In less than 3 years RIM has gone from controlling 87% of the smartphone market share in the US to hanging onto only 30% in the first quarter 2011. Even the 30% is a drop from 35% in 2010 and one can only speculate how far their market share will drop by the end of 2011.
Can Adobe, Microsoft and Facebook deals help revive Blackberry? I would speculate that they would not. First of all Microsoft’s extremely slim markets share is also dropping and if you look at the ratio of the drop they are loosing market share at a faster rate than Blackberry–Bing has a very long way to move Google from its position of dominance. Second, Adobe’s battle with Apple over Flash has really forced everyone to move to HTML 5 so I don’t know how much of an impact Adobe will be able to make. Facebook is a significant player in the emerging digital economy so having an deal with this powerhouse is very valuable but this doesn’t prevent Facebook continuing to develop strategies for the market leader Android and the IOS. When you combine those to platforms you have close to 2/3 of the market share that Facebook will also be focusing on.
Back in 2008 I wrote a short post Blackberry Torch – Sustaining Innovation regarding RIM’s first response to the iPhone as an example of how a market leader can so completely miss the “next big thing”. I speculated that time would only tell how far RIM would fall. When you start to see headlines in the media about deals that would “help revive Blackberry” you know that RIM’s fall is not only continuing but that the end may be in sight.
