BlackBerry OS: the next monster? - Wireless Internet Magazine - May/June 2001

BlackBerry OS: the next monster? - Wireless Internet Magazine - May/June 2001

Not all great technologies issue from Silicon Valley. Waterloo, Ontario-based Research In Motion Ltd. has developed the promising BlackBerry OS and manufactured a line of popular handhelds that were among the first to support wireless e-mail. RIM BlackBerry devices today offer an e-mail solution but also serve as a crucial building block for more in-depth enterprise applications. How popular are they? One encouraging factoid: The company reported a 4Q 2000 revenue increase of 249 percent over the previous year.
Still, the Palm OS - used by Palm Inc., Handspring Inc., Sony, Symbol Technologies and other major vendors - grabs developers’ attention. And not without reason: While RIM counts more than 164,000 BlackBerry subscribers at 7,800 companies, Goldman Sachs estimates that figure accounts for only about three percent of the global personal digital assistant market. Devices running on Palm OS dominate the global PDA market with 87 percent share.

These numbers may be comparing apples and oranges. RIM users value constant connectivity and instant access - something most PDAs cannot provide. The only other wireless PDA sold in North America is the Palm VII, which has about 175,000 subscribers, with another 75,000 Palm users accessing service through outside parties including OmniSky Corp., AT&T Wireless and GoAmerica Inc., among others. So, while the market share comparison appears daunting, the subscriber comparison - 164,000 vs. 250,000 - clearly shows that RIM is an attractive platform for developers.

There’s more: RIM has been laying the groundwork for the future of the BlackBerry platform. A recent deal with BT Cellnet will deliver 175,000 general packet radio services-equipped BlackBerry devices to the U.K. carrier. Software partnerships with mobile industry leaders such as Pumatech Inc., AvantGo Inc. and GoAmerica underscore the attractiveness of the RIM platform going forward. So let’s look at current devices and explore the capabilities of the RIM platform and application development options.
RIM devices currently include the 850/950 device, which fits into a pager-sized form factor and includes 4 MB flash memory, an Intel 80386 processor and a 160 x 35 pixel black/white screen, and is powered by a single AA battery.

The 857/957 model is a PDA-sized device that includes 5 MB flash memory, an Intel 80386 processor, a 160 x 160 black/white screen, and is powered by a rechargeable lithium battery. The 800 devices run on Motient’s 800 MHz DataTAC network; the 900s commonly are used on the 900 MHz Cingular Mobitex network.