Research In Motion Ltd. has gradually got its BlackBerry sales back on track after settling a damaging patent infringement suit earlier this year. But what now? Where does the company go next in the face of increasing competition from much better financed rivals, including Nokia, Motorola and Samsung?
Globe technology writer Simon Avery, was on-line earlier Thursday to take your questions on RIM, BlackBerry and competing wireless devices.
Recently, Simon has written about Research in Motion's purchase of a small company that will help it bring
multimedia features
to the BlackBerry, an interview with CEO
Jim Balsillie
and an article on the company's plans to develop technology that could turn future versions of its popular device into a
remote control
for digital cameras.
Simon Avery is the Globe's technology reporter and has covered Research In Motion since June 2004. Previously, he was a staff reporter for The Associated Press in Los Angeles and for The Wall Street Journal in San Francisco. He covered the boom and bust in Silicon Valley for the Financial Post between 1998 and 2001. Mr. Avery holds a Master's degree in journalism from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Arts in English and political science from the University of Western Ontario.
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Michael Snider, globeandmail.com: Hello Simon, thanks for being with us today. And welcome readers. Simon, what are the biggest issues RIM faces over the next year or so?
Simon Avery: Hi Michael. Thanks for the chance to talk about RIM today. This is still a rapidly growing company in an expanding market so the executive team has a lot on its plate. Top of the list is staying several steps ahead of new competitors in both the hardware and software sides of the business. RIM has to be smarter in how it spends its resources to develop new products because it is smaller than Nokia, Motorola and Microsoft, to name a few. RIM also has to decide how much it wants to expand beyond selling to companies and start competing in the consumer side of the wireless industry - and what it's willing to spend to gain business here. Executives also need to keep an eye on patent litigation brewing in the background to make sure cases are handled better than the NTP fiasco.
James Carney from Kitchener writes: Roughly six months ago our firm was investigating a secure wireless solution. At that time RIM currently had roughly 152 security patents for their software and transmission of data and the Microsoft product (Magneto) had 3. These were for the same mail environment (Exchange). We were also informed by a source (a friend from another firm who had recently researched wireless devices for the same reasons as myself) that the European Governing Agency responsible for testing software security, vulnerability and testing came back to RIM and reported theirs was the only software that required absolutely no changes before it's release in the European market, it was also the only engineered piece of software the United States National Security Agency or 'NSA' couldn't compromise. My question is, how close are other companies; in respect to security and the transmission of secure data, to RIM at this time? In other words, can anyone even hold a candle to these guys?
