Recently Research In Motion (RIM) announced BlackBerry BBX – their new smartphone and tablet operating system that will merge the best of BlackBerry with the power of their new operating system QNX. BBX looks promising, bringing RIM’s operating system inline with the heavyweights like Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android, but I don’t think it will be enough. RIM showed up too late to this game. BBX offers nothing more than other OS’s, leaving RIM just playing catch up. If RIM wants to exceed it needs to change the game, not just follow it.

Missed Opportunities

If one company has missed many opportunities, it would have to be RIM. RIM has been riding the secure email wave ever since they were the standard when it came to smartphones. RIM has been riding their push email gravy train, failing to keep their market share out of the hands of others. They refused to build a touch device, only having to build them down the road. They announced their “iPad killer” tablet then delayed the launch, going to market with an unfinished product. BBX may be the future of BlackBerry, but with no scheduled release date, and past experience with messing up a product with potential, I’m not sure RIM will be around for BBX to see the light of day.

Stop Making Big Mistakes

RIM hasn’t done much to give people confidence in them. With RIM’s stock disintegrating in such a short period of time, recent layoffs, exiting executives, and low morale, it’s important now, as it was ever, for RIM to focus. They have to focus on making sure their key differentiators: push email and blackberry messenger are reliable, and get rid of products that aren’t successful, like the BlackBerry Playbook. Random outages in their service don’t do much to spur confidence in RIM’s using a central system that routes all data, and don’t give consumers confidence in the ailing company. Not only  do the service delays have to stop, but the product delays have to stop. RIM can’t afford any more mess ups – their reputation is depending on it.

Wrap Up

RIM has done a lot for the smartphone industry, including being the pioneers of push messaging, but now it seems like their time is up, and it’s time for them to move on. They are trying to hold on to the good times of yesterday, but like all companies, it’s time for RIM to reinvent itself. IBM wasn’t always a technology service company, Nokia wasn’t always a mobile phone manufacturer, and Apple didn’t always make smartphones. Instead of RIM focusing their energy on trying to play catch up in this ever changing mobile market, RIM needs to find a new niche and once again change the game. RIM has never been good at following anyways.