Digital Marketing Agency Member

Listen hard and you could almost hear the screams of frustration and helplessness being emitted from Canadian Boardroom of Research in Motion. These guys make the BlackBerry and whilst they handsets were once the jealously guarded toy of the high powered business executive, they were king of their own particular niche. But the recent drop in service has highlighted their problems – simply put, they are not Apple, or Google. So what now for the ones who invented the CrackBerry?

At the height of the recent outage which saw Blackberry servers crash across Europe, Asia and Africa, and parts of the Middle East, an old geeky joke resurfaced about Research in Motion. It concerns the good ship Red Dwarf and its intrepid space travellers.

In one scene Arnold Rimmer is asking Dave not to take the Mickey out of his name when they meet some women trapped in a spaceship. Arnold accuses Dave of emphasising the first part of his surname, coming up with RIM-mer. It says it makes him sound like a lavatory cleaner he pleads. Dave looks on unconcerned.

RIM make the BlackBerry and given the comments on Twitter and Facebook when their handsets went down, it likely people and much the same thoughts as Dave. To lose email and internet functionality nowadays is for many people like losing a limb and they are not backward in voicing their feelings.

It is the very last thing that RIM need. They were once the most respected company in the field and led the smartphone revolution. Their great USP was push email technology which meant that emails arrived quickly and efficiently without being asked. The chirp of an email arriving became an iconic social landmark. And investments bankers and high powered businessman had found a gadget which matched their view of their own status.

Yet, in way, that was the start of the company’s problems. It’s very difficult to stay niche. A modern hi-tech company has to grow rapidly and keep feeding hungry shareholders who eat up dividends like a black hole. BlackBerry had no option but to break out of its niche market and start to woo the mass consumer. It has done so very successfully, so much so that that it has suffered the Burberry effect, being accused – horror of horrors – of helping the recent London riots. It would appear that BBM (the Blackberry Messaging service) is a great way for looters to communicate.

How investment bankers musty have squirmed when they heard that gem on the news. And not only that, Apple and Google’s Android are becoming the true kings of the hill, with BlackBerry some way down the slope.

So what is the future for the once mighty BlackBerry? A gradual demise and a large footnote in history. Dave might have got it right.

Attribute to: Neil Martin, Cayenne Red.

Neil Martin is a member of the digital marketing agency at Reading based PPC agency Cayenne Red. He is a regular contributor to the media on how companies market themselves in the digital age.