Once the heavenly of IT departments and business-minded consumers the world over, Research in Motion is now suffering from an picture problem.
Even as the BlackBerry device-maker tries to daunt its corporate consumer bottom with a entirely rested working network , a few of the greatest BlackBerry fans - corporate IT departments - have already changed on.
"The fact is, nobody likes it anymore," says a comparison systems director for a New York investment investigate firm, who asked to sojourn anonymous.
The director has seen BlackBerry use inside of his firm tumble to reduction than half of what it was at its peak. The largest organisation of formerly users, his firm's sales team, have been the quickest to travel divided from the platform.
"They do not similar to using technology that they feel is aged since they feel that reflects negatively on them in front of clients," he says.
Waterloo, Ontario-based Research In Motion enjoyed great success via the final decade with its BlackBerry smartphone hardware and software, that valid to be a colossal strike in the buttoned-down business world - and not to mention, a money cow is to creator. But now RIM teeters on the verge of collapse. A new IDC reports shows BlackBerry marketplace share timorous to only 4.8 percent in 2012, a 40.9 percent tumble over its 2011 marketplace share. Chilling figures, but the actual data is forthcoming from the front lines.
Gartner researcher Ken Dulaney told Wired that his firm has conducted surveys of its clients' IT departments, and the direction is not great for RIM.
"We had a most of them going to cut it (BlackBerry) down to a few degree," Dulaney told Wired.
"This could all change next year when they let go BB10," he says. RIM showed off its new working network Tuesday , that includes a one inbox that presents e-mail, a monthly calendar and amicable networking updates all in one place. But Dulaney says the expectation for BB10 isn't relocating the needle as ample as RIM had hoped.
"Those [clients] that do call up are adage they're shortening the BlackBerry head count. Some of are getting off fully, but most of them are of course shortening it."
Dulaney done it coherent that whilst these surveys are unscientific, they do offer a peek of what the craving marketplace is thinking.
Enterprise IT departments frequently deposit deeply when taking advantage of technologies, shopping whole fleets of gadgets and practice scores of workers to give support. With headlines reports detailing the inlet of RIM's suffering, craving customers are restless about investing in a firm - and a stage - that might not be around for long.
It doesn't help that one of the key technologies in the BlackBerry platform, BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES), is far from cheap.
"The chartering is unequivocally expensive," the IT director told Wired, mainly when pitted against Microsoft's competing product, Active Sync Server. The cost of BES chartering is high sufficient that our source's investment firm is ditching BlackBerry all together in the nearby future.
"Once the BlackBerry users' phone contracts run out, we're not renewing their contracts," he said. "And, the service stipulate for our BlackBerry server came up about two months ago and you didn't replenish it."
"If our BlackBerry server goes down, we're only going to close it down completely," he says.
Like Apple before it, RIM is able of forthcoming back from the brink. The care team has been replaced, and arch selling executive Frank Boulben voiced the company's selling subdepartment is working as one section to display the open to BB10.
The subject is, will the guys in IT keep listening?
