Steve Jobs was given free reign of another public access system and once again, he has earned the mire of some developers and company heads. While this is pretty much par for the course, considering that Steve Jobs was in a conference call and everything he stated about Apple and other companies would be put on record.
While his initial comments about Research in Motion were pretty much downplayed in earlier news (which focused more on the ongoing tirade between Jobs and Google VP Andy Rubin), the fact is that Steve made some strong claims regarding RIM and what their presence in the industry means.
One of the turtleneck man’s biggest comments was that RIM’s BB OS has plenty more challenges to overcome before it matches up to the Apple iOS. While this may be true in terms of third party developer support –since RIM’s third party software library is considerably weak compared to the Android Market and the iTunes, the fact is that the BlackBerry OS is still more widely distributed than the Apple iOS (despite the widespread distribution of both the iPhone 4 and the iPad).
One critical comment was that Steve believed that it would be a challenge for RIM to create a competitive platform –a claim that is hard to prove after seeing the new BB OS 6 in action. The new touch screen based OS and media centric functionality has made the BlackBerry more of a social access device than an official tool –which is a perfect fit for today’s generation of smart phone users.
Another key point that Jim Balsillie (RIM’s CEO) felt strongly about, was the way Apple presented the figures regarding the shipment of units. While the 14.1 million units shipped last September by Apple is true, the comparison to 12.1 units distributed by the end of August is an unbalanced comparison. Had the same time periods been compared for both companies, RIM would have easily matched Apple’s numbers.
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