Queue Shameless BV Promotion: The Crackberry Addiction

So, I'm told that earlier this week there was a blackout in BlackBerry service, and, as a BlackBerry user with a high chemical dependency on said device, I'm shocked to say, I didn't even notice. People are blowing this thing way out of proportion. Now, I'm not one to pick a fight with Rob Cox, but I have to say that he and the rest of the media are being a little bit silly about this whole outage thing. I mean, yes, okay, the service went down and that can cause some serious problems for business users. Yes, business users don't care... at all... about how much they pay because functionality and reliability is the name of the game for them. Yes, none of the big banks have dumped BlackBerrys in spite of the couple blackouts over the last 2 years. I'll also say this: They aren't going to... ever. Barring an AMAZING innovation on the part of some other company, there is no way that any of the major business users of BlackBerrys are ever going to switch. Here's why.

There are NO VIABLE ALTERNATIVES. Yes, there is the iPhone, the BlackJack, the HTC Mobile Devices, Samsung, the Motorola Q, and the Palm Treo, but lets face it, none of those are going to break into the RIM marketshare. With the exception of the Palm Treo, which uses the BlackBerry Enterprise system that all the BlackBerry's use, the rest of these options have absolutely NO fully developed enterprise management solution. I mean sure, the iPhone might eventualy have something nice that could be used, but the iPhone is also full of security flaws that businesses cannot possibly afford to have happen. The Treo is not a real alternative either. The devices are big and clunky, and the BlackBerry models that have recently come out are small, light and incredibly user friendly. The problem that the Treo and all of the other phones mentioned above except the iPhone also share is that they all use Windows Mobile OS. Now I don't know how many of you reading this have ever used a Windows Mobile device, but let me tell you, it isn't fun. It has what I would describe as the clunkiest interface I've ever used in my entire life, and nothing works very well at all. All of this, coupled with the 3G and WiFi that will be added to the next generation of BlackBerry devices (the only drawback that the current models have vs. anything else in the market), has me convinced that RIM is sitting on a gold mine, and it won't be going anywhere for quite some time. I know I can't see myself using anything else for the forseeable future.