Mark Evans

In a continuation of yesterday's Top Dog post (Google), it's fascinating to see the energy spent by the media trying to push a Blackberry-killer. The latest contestant is the Wall St. Journal, which had a story earlier this week suggesting Reseach in Motion's “lingering” legal woes could provide an opening for rivals such as Samsung, Nokia, HP and Palm. Well, the legal battle has been “lingering” for four years, and the Blackberry is still thriving despite it all. (3M+ subscribers; a new deal with Google, etc.) Like Google, eBay and Amazon, RIM's Blackberry has hard-to-get but difficult-to-lose default status. The Blackberry has captured the top spot because it works well and has managed to do abetter job than Palm moving into voice. Say what you want about the Treo 650, Treo 700 and other devices but all they're trying to do is match the Blackberry's functionality. If read through any of the reviews, including the New York Times' recent review of the SCH-i830, the Blackberry is the standard to beat. While some devices may match or come close to the Blackberry, nothing has surpassed it yet. While not trying to wave the RIM flag too vigorously, the Blackberry-killer crowd's determination is laughable. If the day ever comes that a new device outshines the Blackberry, I'll be the first one to jump off the bandwagon. Until then, the Blackberry killers should stop trying so hard.
Update: The Financial Post has an interesting story on how RIM founder and co-CEO Mike Lazaridis is helping Intel tackle the uncertain future of Moore's Law, which could be obselete by 2018.