RIM Faces Growing Competition from Apple and Palm

By Nicholas Deleon

If only those were storm clouds, we’d have quite the metaphor going!

Poor RIM (RIMM). One or two analysts lower your stock rating from “buy” to “neutral” (or the equivalent), and then your stock drops some 16 percent. You know who to blame, too: it’s those busybodies at Apple (AAPL) and Palm (PALM), what with their iPhones and Palm Pres eating into your bottom line. (Never mind that your own “iPhone killer” was sorta meh.) What is RIM to do?

That’s the basic scenario that’s been playing out over the past few days. A couple of those big research firms downgraded RIM stock, and now its stock price isn’t doing too well. Not that a corporation’s stock price will affect our day, of course, but it’s indicative of one things: RIM isn’t doing as well as it’d like to be doing.

So what’s causing the run on the stock? Yes, it’s partially competition from Apple, which, with each successive iPhone OS update, is becoming more and more “business friendly.” The same can be said about the Palm Pre, but perhaps to a lesser extent.

The fact is, the BlackBerry isn’t the only device on the market anymore that gives you mobile access to your e-mail. And if you have a new sales staff of recent grads begging IT to let them use their iPhone on the corporate network, well, there you go.

So where does RIM go from here? Should it keep plugging along with its attempts to make a touchscreen phone, or should it say, “Nuts to this rat race. We’re the king of the QWERTY device, and that’s our market, gosh darn it?” Presumably RIM executives would be using harsher language than that!

Original post

Comments

[lucky lenny:]

Tech, where I work, over 100 of us have Blackberrys. There's absolutely no way we're going iphone or palmpre. So unless u can point to Fortune 500 companies making the switch, i'm not sure your points hold up.

Sep 27 08:00 AM

[Tom B:]

6 months, you'll be singing a different tune. Someone will upgrade to an iPhone and EVERYONE will have to have one.


On Sep 27 08:00 AM lucky lenny wrote:

> Tech, where I work, over 100 of us have Blackberrys. There's absolutely
> no way we're going iphone or palmpre. So unless u can point to Fortune
> 500 companies making the switch, i'm not sure your points hold up.

Sep 27 08:51 AM

[waterman:]

Wow, dog bites man news. RIMM is losing sales to iPhone and Palm? I don't know about blackberry users jumping ship to go with a Palm Pre but I guess someone is buying those even though it probably is a rounding error in RIMM's and Apple smartphone market share, isn't it?

Anyone who didn't expect RIMM's share to be dropping hasn't been paying attention.

Certainly there will be a solid percentage of enterprise users who will never give up on the Blackberry but I expect Apple's share to grow for the next couple of years at least while RIMM's drops and then stabilizes over the next 12 months.

Smartphones will continue to grow as a percentage of all phones until in about 18 months when no one will call them smartphones anymore, they will just refer to the dumb phones as "your phone doesn't do __________? (fill in the blank)

Sep 27 10:19 AM

[mollytjm:]

Being in one company where people only use one kind of smartphone doesn't mean much. Maybe the company buys the phones? Maybe people are older and not quick to try new tech? Maybe IT won't support anything else?
Look around when you're other places...you'll see more and more iPhones out there. I go to a lot of movies and last year i could be the only one with an iPhone. Now, if there are 10 people in the theater, at least one other person has an iPhone. Even I'm amazed.
The FACT is that Apple garners market share where ever it goes. Eventually, it'll reach most places. The customer experience is just the best and that counts for a lot...but having a great intuitive product really seals the deal. The stock that has the best chance to move up, is APPL.

Sep 27 11:25 AM

[Techtrader10:]

The Apple "faithful" seem to need to make it a competition between their iPhone vs. whatever other product. In reality, RIMM's products are still selling well, they have expanded into the consumer market (read that the iPhone market) and I feel the lack of growth is more a result of a slow economy and a ten percent unemployment rate vs. a switch to a competitor. Sorry TechCrunch, I'm just not convinced your arument is valid. I feel the economy is finally catching up to the smart phone market. And I feel we will be seeing the same thing happening to the rest of this niche market.

Sep 27 01:18 PM

[Tom B:]

The iPhone does a lot of "stuff" and at a very appealing price point.

Short term, I see no trouble with buying RIMM. But long term, why assume the risk of a company with one long-in-the-tooth line of products when you could buy a whole ecosystem of goodness from a woefully UNDERVALUED company (AAPL)?


On Sep 27 01:18 PM Techtrader10 wrote:

> The Apple "faithful" seem to need to make it a competition between
> their iPhone vs. whatever other product. In reality, RIMM's products
> are still selling well, they have expanded into the consumer market
> (read that the iPhone market) and I feel the lack of growth is more
> a result of a slow economy and a ten percent unemployment rate vs.
> a switch to a competitor. Sorry TechCrunch, I'm just not convinced
> your arument is valid. I feel the economy is finally catching up
> to the smart phone market. And I feel we will be seeing the same
> thing happening to the rest of this niche market.

Sep 27 05:46 PM

[reagan:]

Wow! Techtrader10 bashes Apple. There's something new!
Tom B. hits it on the nose.

Sep 27 09:09 PM

[FreeRange:]

So that makes you the brightest bulbs in the room?


On Sep 27 08:00 AM lucky lenny wrote:

> Tech, where I work, over 100 of us have Blackberrys. There's absolutely
> no way we're going iphone or palmpre. So unless u can point to Fortune
> 500 companies making the switch, i'm not sure your points hold up.

Sep 28 05:14 AM

[FreeRange:]

Of course its a competition! Its called business - taking market share away from your competitors. Go Apple!


On Sep 27 01:18 PM Techtrader10 wrote:

> The Apple "faithful" seem to need to make it a competition between
> their iPhone vs. whatever other product. In reality, RIMM's products
> are still selling well, they have expanded into the consumer market
> (read that the iPhone market) and I feel the lack of growth is more
> a result of a slow economy and a ten percent unemployment rate vs.
> a switch to a competitor. Sorry TechCrunch, I'm just not convinced
> your arument is valid. I feel the economy is finally catching up
> to the smart phone market. And I feel we will be seeing the same
> thing happening to the rest of this niche market.

Sep 28 05:33 AM