RIM/Blackberry is a 'SMART' company, because ...

Looking at how things develop at RIM with their Blackberry device, I guess RIM/Blackberry is a pretty smart company, because:

1. RIM/Blackberry know that the future of smartphone navigation and interaction system is 'touch' based, hence they prepare their blackberry handset to become 'touch' ready.
2. They know that -- across time -- cheaper Google phone and Palm WebOS-based devices could be a serious threat, hence they prepare 'more affordable' blackberries to complement their current stuff.
3. They know that some competitor (e.g. Palm Pre and some Korean based Google phone companies) might try to establish initial beachhead in the smartphone market by (initially dominating) the CDMA marketspace, hence they start creating a 'combo' blackberries that run well in CDMA space, as well as in GSM; or even both (CDMA+GSM).
4. They know that 'physical keyboard' is still something that many people in the marketplace love to have and interact with, hence they prepare a combo 'touch + keyboard' model code named Pluto (they will not allow Palm Pre to take this niche too easily by themselves).
5. They know that as the world get ready and getting increasingly excited about smartphone and mobile-internet-connected device, the competition and battle for smartphone market will never be over; and -- with the introduction of iPhone OS, Palm WebOS and Google Android -- there would be more and more competing company and competing product outthere; hence they prepare themselves for the upcoming battle.
   

As of now, seems RIM and its Blackberry device and service is at the most fit condition for the upcoming battle. Seems there's nothing wrong to what they do. And seems they never ceased to forget to innovate.

Looking at all above 'pluses', my 'worries' regarding RIM/Blackberry probably is only this:

• They 'do so many things at once' attempt -- running aggressive development on all platform (CDMA, GSM, combo) and on all kind of model (touch, keyboard, combo) at the same time. 

Why this is 'worrysome' ?? It's because although these 'multiple device strategy' is daring, exciting, respectable, smart and innovative for me, all these (hardware) innovations are all -- at the same time -- being based on, and underneath it rely upon their 'start to become aging' Blackberry OS!

Slower innovation on the Blackberry OS platform might eventually bring the whole house down. 

To me, seem Blackberry OS start to show some early sign of 'aging'. Visually and operationally the OS is (still) practical and simple to use (for today needs). Yet:

1. The Blackberry OS doesn't seem to be perfectly ready for massive multitasking that would happen more and more in the coming future as people would be running more and more application beyond email, SMS, telephone and chat. Nowadays Blackberry performance tends to slow down quite significantly once multiple applications running parallel in multitask mode.
   
2. The Blackberry OS doesn't seem to be perfectly ready to become a platform that would allow people build 'advanced application and cool stuff'' beyond messaging, chatting, SMS-ing and Yahoo Messenger. Blackberry current application development platform and language seems perfect for 'messaging' based apps, yet its underlying SDK seem significantly less powerful than others in areas 'beyond messaging'. This make development of native Blackberry applications seems grow slower than application growth in emerging platform (such as iPhone, Google phone, and perhaps the upcoming Palm Pre) that uses more modern languages and more fresh user experience approach towards native application development process.
3. The Blackberry business model and architectural setup doesn't seem to be perfectly ready for roaming process, whereby people travel from one country to another, from one region to another, which makes the power of 'Blackberry mobility' capability quite 'ridiculously costly' for Blackberry users that travel alot around the region, or around the globe.

People might say that above points are 'less important' for today, because the fact still shows (today) that Blackberry is (still) significantly the leading handset the market place. Yet, perhaps it doesn't take long for people to remember, than back in the early 2000s Palm Treo was the leading smartphone in the market. Everybody at that time was looking for a 'Palm Treo' killer; something that can 'beat' Palm Treo for the better. As time goes by, as Palm OS start showing its sign of aging -- and unfortunately Palm's user interface, OS and underlying system never been improved nor changed -- Blackberry 'suddenly' takes over.

At the current moment: RIM/Blackberry seem pretty solid. Their 'penetrate all segment by creating all kind of device at the same time' seems to be pretty perfect. But we will together see how RIM/Blackberry would overcome their Blackberry OS limitations in the near future.  And how their 'push, centralized subscription service and multifront device strategy' will adjust, transform, look like, and be; in the upcoming future. If they keep their rapid hardware innovation with significant OS innovation, Blackberry might keep its leading edge. Yet if they keep hardware innovation going, while their OS innovation still slower than it suppose to be, they might eventually come into a serious 'bump'.

We'll see how the future goes at RIM, with the Blackberry device (and the underlying Blackberry OS) at their helm.

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