Mobile Presence

Business leaders are the ones always thinking of new ways to strengthen their brand and grow their sales. Skating development professionals Steffany Hanlen and Vanessa Hettinger have been in rinks over the past 10 years teaching minor, junior and NHL players how to skate through their Quantum Speed company. Last year, they got the idea of taking their techniques and putting it into the hands of hockey coaches and instructors around the world. With the popularity of iPhones, this is the digital platform they selected. Essentially, it was a 'mobile-first' initiative with any of the content appearing on their website as an after thought.

The first app is skating introduction ideal for young new skaters. The second app launched in September 2013 is for intermediate skaters. Users can go through about 30 videos and access key teaching points for each one. The videos are embedded right into the app making access easy where there is no data coverage. A third app is expected next year for advanced skaters.

While other hockey development companies are still producing DVDs, social media posted videos and web-based videos, Quantum Speed has taken quantum leaps with mobile presence.

(This is a post that originally appeared in 2010 in a different blog and now updated to August 12, 2013. We are often asked about when our apps will be made for Blackberry. The details below give some reason to our hesitation.)

November 19, 2010

What's the Exit Strategy?

RIM did a great job of taking the human task of processing email off the corporate desktop by making it mobile so that middle management could exist by the art of digital delegation and 'cya'. Their jobs were justified based on their ability to process the inbox and the amount of mail sent to sub-ordinates. Notice how middle management carries over vacation time. They are worried that if they are away from the office, upper management will notice that the department can operate without them. That's why they only vacation where there is network coverage. They need to keep the digital delegation going.

So how does it end?

Let's use a hockey analogy. When your team is scored on, most people blame the goalie for not stopping the puck. However, great coaches will look at the sequence of events leading up to that goal against. The winger not fore checking, the centre not back checking and the defence leaving too much of a gap and backing into their goalie. The entire play gave the opponent a scoring chance.

Blackberry devices were rolled out to the carriers (single decision maker), who would then subsidize the hardware only to be recovered on the users' 3 year voice plan (back when voice calling was cool). Corporate purchasing (single decision maker) would select the carrier, models and plans for the tens, hundreds even thousands of employees to use. Yes, the days of the company issued device. Not long after, the CFO (single decision maker) initiaties downsizing, right sizing, cost control measures. 10% of middle management and their Blackberry devices are off the air. There's one goal against (late in the first period though).

Uses for email are becoming less and less (kind of like using Excel for everything). Gone are sales reporting, network or system status updates, customer service reports, appointment scheduling and even chatting with the employee in the next middle management cubical. These have been replaced with software in the desktops and now software as a service (cloud computing).

SalesForce.com will one day replace the Sales Director. It will monitor sales performance and automatically generate sales training videos such as time management, selling skills, closing techniques to increase win rates, proposal writing and presentations and product FAB. There's another goal against (on a breakaway even).

Global outages. Another goal against (empty net perhaps).

The iPhone. The iPhone and apps. When Apple entered the consumer market (multiple decision makers), many tech experts were writing about how the iPhone would never enter the enterprise space and be a threat to Blackberry. Today, many businesses are not only swapping out their Blackberry's for iOS devices but deploying enterprise applications (the apps you won't find on the App Store) on these devices for employees and visiting clients. There are more and more new enterprise app developers hitting the market (many of them don't do consumer app projects). Many companies will give employees the choice of using either device. Since these companies use MS Exchange mail servers (in their data room or in the cloud), it's easy to deploy on the iPhone. Plus, iPhone users have the ability to combine personal and business life into one device (mail, calendar and contacts). Another goal against (the other team was even short handed).

Lagging behind in innovation, Blackberry enters the consumer market of data (apps, video, photo, music) with devices similar to Apple's. They still make a big thing out of the keyboard (the pacifier of middle management). As I've said before, Apple has turned the keyboard into an app (you don't need it all of the time). Blackberry is now a 'me too' device. There's the goal against (in overtime).

Not convinced? I ran into Kevin Frankish (CityTV - BT) last April at the Toronto hockey show and asked him "What would happen first. Leafs win the cup or Kevin trading in his Blackberry for an iDevice?" He's enjoying his iPad very much.

Articles from the recent Web 2.0 Summit has Balsillie talking about (what I interpret) the PlayBook as a new web browser (yes the world needs another way to multi-keystroke its way through a commodity resource). Or could it possibly be something more than that? He mentions something about using existing web content without apps. He predicts apps will die out..quickly. (Shortly after reading that article, the Blackberry App World commercial appears on my tv). Is he relying on the market to decide this or is there some new innovation coming from RIM that puts the company into the next series of play?

