For those of you who don’t follow my twitter (shame on you), about a week ago I finally decided to get an iPhone. Mainly because my contract expired and I got a good deal.
That being said, for the last 3 months or so I have been debating to go with the iPhone or Blackberry Bold. My main concern being the lack of real buttons as opposed to the touch screen keyboard. Once I started to consider the iPhone more, then I was wondering about the Blackberry Storm. Should I make the carrier switch? After all the storm was suppose to be the iPhone killer, right?
A couple days after I got the iPhone, my sister’s company gave her a Blackberry Storm. Obviously, we were having brother-sister battles between which one was better. For the past 2 months, my sister was waving around the fact she was getting a Storm, although I don’t really think she knew much about it.
Well, we finally got around to comparing to the two. As far as my sister and I can tell, the iPhone is far and away better than the iPhone. The functionality, available aps, and software integration just seems unmatched. For something that was to be the iPhone killer, does not even come close.
What does this all mean for Research in Motion (RIMM)? They are screwed. Simple as that. Lets face the facts. In this generation, Apple (AAPL) has simply killed all its competition:
Apple rejuvenated their computers. Now the Mac seems a far better choice than PC. Apple created the iPod. Other mp3 players seem obsolete. Apple entered music distribution. Add in the iPod integration, and now nobody can touch them. Now Apple enters the smart phone world. I am pretty sure we all see the trend here.
What puts RIMM in an even worse situation is that wireless communications is what they do. The iPhone is just a small part of what Apple has to offer. When a company that doesn’t specialize in one thing beats out another who does, then what is point? That would be like me practicing basketball 100% only to be beat by someone who practices 15% of the time.
With both stocks currently on life support, I’m sure they seem enticing for many speculative buyers. While I am not worried about Apple’s future, there is nothing securing RIMM’s price movement higher. They obviously lost the next generation smart phone battle, and, unless there are some major turnarounds, is there really any need to buy the second best?
Sorry RIMM you have entered the Black List.
