Why Microsoft May Ultimately Kill RIM

I was recently speaking with someone at Microsoft regarding their upcoming update for Exchange. I was pretty intrigued to see the direction that Microsoft has taken, it would seem to me that they took out a target on Research in Motion. Anything is possible when you have billions of dollars to toss around, here is a copy of the article I wrote for CPU Magazine:

Pretty much everyone in my industry has a BlackBerry. Many of us quickly learned that the difference between a BlackBerry and other handhelds is that a BlackBerry is a tool, whereas most handhelds begin as tools and eventually become toys. Human beings get bored of toys pretty quickly, which explains why we see loads of bells and whistles in handhelds to keep the demand reasonably fresh. Companies who make these products are getting sick of the short product life cycles and the high costs associated with designing new devices. It’s obvious why handheld PCs haven’t really taken off in a massive way, even though they have huge potential. Let’s face it: It’s cumbersome to sync your daily activities by dumping the device into a cradle. Most people find it difficult to “type” with a pen. Wi-Fi on a PDA may be cool, but that means you need to be near a hotspot to do anything. And although they’re getting better on BlackBerry, most PDAs...

The rest of the article can be read here.