There no disputing the fact that 2011 was the worst year for RIM but that goes for most companies going through a bad economy. RIM in particular just had a bigger share of bad luck; starting with stock prices plummeting, outages and delays on their up coming OS.
Making things worst main stream press was in an all out war on anything not Android or IOS. RIM’s near casualty was their first tablet the Playbook. There’s no denying the fact the iPad 2 was the tablet for 2011, I even got one for free after being forced to use on by my company.
On the brighter side, 2011 was a not all gloom in fact something interesting happened near the end of the year which I think will change the playing field for the Blackberry. A leaked OS released for the Playbook contained a copy of the Android App Player. In a few weeks of the leak, Playbook users were side loading Android App Player into their tablets and making a list of apps that ran successfully using the Android player.
The lack of apps which had a negative effect on the Blackberry was something anyone would want to avoid. Its even a fact that Amazon which released their tablet last year knew Apps availability was a major factor for choosing an OS. They could have developed or bought their own OS but instead went for an OS that had the apps which was Android.
Amazon’s use of Android has increased sales of apps coming their tablet. That surge on sales will likely happen when Playbook OS 2.0 comes out next month. The whole point is RIM is basically doing the same strategy as Amazon but inside their own Eco system which is the Blackberry OS. This way RIM will retains control on security and make no compromises which other manufacturers had to do to use Android.
Its still too early to see whats going to happen but 2011 is going to be very interesting for the Blackberry.
