The Decline of RIM

In the philosophical battle between the iPhone and the BlackBerry, RIM appears to be losing.

Canada’s most prominent technology company, Research In Motion, is fighting for relevance. Its most recent jab in the mobile computing fist fight is the PlayBook, a tablet computer to compete with the iPad and make inroads in the consumer and enterprise tablet market. Reviews of the device praise the hardware and criticize the lack of applications. But aside from the tech reviews and the moderately positive sales results (an estimated 50,000 units in the first day), there is no popular excitement for the product and little sense of innovative nuance. Most people don’t even know it came out.

Even if RIM hits its sales targets, which analysts expect it will, there’s a strong feeling that air is leaking from this balloon – evidenced most recently when RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis lashed out at the public perception that RIM is on the decline. The company has definitely lost its position as innovative front-runner in mobile computing. The decline of RIM is significant in what it means for Canadian innovation, but also for our collective relationship to technology.

Research In Motion changed the way we communicate. With tiny keyboards, it freed email from desks and unleashed an entire new form of mobile computing. In the late 1990s, the Waterloo, Ont.-based company released its first product that synched across hand-held devices and desktop computers – a revolution. This launched RIM to the top of the mobile computing market, dominating both the consumer and enterprise spaces.

RIM developed the BlackBerry while looking through the lens of two-way paging and business communication, and created new technologies to integrate those activities with other computing interfaces. Its products have been focused on productivity, as epitomized by the speedy keyboard and seamless integration with enterprise email systems.

Almost a decade after the BlackBerry changed everything, Apple came along with the iPhone and did away with the keyboard. Apple developed the iPhone through the lens of success of the iPod, which was about two things: media consumption and portability. The iPhone built off of those features and added data connectivity – bringing with it web browsing, video streaming, and, yes, email. The first set of iPhone ads emphasizes the consumptive capacity of the device – not how fast you can type or how synched up your email is.

Apple saw that the popular desire for media consumption far outweighed the desire for speedy typing. The arguments between BlackBerry users and iPhone users are epic: BlackBerry users rage about the ability to type fast, while iPhone users just shrug with a “so what, the iPhone does everything” look of patronizing sympathy, the way you look at someone who is wearing an ugly sweater.

As the iPhone exploded in popularity, BlackBerry stuck with its commitment to input productivity (i.e. keyboards) and did not develop the technical capacity or public perception that its devices could do more. This culminated in the slogan, “Do what you love, love what you do,” which optimizes the BlackBerry perspective. BlackBerrys are for doing the things we already do in a better way.

Apple’s perspective is fundamentally different. It believes computers in general, and the iPhone specifically, are for doing the things we love in a new way. Apple developed a product that lets us do things we love in a new way.

In an undated video clip that appears to be from the early 1990s, Apple Inc. co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs describes the computer as a bicycle for your mind. The bicycle changed the way humans move in a truly new and exponentially more efficient way; so, too, the computer changes our mental capacity. The BlackBerry is like a new pair of running shoes, the iPhone a bicycle.

So where does RIM go from here? The company is clearly trying to reorient itself to align with the consumptive mentality of digital society – positioning itself as the work-hard play-hard product. There’s definitely a market for that. But can RIM reclaim its spot as a true innovator?

It’s become commonplace for first movers in technology and business to become entrenched in what has worked and brought them to their place of dominance. But in turn, they lose the capacity for innovation. Canada needs RIM and RIM needs to learn how to ride a bike. The PlayBook is just another running shoe. Apple has shown us that once you learn how to ride a bike, you never forget.

Photo courtesy of Reuters.