Week 2 Strategic Plan

In 1999 RIM introduces the BlackBerry personal digital assitant (PDA) Lazardi and  a RIM coworker receive an Academy Award for Technical achievement, this personal digital assitant was created for business consumers where they can connect mobile with, Exchange, Lotus Notes, Novell Group Wise and others Blackberry Enterprise Server Secure. In 2004 the strategic decision of RIM was to move their market from business profesional consumers to the general consumer by released their 7100 series of BlackBerry. Then with the 8000 series, the market for the general consumer was cemented with the addition of features such as Wi-Fi capabilities, built in cameras, and memory expansion options. Nowadays 9000 series phones Rim has expanded the BlackBerries capabilites with the addition of full HTML support for wbe pages, the ability to receive RSS feeds, and many enhanced online social networking capabilities.The strategic decision of RIM have affected on their popularity becuase Today BlackBerry commands a 20.8 % share of worldwide smartphone sales, making it the second most popular platform after Nokia's Symbian OS.

SWOT Analysis

Strenghts

RIM's unique offering and strategy.- RIM was the first company to understand that mobile applications need to be delivered as part of an integrated package, including hardware, software and services, that is both complete and simple to use.

RIM's brand is now very powerfull.-  In June  According to RIM  the had sold up to 100 million BlackBerry including record sales in their first semestre, RIM now has more influence than many larger device and software vendors; so much so that BlackBerry is now almost a synonym for wireless email.

Weakness

Scalability and global coverage.- RIM's business model (selling purely through operators) means that it dependent on operators to launch the BlackBerry service. This takes time, and the cost associated with launching can be high for smaller operators. Global presence, including small and emerging markets, can be crucial to win and extend contracts with multinational corporations (MNCs). Many MNCs are trying to rattionalise their investments in mobile email by selecting a single supplier.

Touchscreen technology .- Compare with their competitors ; Nokia, Samsumg, and windows mobile that have a large variety on touchscreen cellphones RIM's company  it only has two touchscreen models. The first was BlackBerry Storm had  a built in Qwerty keyboard optimized for thumbing the use only the thumbs to type,and the recently came out  is BlackBerry Torch which have a full keyboard.

Opportunities

Differentiated offerings for several categories of mobile workers .- RIM's ability to cater for a growing range of mobile workers will be crucial in the future, as enterprises look to deploy mobile email across their diverse mobileworkforce. Enterprises now understand the value of mobile email, but fea are willing to pay a premium for company-wide deployments.

Extend the rande of third-party BlackBerry devices .- By licensing its software through the BlackBerry Connect and BlackBerry Built-In programms RIM is able to expand its presence with users who favour other form factors and device platforms.Connect  and Built-In exten RIM's addressable market and improve acceptability of BlackBerry's products in certain markets, such as Nordic countries.

Threats

Tougher competition .- RIM is facing tougher competition than ever before, the primary competitors of BlackBerry are smartphone running Android, windows Mobile, and the IPhone.

New Technology .- BlackBerry Messenger also known as BBM is a software for sending and receiving instant messages via BlackBerry PIN or barcode scan. BlackBerry messenger allows for instant messages to be sent internationally without the cost of regular text messaging. The real advantage of BBM is that much like its internet based court-parts it laso allows its users to connect to another user around the world.