toddfearn.com

There’s a trend going on right now that doesn’t help RIM with their cherished Wall Street clients.

I’m seeing this all over the place.   People are tired of carrying two mobile devices, a corporate Blackberry and a personal Android or iPhone.  Many IT departments on Wall Street are incorporating technology from GOOD to solve this problem.  And saving big $$$ for the company.

If you haven’t heard of GOOD, think of it as a self-contained corporate Outlook for your Smartphone.  It’s a secure e-email / calendar / browser / contact manager /etc app.  All data is encrypted, and if the device is lost the application data can be wiped remotely.

If your company supports GOOD, you typically have the option of disposing of your corporate Blackberry and installing the GOOD app on your Smartphone.  Given the option, everyone I know is doing the latter.

GOOD isn’t the greatest technology, and will most likely become irrelevant with iOS 5.0 (more on that later), but given the option I would rather carry just one device and that would be a Smartphone, not a Blackberry.

Everyone knows RIM is in trouble.  Last Friday RIM shares lost 10% of their value based upon poor earnings (Reuters).

Some believe that RIM can reverse its fortunes with the introduction of the QNX operating system, which will make its debut on the PlayBook.  

I personally think that RIM is too far behind the iPad.  Apple has almost an 2 year advantage with the iPad, over 65,000 apps written specifically for the iPad and another 250,000 iPhone apps that will run on the device.  You could argue that Apple really has about a 4 to 5 year advantage with the introduction of the iPod Touch in 2007.

The Playbook on the other hand will probably debut with less than 100 apps. And RIM said Thursday QNX, their killer OS, won’t appear on its phones until early next year.

I’m in the financial services industry and work primarily with hedge funds.  This industry embraced RIM from day one and loves the BlackBerry.

But, over the last year I’ve seen a departure.  Wall street firms are not building apps for the Blackberry devices, and I don’t see plans for the Playbook or Blackberry development.  No one is talking about the Playbook.  But they are rushing to deliver for the iPhone and iPad.

There’s also a huge shift away from delivering a new Blackberry devices to employees within the company.

  Instead, wall street firms are providing a free iPhone app from Good Technology to access corporate email and calendars.  This saves the company at a minimum $60 per month per employee.  This is a huge savings when you multiply this over thousands of employees.  

And the employees love it.  Now they don’t have to carry a separate corporate Blackberry along with their iPhone.

These trends are huge and they will accelerate.