BlackBerry mobile sales plummet. The strength of the iPhone and the strength of Android has swept the market of "smartphone". RIM, maker of BlackBerry, is in danger of being a company irrelevant. His last trick is the creation of the BlackBerry OS 10.
Delays and competition
The expected launch of the BlackBerry 10 operating system has been delayed more than a year. RIM has been criticized for improvisation. The official date of January 30, 2013 and is final. The delay forced to compete with systems now renewed this year: Apple iOS 6, Google Android 4.2 and Microsoft Windows 8. Android and Apple monopolize and 90% of the operating systems market.
Sales Fall
In the third quarter of this year, BlackBerry copaba 4.3% of the smartphone market, while last year occupied 9.5%, according to IDC rate. In 2010 was 14.5%, and 19.5% in 2009. In exchange, RIM began the year at $18 per share, but in September came to rub the six dollars, down 65%. Now has an upward trend by renewed expectations and has already passed the ten dollars. Poor results led to the change in the direction of the company in January, and the announcement of the dismissal of 5,000 workers, 30% of the workforce. The company hit bottom with a story of "The New York Times" last October with the thesis that BlackBerry users were ashamed of their phones.
Features
Although we have to wait to January 30 to meet definitive features of the new OS Blackberry 10, already unveiled some of its peculiarities. The main novelty is the possibility of having a single mailbox for all email messages and social networks without having to jump from application to application. You do not need a button to the home page, unlike iPhone and Android, and will have a multitasking space to develop different functions simultaneously.
Focused on businesses
The hallmark of BlackBerry has traditionally been its implementation in the business. RIM wants to regain lost ground. BlackBerry 10 will offer the possibility to completely separate the data and applications of the personal office. Another ambition of the operating system is that the mobile device is also the center of the desktop through its connection to keyboards, displays and other devices, as recorded by "The New York Times". RIM also intends to maintain its good reputation in the field of security.
New mobiles
The launch of BlackBerry 10 will also feature the presentation of two new devices to make the event more attractive: a touch screen and a keyboard "qwerty", one of the hallmarks of the company's phones. The analysts believe that the move to survival, but can not cut large distance. Competition has invested heavily this year as RIM and again delayed its release. Samsung sold and 31.3% of the phones, and Apple 15%. The iPhone 5 and the Samsung Galaxy SIII are now the height of technology "smartphones".
Applications
RIM has made a great effort to convince developers that want to be part of the application market, a land that had hitherto despised. As shown by the sales figures, recognized courier and security on your devices is not enough. The problem is to get the developers are willing to build applications fit for a "smartphone" that, so far, less than 5% monopolize the market, rather than seeking only the return of create for Android and iPhone.
Tablets
BlackBerry 10 platform unifies phones and tablets. Devices with previous operating systems can not be updated because the environment is completely new, nor the current and last. The company justifies that there is a previous update but a completely new platform. The PlayBook tablet in principle itself may be updated. One of the premises of the new operating system is valid both for mobile and tablet.
Internet of Things
The CEO of RIM, Thorsten Heins, admits as much realism aspiring to third in the market for "smartphones", below Apple and Samsung. His big bet in the medium term is the internet of things: phones and tablets that give orders to allow cars, appliances, office.
The invention was made public yesterday with the publication of the patent of Microsoft. This is a display of augmented reality that once placed on the head provides information and data while the user views a live event.
It seems that all technology companies see future in augmented reality. Therefore Microsoft jumped on the bandwagon and joined Apple and Olympus, following the steps of the model presented by Google.
Microsoft is taking a much more gradual than Google, which already has a prototype augmented reality glasses running, the Glass Project. This version, for developers, will start selling in a few months and is designed to communicate with Google services and the cloud.
The tool Microsoft, unlike Google, is designed for use only on specific occasions. The device described by Microsoft in its patent is not intended to be used in day to day. Rather, it focuses on live events as parties or concerts, and attempts to improve the transparency of experience providing text and audio on the action is happening in the field. It can be seen partially through the glasses while receiving information from objects, including people, so that this does not interfere with the enjoyment of the event.
This makes the device much simpler, because you have to be relatively stationary when you are using and you do not have to worry about crashing while reading the information.
When can we see the glasses of Microsoft in the market? For now, this is just a patent application was submitted in May 2011 and is now published. Although no plan to manufacture anything, and have applied for his patent now that all technology companies are developing similar devices.
It is a mobile, or nearly so, within a chamber. Or better, a camera attached to a mobile. Anyway, the new "toy" Samsung has all the features except voice calls, a Galaxy S3 and a high-performance compact camera. It is just the opposite of what we are accustomed. Everyone has a camera inside a mobile. Now we have a motive, or nearly so, within a chamber.
