You're not happy to see me Senator, you've been cheating with that iPhone in your pocket!

By
Andrew
on April 26, 2008 11:41 PM | | Comments (2129) | TrackBacks (0)
Image Credit: The New York Times

The Gray Lady's Brad Stone has a 3 pager in today's paper on everyone's favorite new holy war: RIM versus Apple. It comes complete with a cute historical reference to RIM's headquarters:

STEVE JOBS, Apple's chief executive and field general, has Napoleonic dreams of global conquest for his 10-month-old wonder gadget, the iPhone. So it may be fitting that he's encountering his most serious resistance in a city called Waterloo.  That is where, 70 miles west of Toronto in Ontario, 19 nondescript, low-rise office buildings comprise the headquarters of Research In Motion, maker of the BlackBerry.

Well, I, for one, have welcomed our Canadian overlords, having ditched my iPhone for a BlackBerry after 3 and a half months of swerving, sweating, and getting annoyed at the coolness of Apple's $400 screen.

In fact, at SxSW this past March I noticed that while the great uniter was Twitter, the great divide of the thousands of temporary Austinites wasn't Hillary versus Barack (Barack), or Mac versus PC (Mac), but iPhone versus BlackBerry. My verdict in March (and since then) is no clear winner.

The Times has delved into the sales statistics and constant rumours that fly about the next versions of each device, who uses what, and how, and most importantly, how many are being bought?

My biggest beef with iPhone was actually twofold: the lack of email and calendar syncing, and the battery life. One of them might be solved. The other? Let's think about it.

In March, Mr. Jobs announced that Apple would take the rare step of licensingMicrosoft's corporate e-mail technology, to allow iPhones to connect directly to business computers -- a dagger aimed at the heart of R.I.M.'s strength in the corporate market. In Apple's quarterly conference call last week, Apple executives said that one-third of Fortune 500 companies were interested in giving iPhones to their employees.

I'll go out on a limb here and actually praise Microsoft for delivering a great product, Exchange, and RIM for leveraging it for the on the go email user (sadly, most of my mobile use is email, Instant Message or an even cooler feature, RIM's peer-to-peer BlackBerry Messenger follow, but I use email more than anything). Also, the calendar. Ah, the calendar. I can add an appointment and invite a friend and it hits their calendar and mine, I can edit it on my Mac and it hits the phone in the same way. Yes, ActiveSync does that but at what cost?

I'm going to go even further out on a limb and talk about another SxSW experience. While on the town with a prominent blogger and friend, I heard curses at 4am as his iPhone's battery died. Meanwhile, my BlackBerry was still chugging along. At the SeaGate/HP Salt Lick adventure, there were skirmishes over the power outlets to charge iPhones.

Let's talk about another city with a large domed building: Washington, DC. The Capitol Complex is abuzz with the thumbings of  staffers, members (some in their 80's), lobbyists, and the occasional journalist. BlackBerry Service in the Capitol is a given. Senators, Congressmen, Staffers, etc love them. They're a badge of honor. And they work. 

My iPhone crashed, missed email messages, and was hard to answer or hear when I needed to hear. I had to constantly charge it or otherwise think about it. My BlackBerry, on the other hand, merely sits fearlessly on my belt, letting me know what's up. 

NYT says 1/3 of the Fortune 500 want to give out iPhones, but my experience tells me that at least 1/2 of those who need to have reliable email and scheduling with the occasional mobile web hit will give them back.

Steve, give me a keyboard and a removable battery, and we'll talk.

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2129 Comments

By Mr Fresh on April 27, 2008 12:23 AM

Interesting article, Andrew. I wonder if the next version will have other upgrades to make it even more attractive....

By Desmond Haynes, Jr. on April 27, 2008 8:11 AM

It is not going to be anything close to what NYT will like to believe. RIM is a smart co, and it will fend off the challenge well.
-D
http://techwatch.reviewk.com/2008/04/blackberry-vs-iphone-the-smartphone-battle-hots-up/

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