Apple and IBM get it, so why can’t RIM?

I’ve tried to stay away from the “RIM is dead” mantra chanted by so many tech writers. But a new survey by ChangeWave Research (coupled with the company’s earlier work) is so convincingly negative that I’m all but ready to give up on the once-dominant BlackBerry provider.

Tellingly, the bad news for Research in Motion comes in a week when two other bellwether technology companies — Apple and IBM — had terrific quarters. In this context, though, the news isn’t financial; it’s about customer satisfaction. IBM, a 100-year-old company, received a very solid boost from the uncoolest technology in the digital world: mainframes. Apple, of course, flew high on two very cool products: iPhones and iPads.

[ InfoWorld’s Galen Gruman argues that for RIM, the fat lady has already sung. | Keep up with the key tech news and analysis with the InfoWorld Daily newsletter. | Get the latest insight on the tech news that matters from InfoWorld’s Tech Watch blog. ]

Apple and IBM — two very, very different companies — have learned to listen to their customers and give them what they want, whether it’s a stodgy mainframe or a supercool tablet. Actually, IBM has spent real money improving its mainframes, but that only underlines my point. Big Blue’s products satisfy its customers. RIM’s don’t.

And if RIM doesn’t learn that lesson, it really will be dead.

RIM customers can’t get no satisfaction Smartphone users, says ChangeWave research director Paul Carton, “don’t want to be somewhat satisfied, they want to very satisfied.” And that’s exactly where RIM falls down.

In a survey of smartphone users conducted this spring, ChangeWave found that 7 out of 10 iPhone owners were “very satisfied” with their device. That led the industry, whereas RIM was way down in the rankings at just 27 percent. The only major device makers that fared worse were Nokia, Palm, and Sony Ericsson.

Given those numbers, it shouldn’t have been a surprise when a survey released this week asking users who said they were planning to buy a smartphone in the next 90 days, found that almost no one will shell out dollars for a RIM BlackBerry. Apple led at 46 percent, with the various smartphones based on Google’s Android totaled 32 percent. And RIM? Only 4 percent planned to buy a BlackBerry.

Drilling down into these numbers shows that RIM customers have become less and less satisfied over the years. Exactly three years ago, satisfaction among RIM owners peaked at 55 percent, only to decline steadily year after year — with one telling exception. From June to September 2010, satisfaction inched up by 2 points (or 6.7 percent) to 32 percent. Why? RIM introduced the BlackBerry Torch, which gave customers something new, says Carton.

But it’s been downhill since then. “You’ve got to get your customers really excited. If they’d accomplished that, RIM would be in better shape. But they failed and are missing the cool factor,” Carton tells me.

Contrast that failure with the success of Apple and IBM. Both companies listen to customers and are nimble enough to respond to a changing market. In the case of IBM, responding to the market meant making a move that would have seemed unthinkable not so long ago: exiting the PC market. The company realized that its future lay elsewhere, and its culture was flexible enough to break with the past. When it saw that its customers wanted new and better mainframes, a technology that other manufactures disdained, it poured resources into that product and is now reaping the benefits.

RIM, on the other hand, can’t get it through its corporate head that the smartphone market is radically different than it was just a few years ago, says Trip Chowdhry, managing director of Global Equities Research.

The shifting smartphone market Because RIM is still a favorite of enterprise IT, the company has failed to adapt to three basic shifts in the market, says Chowdhry:

• Carriers are no longer in charge of the mobile experience, and you can’t gain share by being friendly with them.
• App stores and ISVs create the vibrant ecosystem needed to succeed.
• A menu-driven interface, a legacy of the desktop, is simply not what smartphone users want.

What’s more, RIM couldn’t even leverage its strength in the enterprise when it introduced the BlackBerry PlayBook and shockingly didn’t include email and other basic business functions. My InfoWorld colleagues rightly called it “unfinished and unusable.”

Chowdhry isn’t very optimistic about the company’s chances to recover, though he does note that its strong cash position gives it some time to right itself. Carlton sees a bit of hope for change as well.

As for me, I don’t think the company is quite DOA, but RIM’s plight reminds me of an incident early on in my journalism career. I was then a cop reporter for a Bay Area daily and was talking to an EMT about the condition of an accident victim. The ambulance driver wasn’t allowed to be specific, but he said to me: “Well, I wouldn’t buy him a long-playing record.”

I welcome your comments, tips, and suggestions. Post them here (post them here) so that all our readers can share them, or reach me at bill.snyder@sbcglobal.net. Follow me on Twitter at BSnyderSF.

This article, “Apple and IBM get it, so why can’t RIM?,” was originally published by InfoWorld.com. Read more of Bill Snyder’s Tech’s Bottom Line blog and follow the latest technology business developments at InfoWorld.com. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.