Blackberry's Beachhead Strategy

Close your eyes. Take deep breaths. Let your mind relax.

Oh sorry, no, I wasn't trying to teach you yoga or meditation. Far from it. I am thinking Blackberry. A piece of device which keeps you strangled to your workplace. The Email Phone.

But yes, do close your eyes and think about Blackberry and tell me if you see what I see. A phone that comes only in Black color. Think about people who use it. You will visualize corporate executives fiddling with it, running their thumb quite stylishly on the side of the phone. Like Aladdin would do to the magic lamp. Voila, like the Genie, comes your official emails. Think about the ads. It was functional. No, I mean the ads were good but the message was focused on functionality. Oh I also see a slightly beautiful Curve. But yes, again in black. Oh, I can also see Lewis Hamilton. Was that iPHONE? No, that was Blackberry trying to do iPHONE. That was black, too.

If you have used it, you will notice that the UI is hardly any great. It is not bad, though. I am not sure how many owners use it to browse the internet. My guess is hardly anyone.

As my colleague, Deepak Chopra rightly puts it - Blackberry is an office phone! It is not a phone one buys. It is often pushed down your throat by your employer so that they can keep you tied to work even when you are not in office through the end of your thumb.

This Research In Motion's technology marvel was also in a true sense a real convergent device. It allowed Voice and Data to work seamlessly on one single piece. Though data here largely meant - official mails.

So the recent ad campaign of Blackberry took me by little surprise. Black wasn’t missing but there was Whiteberry, sorry white Blackberry. And it wasn't about email, the ad featured youngsters accessing social networking sites. Then I heard a radio jingle which mentioned many features that would entice the social networking addicted youth.

Yes, these are all signs that Blackberry now wants to go mainstream! And I must say that it was inevitable. There were only two options for RIM - be a chimp by becoming better email phone or aim to be a guerilla. And it chose wisely to be a guerilla. Or at least, attempt to be one. But before I try to predict whether it would be successful or not, it would be good to analyze this situation from theoretical point of view. And where else to turn, but to Geoffrey A Moore!

My obsession with Geoff Moore seems never ending. Someone who has followed his work will be able to see that RIM was intelligent in adopting a beachhead strategy in the mobile industry. For non-starters, this strategy evolved from the Allied Forces' attack on the Normandy Beach in the final attempt to over throw Hitler's regime during the Second World War. Allied Forces instead of spreading its attack thin chose Normandy in France as their entry point to Europe that was virtually controlled by the German Forces. And the rest is history.

RIM segmented its market pretty well; it chose a market whose requirements were unique and unmet. As its technology enabled access to emails much faster than the rest, it chose to serve the Corporate World. And not just anybody in the Corporate World. It became the preferred device of the top executives who traveled a lot and whose lifeline was emails.

Over a period of time, despite coming in one single color like Ford's T-model, Blackberry has built a reputation of its own and definitely become an object of desire. It has come to denote power and position one holds in an organization. However one may rant about Blackberry eating into one’s personal life, it definitely beats Nokia's Vertu in terms of being an aspirational product. This despite the fact that Vertu has precious stones and metals embedded.

But in the technology world things change at a much faster pace than one would imagine. Apple that was riding on its iPOD's success, decided to enter the mobile market through iPHONE. And through iPHONE, it gave jitters to Nokia, the largest mobile phone company in the world. While tumbling the pins in the mobile phone market, it has started eating into Blackberry's protected market. If you are a lowly mortal, like me, mailing to your boss from laptop or PC, you would have noticed that he promptly replies to you and there would be a small line after his signature stating that 'this mail has been sent from Blackberry'. But oft late, you must have seen some sprinkles of 'this mail has been sent using iPHONE'.

Apple is certainly giving jitters to everyone. And that is why I said that Blackberry had only two choices - protect its existing turf, which would have become more and more difficult, or fight a war and expand its territory.

So, Blackberry decides to follow its own bowling pin strategy. Blackberry's association with email is very strong. Email means internet. And internet is going strong. Adoption of mobile phone is happening much faster and it surely is going to displace the PC/laptop market. That is the technology trend. The other trend is consumers’ behavior. Today, Social Networking is a way of life. Twitter, Facebook and the likes are our communication tools. Mobile phones being the device of the generation, Blackberry naturally is positioning itself as the device for youngsters. Proof? Look at the ads and the message.

