{"id":132,"date":"2011-03-25T01:40:00","date_gmt":"2011-03-25T01:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/?p=132"},"modified":"2020-08-07T03:25:23","modified_gmt":"2020-08-07T03:25:23","slug":"rimm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/2011\/03\/25\/rimm\/","title":{"rendered":"I Told You RIM Was in Trouble"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Nearly\u00a0a year ago<\/a>\u00a0I listed the major competitors in this decade\u2019s mobile platform war. At that time, I couldn\u2019t help but notice something:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RIM looks pretty bad here. They have little cash and no diversity, by comparison.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Ten months later, the\u00a0cash<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0outlook<\/a>\u00a0aren\u2019t much better, and we\u2019re waiting for diversity in the form of the PlayBook: a tablet that runs BlackBerry Tablet OS, Adobe AIR, Flash, Android apps, and anything else that might possibly hopefully oh please be on the list of what you\u2019re wanting in a tablet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rumored Android app support was\u00a0officially confirmed<\/a>\u00a0this week. In true backward-looking enterprise fashion, it\u2019s limited to the all-but-obsolete Android 2.3 \u201cGingerbread\u201d runtime. (Android 3.0, \u201cHoneycomb,\u201d is the first Android version that Google considers tablet-worthy.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re wondering what this all means, let co-CEO (seriously) Jim Balsillie\u00a0clear it up for you<\/a>. The whole thing is an uncompromising miracle of confused CIO claptrap.\u00a0If you own, or plan to own RIM stock, you must read it in its entirety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You could argue that RIM is playing to its classic audience: business decision makers who just need a checklist covered and don\u2019t care about much else. The problem is the genuinely good products out there now are already chipping away at the same list. \u201cWe have all that\u201d is no longer enough.\u00a0And no matter who your target audience is, clarity of message is important \u2014 only more so when you\u2019re late to the game.\u00a0John Gruber asks<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which one of these is the native SDK for the PlayBook. Which one\u2019s best? What is RIM\u2019s advice for how developers should<\/em> write PlayBook apps?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

RIM has\u00a0two CEOs and three COOs<\/a>.\u00a0Why is anyone expecting straight answers from a company that can\u2019t even decide who\u2019s in charge?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are some big takeaways for your next slide deck. RIM has:<\/p>\n\n\n\n