Blackberry pins hope to Bold 9900 as Apple and Google eye its share

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion which once dominated the corporate smartphone segment is now struggling to maintain its corporate client base. It's aging handsets have done little to boost RIM's reputation and fight competition from Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android devices.

RIM’s vulnerability has left it exposed for attacks. And rivals are cashing in on this opportunity. Recently Apple took a shot at stealing away RIM's enterprise base through a advertisement on The Economist.  The ad compared the number of apps for business users on App Store and BlackBerry's App World. It is anybody's surprise who emerges as a winner. As compared to App Store's enormous base of 425,000 apps, BlackBerry's App World looked like a dwarf at 37,000 apps.

BlackBerry shares have taken a beating since last year. From boasting of a market share of 33.5 percent in October, the shares have tumbled down to  24.7 percent. The company's stock are also currently placed around  $27, which is a drop of 50 percent since last year and its lowest in the last five. With growing market share Apple and Microsoft both have billions and billions of dollars in assets and have been speculated for quite some time as potential buyers for BlackBerry.

According to a  Gartner report the primary reason why BlackBerry market share has dropped is because of the change in consumer preference.  The smartphone users seem to be more excited to have apps and touchscreens rather than messaging which was one of the strong points for Blackberry.

However RIM has not given up and continues to make attempts at changing the perception of the consumers. Research In Motion co-chief executives Mike Lazaridis recently announced plans to launch seven new BlackBerry smartphones powered by OS7 in the coming months which he hopes will allow it to leap a generation ahead in technology. “It may have delayed us, but we are going to come out ahead,” Lazaridis was quoted as saying on the decision to delay the release of the latest Bold 9900.

 RIM and Nokia are sailing in the same boat. Both once extremely powerful and successful have seen a big drop in popularity and market shares. We hope to see BlackberryBold 9900 and the upcoming Nokia symbian devices surprise us with their offerings.