But in my opinion, mobile phones may also not be the future. To me the iPAD and Kindle seem more like it. But I wouldn't be surprised that the real convergence happens somewhere in the middle. Yes, and that will be the most convenient to users.

So, can we expect an iBERRY? My guess is a big YES!

Kindle In Interesting Times

Long time back, I had a very interesting conversation with a journalist about e-paper. Now, that was seven years back. It was the time when news portals were mushrooming. Internet and PC penetration, still at miniscule figures, was the buzz.

Sankarnarayanan, then with Express Computers, said, "While e-content is available, the consumers are not comfortable with the medium to read. Unless the medium is similar to newspaper or a book, the adoption of e-content will not be easy.”

True, I thought. And impossible! How can computer or even laptop be as comfortable as the thin and foldable paper?

I read newspaper and books on paper format. I didn’t want to read them on eye-irritating and neck-pain-inducing computer monitor. I can’t hold the computer, closely; can’t fold them; throw it away when done. Also, PC at that point of time was more for checking emails and chatting.

You must be thinking that I am a laggard. I was, then. The 'legacy' behavior of touch-feel-read of paper was all pervasive.

Over the years, the continuous innovation leading to thinner laptops coupled with the slow-yet-steady change in consumer behavior was certainly ensuring that more and more people consumed e-content. Mobile phones have further accentuated the process. Of course, one cannot deny that improvement in the quality and exclusivity of e-content also helped the cause.


So recently a blog by John Battelle on why he wouldn't like to use Kindle caught my attention. Consciously or otherwise, he has best articulated feedback to Amazon. For non-starters, Kindle is a gadget manufactured and marketed by Amazon. Kindle allows one to read e-books; I understand it has ecommerce capabilities.

Battelle has actually articulated the same points which Sankar had raised then, but in detail.

Fast Second by Constantinos Markides and Paul A. Geroski classifies technology innovations based on their ability to destroy the competencies and complementary assets of established players in the traditional publishing industry and its effect on consumer habits and behaviors. If I were to plot Kindle (substituting for e-content medium devices) on the quadrant, I will plot it in Radical Innovation square.

But on the other hand it may not be entirely true. Consumer habits and behavior has already changed a lot as far as reading e-content on such devices is concerned. The usage of PC and other medium to consume other e-content is quite prevalent.

Kindle, after all, may not be entirely radical.

If we analyze the adoption of e-content reading medium technology based on Geoff Moore's Crossing the Chasm, I can, with some confidence, say that Kindle is certainly in the Visionary market. But certainly, it hasn't crossed the chasm into the Main Market. Battelle, who probably can be classified as Visionary or Early Adopter, uses it but is not entirely satisfied. That is the character of a Visionary.

For Kindle to cross the chasm and reach the main market would mean that e-content would have displaced the traditional print content - newspapers, books, magazines, research reports. For that to happen, the penetration of internet and computing devices (even PDA/large screen mobiles) has to increase. This will catalyze the change in consumer behavior. The book – Crossing the Chasm – has enough strategies already spelt out for Amazon to kick Kindle hard enough that it doesn't have to peep below in the biggest crack in the Technology Adoption Lifecycle. With our lives being taken over by technology, Kindle would be in the eye of the Tornado.

While, I will not attempt to chalk out the strategies for Kindle, it would be important to note that for success, Kindle will have to become more affordable, get standardized and find partners for growth. But most importantly, it has to get close the consumer’s current behavior of reading. From this perspective, Battelle's blog on Kindle is significant.

Out of the couple of very useful insights, I liked the one on show off value. Battelle has highlighted that we like to show-off what we read in public which is very true. Kindle right now doesn't offer that capability. But I am sure technology will advance, if it already hasn't. In future, we might be able showcase the cover of the book on the other side while reading the content on one side of Kindle. For example, if I am reading Da Vinci Code, the other side should/could show a movie trailer of the same movie. Opportunities are infinite. Am sure e-content reading medium will see incremental innovations in the future.

Having said so much about Kindle, it would be interesting to watch Kindle’s growth and how the PC/laptop and mobile phone companies react. For all you know, Kindle can easily morph into one these devices.

Amazon's 'forward' integration, watch out!

Oh wait, somebody is already moving in the direction – Apple.