Thursday Tech Roundup

Outlook.com

Microsoft are continuing with their "reinvention" project by saying goodbye to hotmail and rebranding it as outlook.com.

The new look has a very Windows 8 feel to it and I think it's pretty nice. You can still keep your hotmail address but you have the option to separate it into a different folder. This is quite handy if like me your hotmail account gets more spam than anything these days. It lets you clean things up and start from scratch. I like it!

Surface Release Date

Sticking with Microsoft, and it's really no surprise that their new tablet device is being released the same day as Windows 8 on October 26th. No word on pricing yet however.

I am hoping it will be in line with the iPad pricing structure as I really want to get one of these. My instinct tells me these will end up being pretty expensive though!

RIM CEO in the UK

Thorsten Heins, CEO of Research in Motion has been in the UK for a few days and went to the Olympic opening ceremony with Prime Minister David Cameron.

In an exclusive interview with The Telegraph, he predictably outlined a positive outlook for Blackberry, but admitted that the fallen smartphone giant may have to reinvent itself by licensing its new BB10 platform to OEMs such as Samsung and Sony, rather than continue to manufacture smartphone hardware themselves.

A "Bold" move indeed (pun intended), and it will be interesting to see how this one plays out. BB10 is apparently quite promising, but in my opinion most Blackberry phones have been truly awful over the past couple of years.

Apple vs Samsung

This whole patent war is starting to get boring in general, but was livened up this week when Apple were forced to reveal images of several prototype models of their iPhone and iPad devices. Some of these look very raw and "concepty" as you would imagine, but there are one or two that I actually think are nicer than the real thing.

I don't see any end to this saga anytime soon however. Whoever loses this 4 week trial will undoubtedly appeal and it will go on and on for goodness knows how long.

iPhone 5 rumours

As per my last post, the next iPhone is widely expected to look like this;

As I've already said, I'm pretty unimpressed with the design but if this turns out to be the real thing then I guess it may grow on me. Seems like Apple playing it safe as opposed to taking risks though. I expect we will find out for sure in an Apple event that is expected to be announced for September.

And that's about it for another week.

Take care!

Peter

Whatever happened to the Blackberry?

Remember when Blackberry ruled the world? I do! In fact I remember the first time that I ever saw a Blackberry. I'd received an email from a colleague and it included a signature which read "Sent from my Blackberry Wireless Handheld".

I asked him what this was all about and he produced from his pocket this little purple device and it turned out to be the Blackberry 7290.

I was instantly blown away by the device and immediately wanted one for myself. I got one shortly thereafter and it just made my life so much easier. I had a phone that I could also read emails on and browse the web. This was amazing, and so followed a period of unquestioned brand loyalty to these devices which were manufactured by the Canadian company known as Research in Motion (RIM).

Apart from one brief flirtation with what turned out to be a truly horrible Windows Mobile device, I spent the next few years using Blackberry smart phones including the Curve 8310 and finally the Bold 9000.

Blackberry was the undisputed champion of the smart phones, and this was specifically true when it came to businesses. Business people loved them, and so did the IT Professionals because they were easy and secure to manage.

So what went wrong? Boom - exactly five years ago today, this happened and everything started to change;

Steve Jobs took to the stage on June 29th 2007 and introduced the first iPhone. Initially it seemed as though iPhone and Blackberry would not be competition. The iPhone really started out as a pure consumer product, some people would even have called it a toy - whereas Blackberry was very specifically aimed towards the business sector.

Those lines started to blur however in the next couple of years, and when Apple introduced the App Store - people realised that there were Apps emerging to make the iPhone do almost anything you needed. iPhone became a device that businesses now wanted to use as well. All the while, RIM were not really evolving, and the emergence of Android hardly helped the situation either.

So what did RIM do to address this? Well, they tried to emulate the competition. They launched Blackberry App World in an attempt to tap into the consumer market. They also tried their hand at a touchscreen device (the Blackberry Storm).

It all felt a little half hearted however, and all it succeeded in achieving was to distance themselves from their core business customers - the true Blackberry devotees who love their physical keyboards, and firmly believe that Blackberry is the only device for business. RIM really need to hang on to these people!

They did enjoy a mini resurgence when teenagers started snapping up Blackberry devices to take advantage of the free to use Blackberry Instant Messenger service. However, a disastrous service interruption last year left users around the world without Email or Messaging functionality for several days, and this lead more and more loyal Blackberry users away and into the arms of Apple or Android.

Changes at the top level of RIMs management structure seem to have had little impact so far, and if they are ever to recapture their former glory, they are going to have to emerge from this identity crisis that they seem to be suffering. In recent days however, further setbacks at RIM have been highlighted. The new Blackberry 10 phone and OS have been delayed until 2013 - a delay that RIM really can't afford. In addition to this, 3000 RIM employees are to find themselves out of a job.

Sad to see, and it's amazing how things change so quickly isn't it. Apple and Android are King right now without question, but if Microsoft get themselves organized and make Windows Phone 8 a huge hit - then the landscape could all change yet again.

Who knows, and only time will tell!

Peter