A bushel full of BlackBerries. Bloomberg Boot Camp, a report on today's technology. It seems like nothing ....not even Apple with the iPhone....has been able to stand in the way of the growing popularity of Research in Motion's BlackBerry phones. There's a new touch screen model on the way from Verizon....along with the BlackBerry Bold from AT&T...a push to talk model from Sprint Nextel ....and the first clamshell style BlackBerry being sold by T-Mobile. Research in Motion co-CEO Jim Balsillie...says there will be no let up in the coming year...
"I can't see us not accelerating our product development strategy. I think there's much more segmentation opportunities, there's much more tailoring, there's much more customization and packaging for carriers. There's a lot of different apps and services. We have a lot more capacity to innovate and modify designs. So I would like to see an acceleration of our SKUs, all within a core that's very strong and trusted. And we'll see what '09 brings."
There's no doubt with new phones using Google's Android operating system along with Apple, Microsoft and Nokia ...the competition is getting tougher. Can BlackBerry continue to increase its smartphone market share?
"I don't know, to answer your question can we extend that market share. Can we hold it? Will it decrease? All I know is that we have to do the same essentials and fundamentals that we've done everyday."
Research in Motion co-CEO and co-founder Jim Balsillie. Bloomberg Boot Camp, I'm Fred Fishkin.