the onda

BGR had a very good piece yesterday on the future of RIM with a subtle but important point that few people seem to get: if you don't have a solid software stack underneath your products that you can invest in for the long haul and which will grow to fit new functionality and third party innovation, you're going to get screwed— even if your end users aren't clamoring for it and are still flocking to your devices in droves.

I bet this very observation is keeping our keyboard-obssesed nanucks to the north up at night. Along with Nokia, these guys basically invented the smartphone, and yet, the cost of being first seems to be that their rickety OS— designed for the CPUs and networks of yesteryear— may now keep them from staying in front of the onslaught from Apple and Google.

I've been carrying a Blackberry 8900 for the last month and have to admit that when it comes to messaging and calendaring, neither the iPhone nor the Ion can touch it. But step outside of email/mms/Exchange calendar mode and you'll feel like you've time traveled back and Windows 3.1. The browser sucks, the device itself is laggy, and most task flows feel... well sort of retro.

If I were a RIM executive, I'd be rooting for some skunkworks team putting the Blackberry's messaging magic into Android. Those guys should be getting loads of pizza and Red Bull and plenty of encouragement about how they represent the future.