Blackberry, a smart phone that was used to be on the top position in the smartphone industry had lost many of its customers to new rivalries like Apple and Android. Why would this be the case? Blackberry has been very popular before the iPhones have launched in. Even the U.S. president Barack Obama used Blackberry to send personal messages to his wife. The answers were explained in my friend Cathy Lee’s blog post.

President Barack Obama using his beloved Blackberry

In Cathy’s blog post, she has explained that Blackberry was lagging behind its competitor Apple with its new phone BB10 available one year behind the current new iPhone 5. Also, she has stated that Blackberry needs to evaluate its strengths and weaknesses in which I agree with her point. Although Blackberry has its main feature BBM, that would considered as a point of difference from rivalries. They are losing millions of loyal consumers to Apple, Android, and Samsung as what Cathy has talked about that the similar WhatsApp messenger is available.

BB10

This can be viewed as components in Porter’s five forces model in which increased rivalry and substitutes lead to unattractiveness. RIM has becoming more unattractive to customers because they can not provide what customers are looking for.

Picture reference: Google image bb10