>>“The problem wasn’t that we stopped listening to customers,” said one former RIM insider. “We believed we knew better what customers needed long term than they did. Consumers would say, ‘I want a faster browser.’ We might say, ‘You might think you want a faster browser, but you don’t want to pay overage on your bill.’ ‘Well, I want a super big very responsive touchscreen.’ ‘Well, you might think you want that, but you don’t want your phone to die at 2 p.m.’ “We would say, ‘We know better, and they’ll eventually figure it out.’ ”
Seems like they never stopped to think beyond the existing limitations, and what people would put up with for a better experience with the phone. Incumbents [1] tend to imagine that the problems they have identified (and decided to be unsolvable at the moment) are unsolvable for any newcomer too.
1. Motorola had tried touchscreen smartphones before [2] and they had failed. They did not understand at the time that the reason for the failure was not because users did not want touchscreen phones, but because their implementation broke no new ground. It was simply an archaic OS running on a touchscreen that required a stylus.
>>>“The problem wasn’t that we stopped listening to customers,” said one former RIM insider.
The pattern of failure is predictable. When "executives" want to subsist on momentum, and view R&D as a pure expense (at a cost to their bonuses), the end is near.
I used it as my main phone for many months. The battery life was indeed bad. It had many features, such as a web browser. However, like most phones of the day, they weren't quite usable. I never used anything other than th main phone function. When Apple put a full featured browser in the phone, along with a usable map app, it was quite the revelation to me.
Seems like they never stopped to think beyond the existing limitations, and what people would put up with for a better experience with the phone. Incumbents [1] tend to imagine that the problems they have identified (and decided to be unsolvable at the moment) are unsolvable for any newcomer too.
1. Motorola had tried touchscreen smartphones before [2] and they had failed. They did not understand at the time that the reason for the failure was not because users did not want touchscreen phones, but because their implementation broke no new ground. It was simply an archaic OS running on a touchscreen that required a stylus.
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_A1000