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Saturday, March 31, 2012

RIM is still committed to the consumer market... like there was ever any doubt

Mark Bridge writes:

There are times I feel like turning my back on the mobile phone industry and joining a monastery. That’s probably not going to happen, given the monks’ tradition of not admitting wives. But yesterday was another of those frustrating occasions. Let me tell you why.

Poor old RIM. It’s been through a rough patch. In fact, it’s in a rough patch right now. BlackBerry sales haven’t been going as well as expected.

So what’s it going to do?

It’s planning “to refocus on the enterprise business”. That’s the phrase CEO Thorsten Heins used. He said the company can’t be all things to all people, so it’ll build on its strengths and go after targeted consumer segments. It’s likely to scale back its consumer-oriented value-added services business.

And it’s going to stop selling phones to consumers.

Oh, hang on, no. No, he didn’t say that.

So why did we end up with headlines reading BlackBerry firm quits consumer race and BlackBerry giving up on the consumer market, along with news stories asking “I've just agreed a 24-month contract. Will I be affected?”.

I can only guess. People being in a hurry to write a story, people looking for an online headline that’ll generate plenty of clicks, people not bothering to read the announcement or listen to what Mr Heins actually said...

...and perhaps RIM should have made things clearer. Anyway, it now has.

The company has issued a statement that says “To be really clear, we are fully committed to the consumer market. In fact, we are aggressively focusing on delivering a unique and compelling user experience to all of our customers to enhance the way people engage, produce content, and manage data via mobile computing.”

It goes on to say RIM will be focussing on parts of the consumer market where BlackBerry excels, commenting that it’s uniquely positioned to deliver a smartphone for personal and professional use.

Which is pretty much what it said in the first place.

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Opinion Articles

Is Android losing its impact for Google?

Mark Bridge writes:

Recent figures released by ABI Research have prompted the market intelligence company to ask whether Google is losing control of the Android ecosystem.

At first glance, Android dominated smartphone shipments for the final quarter of 2013. ABI Research says 77% of the 287 million smartphones shipped in Q4 2013 were running Android.

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It’s time to prepare for the upcoming surge in signaling traffic

Robin Kent writes:

After initially suffering from slow pick up by consumers, 4G has begun to accelerate, and is now well on the way to the forecasted one billion subscribers by 2017. In fact EE, owner of T-Mobile and Orange, recently announced the addition of 493,000 new 4G customers to its existing base of 1.2 million.

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Mobile phone coverage: is this as good as it gets?

Mark Bridge writes:

A new report has highlighted the issue of poor mobile phone coverage in rural Sussex villages. BBC Sussex invited me onto their ‘Sussex Breakfast’ radio show to explain what could be done - and, as usual, I made enough notes for a lecture rather than a three-minute interview.

Here’s what I would have liked to have said if I’d been given a disproportionate amount of time to talk.

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Last week at The Fonecast: 27th January 2014

Expecting the unexpected

Mark Bridge writes:

Great news for mobile phone users. Ofcom’s new rules preventing unexpected mid-contract price rises came into force last week, which means UK consumers can no longer be surprised by their subscription charge increasing while they’re still locked into a minimum-term deal.

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Ofcom changes the rules for mobile phone contracts... and so does O2

Mark Bridge writes:

This week, new Ofcom rules came into force. They’re designed to avoid unexpected price rises during the minimum term of a mobile phone contract. Yes, just because you signed a fixed-term contract doesn’t mean the charges can’t increase. Networks said they needed this option in case of inflation or regulatory changes. Customers felt trapped.

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Recent Podcasts

Reviewing our 2015 mobile industry predictions... and looking forward to 2016

Podcast - 15th January 2016

Iain Graham, James Rosewell and Mark Bridge return to review their mobile industry predictions from last year. Which mergers, partnerships and developments did they forecast correctly... and which didn’t work out as planned?

Later in the programme, the team anticipates some of the topics that will be hitting the headlines during 2016.

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Podcast from Mobile World Congress 2015

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We're taking a look back at the biggest mobile industry news stories from February 2015, including allegations that the UK's security service tried to breach SIM card security by hacking into one of the world's biggest SIM producers.

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In today's programme Mark Bridge talks to Chris Millington, who's Managing Director for Doro UK and Ireland.

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A month of mobile: O2 counts on 3, Microsoft counts to 10 and Apple counts its profits

Podcast - 30th January 2015

We're back with a month of mobile industry news, including takeover talks and takeover rumours. O2 and Three are said to be discussing a merger... but is there any truth in the suggestions that BlackBerry could be up for grabs?

We also discuss Apple's record-breaking quarterly figures, the highlights of CES and the launch of Microsoft Windows 10, as well as saying farewell to the current version of Google Glass.

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