I don't know what the point of this article is except as some kind of Apple gloat. As far as I know everyone was blown away by the 2007 announcement, the event was a worldwide shock, it would be news if a competitor hadn't reacted strongly. Techies such as everyone here went into straight nerdgasm, the media went gaga, consumers went into gotta-have-it mode, and the entire rest of the industry went into shock and then desperate reactionary mode.
The announcement was a historical event in computing and consumer electronics. But it is ancient history, 4 years ago, what's the point of this now?
It's also important to note that Google has been able to ship a mostly-competent competitor to the iPhone, and is improving incredibly quickly. Palm, a company with vastly inferior resources and shallower pockets than RIM, has been able to also.
Both of these companies were largely reacting to the success of the iPhone and got sideswiped much like RIM. Unlike RIM, though, both companies recovered quickly and were able to ship compelling products (though not all commercially successful).
RIM hasn't shipped squat that would even begin to compete with the user experience on iPhone. Hell, RIM hasn't shipped anything that I'd use over the first-gen iPhone, much less iPhone 4.
RIM has been the entrenched market leader. Abandoning all that made it successful would be equivalent to the Digg redesign. Instead of placing bets on RIM's comeback play we'd be analyzing the wreckage of RIM's sudden implosion.
Google and Palm had no users. They could afford to completely change focus and abandon the existing user base.
Especially when entrenched within large organizations everyone's perspectives and imaginations change and, often, diminish. And then you tend to imagine that the entire world is restricted by the same limitations that you and your organization are, even when many of those limitations are things such as dysfunctional management structures and ineffectual leadership.
And then you get surprised when a competitor does what you thought was fundamentally impossible. And what you thought was a secure and cozy dominance of a high-markup market actually becomes a fight for the very existence of your company, and with the poorer footing to boot.
RIM getting caught with their pants down by the iPhone is just one of a countless string of similar examples from history.
It can happen to you too, that's why you should pay attention. Because if you want to avoid such circumstances you need to pay attention to the root causes and figure out how to avoid those well ahead of time.
The announcement was a historical event in computing and consumer electronics. But it is ancient history, 4 years ago, what's the point of this now?