Dear Research in Motion,
For 10 years I have been and avid and faithful user of your Blackberry devices. Every day since I started my own business 10 years ago, I have had a Blackberry literally attached to my hip or next to my bed. Your devices have helped me run my business, stay in touch with clients, employees, and vendors. Your devices have also helped me with keeping up with my favorite sport teams while attending my kids’ football, field hockey, soccer, softball and baseball games. They have even allowed me to sneak away to play golf while I continued to email and communicate without anyone knowing where I really was. Your Blackberries have been a huge asset to me and my company and I attribute some of our success to your innovative devices.
I have owned 6 or 7 of your Blackberries over the years. From the pager styled Blackberry to devices with the scroll wheel on the side. The first Blackberry devices where purely email specific. But even in that limited capacity they were incredibly useful and productive devices. When you introduced the Blackberry with the scroll ball and the ability to browse and search the Internet, I couldn’t buy one quick enough. The innovation of those devices were truly amazing. And recently the Blackberry 8830 and Tour were good devices with color screens and a high resolution camera. Each new piece of hardware brought along new features that made it better than the last device.
Not only was I an avid user of your Blackberry devices but I eagerly encouraged my clients to standardize on Blackberries. I remember having heated discussions about the merits of the Blackberry over the Palm Treo back in the early 2000′s. And when you introduced the Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) Express I showed each client the incredible management capabilities and the ease of deployment that went along with BES. I truly was a huge supporter of Research in Motion and Blackberry devices.
But over the past couple of years your innovation has slowed down. Sure the Blackberry 8830 and the recent Tour were good devices. They offered new features that made them better than the previous model. But I was truly disappointed that the Tour did not have WiFi. And each device had a slow and barely usable browser that made browsing the Internet painful and frustrating. I can’t tell you the amount of web pages that I couldn’t view because they were too big for the browser. And while I struggled with the inadequate Internet functionality, newer devices by Apple and those using Google’s Andriod software continued to innovate and leapfrog the Blackberry functionality. Apple and Android devices attracted developers and thousand and thousands of applications were developed for each device. These newer and sexy devices were being purchased and raved about by my friends and colleagues but I continued to walk the line and insist that the Blackberry had the best email experience, management tools and keyboard that set them apart.
My main complaint was the lack of a good Internet browser on my Blackberry. And then I heard the rumor that a new Blackberry was coming out that had a full touchscreen and slide out keyboard. I thought that this would be the device that would solve my issues. When I heard that the Blackberry Torch was elusively on the AT&T network and was not being offered on Verizon’s network I was more than annoyed. I have been with Blackberry and Verizon for 10 years and I know the reliability of the Verizon network and would not switch to AT&T.
With no prospects for a better phone on the Verizon network I had no choice but to finally give up on your Blackberry devices. Last night I purchased a Motorola Droid 2. I have to admit that I am amazed at how fast it is, how beautiful the screen is, how fast and useful the Internet browser is and how useful and functional the thousands of apps are from the Android App store. I have to admit that the keyboard is not as good as my Blackberry Tour but it is usable and very functional.
So in conclusion, you have lost a loyal customer of 10 years and one that was an Evangelist for your products. My employees will follow me and give up their Blackberries for Droids. I can see my customers making the same decisions over the next few months. My advice is to make sure you innovate like there is no tomorrow before millions of other customers make the same decision that I made. The truth is that until people actually use an iPhone or Android phone they really don’t know how much better they are than your Blackberry devices. I truly hope it is not too late for your company and for the Blackberry devices. I hope that your new operating system and new devices do a good job at catching up to your competitors. If you don’t make huge leaps forward, millions of Blackberry users will soon be iPhone or Android users. It has been a good 10 years and with that I say goodbye.
Sincerely,
Art Gross
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