Good news for RIM....

RIM’s challenge: Keep teenage BlackBerry texting addicts, Bay Street bankers, add iPhone, Android fans

Nicole Tollefson uses her BlackBerry Bold to keep up on her Grade 11 math homework, but she raves about her iPhone.

Her BlackBerry is efficient at messaging and makes it easy to participate in groups. If Tollefson has a math question, she sends it out to 11 other members in her math class group who also have BlackBerrys. She uses BlackBerry groups to keep up with her fashion show committee work at school.

But as soon as her friends update to iPhones, she’ll be dumping her Bold.

“The iPhone is so much easier. It’s faster, I can have my music on it, my photos. It’s faster on the Internet. I don’t bother going on the Internet anymore with the BlackBerry because it’s way too slow,” says Tollefson, 16.

Tollefson embodies the challenge that Research in Motion faces. Tollefson liked her Bold when she got it three years ago. Now Research In Motion has to woo her back.

Whether RIM’s new line of smartphones will be able to win back consumers remains to be seen.

Kevin Michaluk is a believer. A founder of Crackberry.com, a website for fans of BlackBerry products, Michaluk thinks the smartphone platform RIM is trying to push out this year will reclaim lost fans and win new ones.

It’s not just that the BlackBerry 10 will look slick – if a leaked photo of the new phone is authentic, the new BB 10 will be sleek and slim, with the kind of big, new high-definition screen found on the Galaxy that is already making the iPhone 4s look a little dated.

It will also be the first BlackBerry phone designed specifically with consumers as well as corporations in mind, says Michaluk.

RIM’s initial foray into the smartphone market – the Storm – was a buggy disaster, mostly because it was old technology warmed over. The QNX platform promises to deliver a totally different user experience.

BlackBerry is also aggressively wooing app developers, promising those who submit an Android app to BB AppWorld by Feb. 13 will get a free PlayBook.

The PlayBook, RIM’s answer to the iPad, sold so poorly before Christmas it had to be deeply discounted, and is now available for hundreds less than its original list price.

“They’re taking the best things you know from the BlackBerry of the past and bringing it to this platform, which is designed for the next decade and beyond,” he says.

He’s expecting a phone that will be able to run multiple applications at once, and the ability to move easily between the applications, which is a feature of the PlayBook.

“If you use a PlayBook for a while and you go back to the iPad, the iPad feels old now,” says Michaluk.

He believes the new BB will bring new value to the market. While Android phones are competing for consumer dollars with gimmicks like face recognition, the BlackBerry will offer more meaningful value.

The criticism of the BlackBerry has always been the browser is slow and there aren’t many applications. The new phones will address both those issues, says Michaluk.

“I think once they close all their gaps, they will get attention.”

“The good news for RIM is that its brand remains solid in a number of key sub-markets. In addition to messaging-obsessed teens and security-conscious financial sector buyers, the BlackBerry is still a staple in government, health care, and other key verticals,” says technology analyst Carmi Levy.

He says RIM needs to develop niche marketing to appeal to their different customer groups.

“RIM can't afford to fly at 50,000 feet anymore.”