If that doesn't work, what then? Close shop and sell company assets, be acquired, merge? MicroBerry, HPberry, Faceberry?

Updated July 30, 2011:

Reading the Toronto Star article by David Olive this morning reminded me of my years at several telecom companies in Canada (local, ld, toll free). Product innovation came through what the legal department said and running the company was only for share holder value.

New products were simply a change in pricing and a new plan name after legal approved it. As an employee, I often asked where was the innovation especially after listening to Tom Peters audio books on my iPod.

2,000 layoffs at RIM just announced. I can see how that went. A CEO prep speech about market conditions and the companies financial performance...10% of all departments or non-customer facing employees will be let go.

Rumors about which day the layoffs will happen swirl around the organization. I remember when a manager at AT&T Canada told his boss that he had a dental appointment the next day (which was rumored to be the day of layoffs) and he was given his package on the spot. The following day, management decided not to do the layoffs as they thought the employees would be needed once the division was acquired by another company.

The day 2,000 RIM employees were let go probably went like this. Several employees receive a meeting request for room A and others receive a request for room B. They gather at the scheduled time. No one is late and they look around the room to see who is there and who is not there. They wonder if they are in the room of people that will be let go or the room or people that will remain with the company (until the next round of layoffs).

I knew a guy who went through this at least five times and always ended up in the 'still employed' room. After leave one of these meetings he said "I'm sick of being a survivor".

By contrast, I had the pleasure of working for a manufacturing company with its headquarters in Japan. Japanese business management was a nice change from the Canadiana way of doing things. They would never think of laying off employees to reduce costs. Instead, they would look for ways to redeploy those resources for improved productivity or efficiencies in other parts of the organization.

If RIM let go talented product developers or engineers, those folks may take their talents to their own start-up enterprises and compete against RIM or later be acquired by RIM competitors. If RIM took a page from Tom Peter's, they could have spun off these employees with a start-up development task with funding providing. A few years later, use the innovation in their core business.

So what is the core business of RIM now? Sitting at number 3 in the mobile OS market, where do they go? Young iOS consumer users will mature into enterprise users in several years. They won't know what a Blackberry is or does. I had a fireside chat with my neighbour about our teenage children who don't use email to communicate, function and operate their Me Inc. business. Introducing them to email in the corporate world will be like telling the faxing generation to use telegram service instead.

Updated October 18, 2011.

Was that Kevin Frankish with his own iPhone 4S this morning?

This month, another outage. A big one. Followed by App credits from a company that thinks there's no future for 'native' apps.

This month, new OS. Will that bring back developers who left the previous OS?

Does this company even have a goaltender to stop the puck?

Updated December 20, 2011:

iCing on the Cake

Michael Grothaus' post on TUAW today really paints an amazing picture of the downfall of the Blackberry. The title "App Store hypothetical market cap beats RIM's value" says it all.

Updated March 28, 2013:

Blackberry reported a profit yesterday. Likely a result of 'right sizing', op-ex controls, and some Z10 sales. Let's face it, the Z10 was long over due and those companies that still use purchasing power to manage technology just did a mass upgrade to their existing Blackberry depreciating assets.

Innovative companies or internal employee lobby groups didn't take long to find out the power of iOS in corporate applications. BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) is becoming an acceptable practice at many corporations. Notice how quickly your Exchange email account updates on your iPhone once your Exchange admin updates your profile. Behold, you can also keep your business and personal details separate on the same device.

Blackberry claims that 55% of their sales are from migrating smartphones. Unhappy Android users and corporate purchasing power policy forcing employees to the Z10 perhaps.

I keep thinking of those business analysts that wrote, several years ago, about Blackberry not being affected by the iPhone and other devices. What are they writing about now?

The bleeding is bad and the Z10 might not be a big enough bandage to stop it.

Just like in hockey, leagues collapse and new ones emerge.

Updated June 28, 2013:

Shares drop 25% on reported losses and the Playbook is done. Where do they go now? New technology to be released several years behind other mobile device makers or merger? Is this kind of like a hockey 'lock out'?

Updated August 12, 2013:

Blackberry announces strategic changes. Collapse of the WHA?

Monday, January 6, 2014

Mobility Stupidity

Monday, November 25, 2013

iOS Comes Out on Top in Twitter Ads

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Brand extension beyond the ice rink

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Habs app

Monday, August 12, 2013

WWW dot graveyard

Blackberry - A thing of the past

Sunday, August 4, 2013

A new mobile term - Native Ads