awyala
Guest
I think you are mixing it all up here. We're talking mobile/wireless infrastructure and in that realm they are not faster than the 1st world. They are incredibly slow in comparison. I get your point that they might skip intermediate steps and can take bigger leaps to catch up but they are still playing catch up.
You need to then think of the end user. Even if the infrastructure gets there, how much of the population can really fully utilize it? If your average joe in many developing countries is looking for a smartphone, he likely cannot even buy an iPhone so he looks for an entry level model like a cheaper android unit or a blackberry curve. Then there are the costs incurred with running the phone and having a smartphone that is more efficient on bandwidth is something that an informed customer who NEEDS to keep cost down would care about. When money is in short supply, that matters.
And the scale of value for even running a basic cell phone let alone a smartphone is totally different. I was in Jordan last year and I found out that even running a prepaid cell phone costs as much there as it does here (sometimes more) yet wages (I was talking to a guy with a wife and 2 kids and he was makeing $300 per month) and everything else are much less so the scale of value on a mobile phone is totally different.
I get that you think RIM is a cooked goose, thats totally fine, opinion noted but trying to say that security, encryption and efficiency do not matter is silly. It matters and is why many companies will migrate off BB's and adopt Apple but are more hesitant to adopt Android. Because of security. Its why Samsung is trying to prove they can match BB's with their S.A.F.E designated phones
I don't know, maybe the point you are trying to make is that those attributes are not enough to keep RIM in the game? If thats the case, I probably agree with you. RIm has needed more than that.
Just a little story about a 3rd world country like Egypt:
By the early 1990s there were virtually no cell phones. By the mid to late 90s, cell phones were rare. Only high end management folks had basic Nokias. Meanwhile the land line network was in ruin. Egypt never fully implemented land lines let alone even TOUCH TONE DIALLING!
My family in Egypt is upper class, and even they only had 1 touchtone phone in the home! That was back in 1998.
By the time I visited again in 2001 EVERYONE HAD CELL PHONES! The newest Nokias of the time, they were even bragging about having had the newest Nokia in the Matrix.
Visit Egypt now, and witness how people will drop 2 months salary on an iPhone!
I will gauranty you that 3rd world countries leap frog intermediate technology. They will not adopt RIM products while they save up for an iPhone, they will simply get their hands on bootlegged or smuggled in unlocked iPhones from expats.
Unless you're talking about dustbowl 3rd world countries in Africa somewhere, no one will be excited over a product which is seen as shameful in the West. I said "developing" nations....which means up and coming.
Egypt by the way jumped right into the mobile industry to the point of setting up Wind mobile in Canada. They didn't waste any time with Cellular networks or pagers or text pagers or analog phones or any of that. When they finally jumped into the industry it was straight into digital GSM networks.
As I say, developing countries immitate what is currently the hottest product in the West, they reverse engineer incredibly fast and eventually begin to innovate.
China buys antiquated or bankrupt Western companies, reverse engineers their products, sells of the stock to locals to buy time while the R&D departments come out with an evolution. I am refering to the British auto company Rover in this case, back in 2005/6 I believe. Now they are buying oil companies in North America. UAE almost bought the US Port Authority and the list goes on. I believe UAE own P&O ferries now too. These are major first world developed products / services / businesses.
This is the way the developing nations operate. Don't expect them to purchase second or third tier Western products. Even so they already went through that with Nokia. Indian companies are already in the development stage of cars, motorcycles and tablets! The Asian Tigers are past that stage, and they make their own products. Who does RIM plan to sell their crap to, Mongolia, DRC? Even Africa will soon become a market to peddle Chinese or developing world products as a trade off for resources!
Look for example at the developing market of Turkey and how they expanded into central Asia and parts of Africa in the past 10 years. Developing markets cannot compete in tech and service sectors in the 1st world, so they offer their services to resource rich 3rd world nations.
Trust me, there will be an Indian phone in the hands of poor rural Indonesians before a BB is. And if the village saves up enough for a 1st world phone, it will either be an HTC, a Samsung, or an iPhone! And if none of those....an iPhone Chinese rip off!
One of the only industries that follows the model RIM is banking on it aviation, aerospace, and the military industries. All of these gladly sell off second hand or second tier products to developing or 3rd world nations. The reseach and technology is so advanced, the buyers are so huge and limited, and the industry is so secretive and protected by governments that it is not likely a developing nation will be able to catch up their military or aviation equipment, let alone find a market to sell it to. Russia and China being the only "developing" world exceptions here, and even they sell their second tier equipment to 3rd world nations. You don't see many British firearms in the hands of Africans, where as Chinese AKs and AK ammunition is rampant.
The firearms industry follows the typical low tech industry models, where as the super high tech industries follow the model RIM thinks it is in. Hoping some Malaysian would be happy to have a small Bombardier fleet of planes for inter-island flights. If I heard that from Bombardier I would agree, but not from RIM. RIM is actually hoping for an Airbus style market growth, selling mid size planes to everyone else in the world while Boeing and McDonald Douglas rest on their laurels cornering the 1st world market, then bam out of nowhere Airbus is a big player. Not gonna happen in such a (now) low tech, widely dispersed industry that is fairly resource unintensive with high margins.
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