Telecommunications Industry News

RIM BlackBerry: The Wireless Email Gold Standard

As mobile voice and data services spread like wildfire in enterprise communications market, wireless email has emerged as a truly must-have service for millions of small business owners, corporate executives, and employees alike.

Waterloo Ontario-based Research In Motion’s popular BlackBerry device has emerged as the gold standard for wireless “push email” communication. The powerful business email solution has seen steady growth for the past several years, allowing RIM to survive a crippling patent lawsuit that cost the company over US$612 million and threatened to shut down the BlackBerry service in the United States.

The BlackBerry’s sheer efficiency and addictiveness have allowed it to gain a unique position of dominance in the enterprise data market. The device faces plenty of tough competition, however, on both the hardware and software fronts.

The world’s largest cell phone manufacturers, Nokia and Motorola, have launched their own email-enabled smartphones, most notably Nokia’s E-series devices, and the much-anticipated yet long-delayed Motorola Q.

PDA pioneer, Palm Inc., meanwhile, has shifted much of its towards wireless email functionality in new Treo smartphones launched over the past couple of years.

In terms of software, Microsoft is challenging the BlackBerry’s dominance with its own foray into the wireless email sector. By allowing users to connect a mobile version of Outlook with Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, the Redmond Washington-based software giant has effectively created its own full-service wireless push email solution. This system is compatible with newer-model Windows-based smartphones, including the Motorola Q and Palm 700w, as well as some Symbian-based devices.

Not one of these competing solutions, however, has managed to steal the spotlight from Research In Motion, as innovative new BlackBerry devices continue to hit the market in full force. If any other company truly hopes to beat BlackBerry in the wireless email sector, plenty of work and improvement remains to be done.

Last Updated: March 31, 2007.