To call not (although they can do so via the Internet), but for everything else. This means that we can, first, edit, share or publish any photo immediately to do. And that between shots can check email, read the newspaper, play Angry Birds or run without problem any of the hundreds of thousands of applications from Android Play Store. To do this, the new camera can be connected directly to the internet via wifi or 3G via SIM card data.
But look. According Celestino Garcia, vice president of Samsung in Spain, Nielsen surveys or Gartner, among others, show that in 2014 50% of the cameras sold can connect to internet. Sharing pictures is, in fact, a social trend unstoppable and consumers demand to do so immediately, without waiting to connect at home and in good quality, which the majority of camera phones do not have.
Until now, consumers have had to choose between carrying a camera "good" (quality and performance) but "disconnected" or one that does allow the interaction (mobile) but often falls short.
That is precisely the gap that comes to fill the new Samsung device. On one hand, a more than decent performance (x21 optical zoom, 16 megapixel sensor ...) and on the other a huge 4.8-inch display (the Samsung Galaxy S3), direct Internet connection and Android OS 4.1 (Jelly Bean). The device, presented at the last edition of IFA in Berlin, was one of the products most interest this year in the technology fair. And no wonder.
The Galaxy Camera is powered by a quad-core processor at 1.4GHz and has a battery of 1,650 milliamps. Its internal memory of 8 GB, expandable via micro SD cards and comes as standard with a suite of applications that allow you to edit, share or store in the cloud any photo or video you do. For example, all new users of the camera will have 50GB of free storage on Dropbox.
When you open the camera menu opens automatically target and display screen becomes huge and with all the necessary commands on the touch screen. You can select scene, make panoramic photos bursts to make the camera select the best ... And, of course, incorporates a "expert" mode where you can change at will all the parameters we want to make the picture.
A highlight is the function of "shared Shot". Is to create a wireless network that can connect to other devices. Then, take the photo, also appear directly in the shared device. The new Samsung Galaxy Camera will be available in Spain since 29 November, both in shops and through various phone operators. The price is 499 euros.
Samsung has overtaken Apple. The competition for control of the mobile phone market has a new milestone: for the first time since 2007 a phone outside the range iPhone is the best selling device. The Samsung Galaxy SIII has 18 million units sold to 16.2 iPhone 4s in the second quarter. So the technology has managed to reach South Korean company on the block:
The actual data
The statistics give the Galaxy S III as the best selling phone in the second quarter of the year have a number of shades. The first is that the figures dropped by Strategy Analytics Samsung phone refer to sales to distributors, while the figure of Apple's sales to the final consumer. That is, many of the Samsung phones numbered have not yet left the store. Also, do not forget that a large number of potential customers Apple phone waiting on those dates the launch of iPhone 5 in September.
Production and dependence
Samsung controls the production of their phones even more than Apple. The production control is the adjustment of the appliance components, and manufacturing demand. Although the apple company designs its components it manufactured, in some cases direct competitors.
Less loyalty
The customer loyalty of Apple is one of the strengths of the company, boosted by its desire to separate their products making them incompatible with the rest. However, loyalty begins to waver, but not alarmist. According to Strategy Analytics, the number of Apple customers who would buy a phone from the same company has fallen from 93% to 88% in the last year in the United States. In Europe have fallen even more, from 88% to 75%.
Temptation of cheap iPhone
The rumors about the possibility of a low-cost iPhone are recurrent. Now more since its hegemony is concerned. Samsung, unlike Apple, has a variety of phones for different prices without neglecting its flagship product. His strategy is effective to grab an increasing market share to have replaced this year with Nokia, after 14 years, as the largest producer of mobile. Apple, however, has only a single device in different versions. The cheaper iPhone is still unlikely, although the appearance of iPad mini is a first indication of the possibility of the company down to the sandy beaches and variety of prices.
Patent war
Apple won the great battle of the patent war with Samsung fined sentence with payment of 800 million euros in late August. The fight did not end there. The last case of Cupertino is for the alleged plagiarism of the tablet Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1. However, away from Steve Jobs' desire to "destroy" the competition, the current CEO, Tim Cook, is more pragmatic. The recent agreement with HTC for patent is not the best example of efforts to divert litigation.
Apple Fall Bag
The most significant sign of Apple's capsizing moment is the current lack of investor. The largest technology company market value has fallen nearly 25% since hitting a record high in September, when it traded at $ 702 per share. Last week came to drop to $ 537, and since then, remains in these figures. The company continues to sell at a good pace, but the markets do not take for granted its supremacy over the medium term market.
The best market
It is not obvious that the latest Apple device is the best on the market. Samsung Apple finally has a competitor of their technological level. The iPhone 5 was criticized by conformist and not very innovative, but get in sales overcome Galaxy S III in the next quarter, according to "The Wall Street Journal," until a new model Samsung kick. A zigzag movement in the sales graphics. Before Apple did not suffer this.
