2012
February 06.
In this week’s New Yorker, Jim Surowiecki ’88 on the fate of the BlackBerry
On the Financial Page of this week’s New Yorker, Jim Surowiecki ’88 analyzes the slow downfall of the BlackBerry.
“The BlackBerry’s reputed addictiveness now looks like a myth; a recent study found that only a third of users planned to stick with it the next time they upgraded,” Jim writes. “The Times wondered recently whether the BlackBerry will go the way of technological dodoes like the pager.”
Jim traces the company’s problems to the “consumerization” of the electronics industry. Rather than focus products on corporate customers, companies like Apple and Google have been focusing their smartphones on individual consumers.
“Consumerization has been disastrous for R.I.M., because the company has seemed clueless about what consumers want,” Jim writes. “One way or another, consumers are going to have more and more say over what technologies businesses adopt. It’s a brave new world. It’s just not the one that the BlackBerry was built for.”
