Consumer User or Corporate User...Why BB?

[stevetaz]

I am fascinated by the thought that users may want to (or do) buy a BB, but don't want to pay for a BB Data Plan. I guess what goes through my mind first is what kind of investigating do consumers do? Do people buy a phone because they "heard" it was the best or because their neighbor has one and he knows all about this stuff so it must be good?

I do know that there are consumers who buy BBs because they like the look, the great keyboards (sorry Storm) or the fact that it will sync without great effort and they only want a reliable device to make calls, text friends and family and maybe keep thier contacts and schedule. They have no desire to get email and have no interest in other functions like BBM, Internet, etc.

I understand there are consumers who go in with their eyes open like those in the previous paragraph, but I am constantly amazed at how many users buy a BB and are surprised they have to have a BB Data Plan to get the most out of the device. This happens a lot with people buying used devices on eBay or Craig's List. Most carriers make it known and won't even sell a BB without the required Data Plan. Do they just not know how to research, did they just not believe what they read or did they not understand it?

To the corporate users, do you like BBs or if it was up to you would you choose a different platform? I think it is safe to say that corporate users are provided with the proper data package, but IT policies may restrict acces to functions, sites, features, etc. Ours is pretty liberal, but it can be annoying at times, but they don't block the IE emulation so I can access YouTube and stuff. Shhhh...don't tell them....

I did get a BB Curve for my daughter on a different carrier and she seems pretty pleased, except she does want to change devices more often than the every two years.

RIM seems to be actively courting consumers and I am sure that is something they need to do to keep revenue growing, but I am not sure the marketing they do is informative enough and may be a bit too generic. I am of the opinion RIM should have come out with a consumer line and the business versions. The business line would maintain the high security, but the consumer line would be more like the other vendors out there and not funneled through the RIM servers. They may have looked at this, they may not have. Maybe they can't design two different OS versions and support both.

Consumers demand the bells and whistles and they want great multimedia and probably could care less about the DOD-Grade security. They want their phone to be like the iToy because it works, is well designed and has all kinds of bells and whistles that can keep them amused for years to come. they don't want to know why their device is restricted in what it can do...The iToy can, why can't mine?

I keep wondering if we will see a consumer backlash after the Storm debacle. It will be interesting to see what they learned when the Storm 2 comes out soon....

\end rant