RIM or Research in Motion is now known as Blackberry, a world renowned name in wireless technology which has transformed the cellular phone industry with its innovative line of products. The company has more recently launched a new mobile handset, the Z10 and claims to have overhauled the user’s Blackberry experience (RIM, 2009).
Upon using the behavioral division method, that separates consumers based on usage of the products, the target market for mobile devices can be categorized into two major types of users. The first target market is business professionals. Researches have indicated that RIM is a well situated brand for this particular target market. The second main target market is the consumer market. RIM seems to have a smaller market share of this segment, but attempts to improve its place in this area. Furthermore, RIM will try to uphold its strong situation in the business market and target to control a more substantial portion of the consumer market (RIM, 2009).
RIM’s main marketing strategy involves a product development strategy, a market development decision, and a market penetration idea. The first marketing strategy of RIM is to develop a multidimensional array of products. This would involve increasing the present offering of applications for Blackberry devices, an area where Apple`s iPhone at present holds a competitive advantage. An extra aspect of this product development strategy would be a cobranding ingenuity with a prominent software company such as Electronic Arts to improve Blackberry`s gaming options. A third phase of this marketing initiative is introducing new services such as an enhanced customer service call-centre for hardware issues and a greenmarketing inventiveness concerning the recycling and refurbishing of used devices (Schonfeld, 2009).
It is quite evident from the gathered facts that RIM uses personal selling more than advertising to sell its unique range of products. RIM is certainly not the lowest price maker like Walmart or Amazon, their focus is more on quality than price.
The different products and their respective product lines include BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, the BlackBerry smartphones and software for businesses and accessories. The power of the BlackBerry platform in the enterprise goes beyond the smartphone to connect all facets of a traditional office and mobilize it. With the BlackBerry smartphone at the hub of the mobile office, real-time information and unified communications are pushed to the device so workers can be in the office virtually anywhere. Behind each BlackBerry smartphone in the enterprise is the BlackBerry Enterprise Solution where RIM’s global network infrastructure integrates with the BlackBerry Enterprise Server software to enable access to an organization’s corporate data and telephone servers, providing a mobile platform that maintains a high level of security outside the boundaries of a traditional office. The functionality, security and reliability of the BlackBerry Enterprise Solution is what allowed RIM to become the leader in the enterprise market with more than 90% of the Fortune 500 companies deploying the BlackBerry solution.
Cloud technology has been part of RIM’s business for a long time. The always-on connectivity of a BlackBerry smartphone is powered by RIM’s own cloud infrastructure an infrastructure that has been developed, managed and refined for more than 10 years. It helps RIM deliver real-time data push, market-leading security and backend integration with carrier systems. It helps BlackBerry smartphones deliver a renowned user experience.
In the past, RIM has extended its cloud architecture to deliver developer services, including push, payment, advertising and location services, thereby opening up the RIM cloud and advantages of the advanced RIM architecture to application development.
Promotional contemplations are a crucial element to the strategy of product development. A key strategic element of the marketing program is a commitment to launching RIM as a company that is socially responsible and is the first choice for students and youth that want a cutting edge gaming experience. Publicity material for the green marketing movement should appear on various media channels and the application offerings should be promoted primarily online. This is to reach out to the technology savvy youth of the modern times (Wauters, 2009).
What RIM really wants is a product vision recognizing a few new differentiators for BlackBerry that will reverberate well with the hard working and knowledgeable workers that form the principal of its installed base. Actually, RIM should be develop three new features that should not be duplicates of things that Apple has already applied. RIM should also lay emphasis on structuring them well into the product so they can be used with the rest of the device (Wauters, 2009).
RIM also desires to add more variety to its wide array of products. In its effort it has built the PlayBook tablet in 2011. This seems to be a crucial test of RIM's ability to grow in the future and so far RIM has disappointed many people. Distinct from Apple's first notice of the iPhone, the PlayBook release didn't show much functionality that looked essentially new compared to the competition. The competition was all about enabling the knowledge base rather than consumer benefits. RIM utilized the dual-core processor and symmetric multiprocessing technology in a consumer product that portrayed a grave lack of variation (Schonfeld, 2009).
References
Schonfeld, E. (2009, March 24). iPhone Makes Up 50 Percent of Smartphone Web Traffic In U.S., Android Already 5 Percent. Retrieved June 4, 2013, from TechCrunch: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/24/iphone-now-50-percent-of-smartphone-web-traffic-in-the-us/.
RIM. (2009, April 2). Research In Motion Reports Fourth Quarter and Year-End Results for Fiscal 2009. Retrieved June 4, 2013, from http://press.rim.com/release.jsp?id=2248.
Wauters, R. (2009, May 20). Report: iPhone Applications Are Getting Cheaper. Retrieved June 4, 2013, from TechCrunch Magazine: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/20/report-iphoneapplications-are-getting-cheaper/.
