

d ) My take on the Android phones

and many more , but most important of all – what do you think ? Please comment

Blackberry, seeking to revolutionize the smartphone industry in the same way Apple transformed the whole industry, invited Apple CEO Steve Jobs to be the keynote speaker at WES 2010. At the conference, Jobs will unveil the bbPad, Blackberry’s latest tablet smartphone, starting at $498.99, a price that was 0.0001 percent lower than some analysts predicted.

The bbPad will be the most advanced technology in a magical dream and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price, but yet it won’t have a touchscreen.

Here below you can see a picture of Steve Jobs showing the new bbPad during his rehersal for his presentation.

Steve Jobs showing the new bbPad

The new bbPad will also be part of Box.net new top secret initiative, also launched today, called Space Computing – for more information please visit http://sites.box.net/spacecomputing/

Yesterday, Apple announced its latest mobile computing device called the iPad. It certainly looks like an iPhone on steroids, and yes, it boasted a price tag much lower than I expected.

Just right after the announcement, the internet started to get hit with tons of interesting reviews, but most of them came from what I call “new-age-old-school people”, even if they were using Twitter to post their point of view.

As Steve Jobs stated, the iPad is a revolutionary new device that comes to fill the gap between your smartphone and your desktop with a gadget that delivers content as per the user wants and needs.

Opposed to what most of the blogs state about the iPad having failed to materialize some cool features, I believe and understand that the iPad comes to be a genuine  true Cloud Content delivery tool.

With the ability to create and edit any kind of document with services such as Google Docs and Picnik and the empowerment that Box.net provides to instantly view ( and edit ) popular file formats for documents such as spreadsheets, presentations, PDFs, images, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator files, audio and Flash video ( Flash Apps Will Run On The iPad ) right from the Box, on a single browser window, you really do not need more than 64Gb nor a drag & drop feature.

The iPad user interface is designed to access and view content from the Cloud and from standard internet content publishers on an anywhere – anytime manner. That is brilliant and truly futuristic for those who understand where content management is heading.

Certainly, the incorporation of an SD card reader, a built-in camera or a USB port would have been great features, but please remember that all these features can easily be added with the use of Bluetooth peripherals that can bring to Apple additional revenue just like they did with their Time Capsule and Air Port Wi-Fi stations.

So, what is next? Well, for me it is very simple. I’ll get in line, wait 60 days and buy my entry level iPad with Wi-Fi and 16 Gb to manage all my personal and work information that resides on my Box.net account and then on my spare time, I will read the New York Times and stream the upcoming episodes of Lost. How about you ? Please comment .