iPhone 5C – from pull to push

A couple of weeks ago, I spent the weekend ambling around San Francisco, a place I call home when I am not traveling. What was interesting were the number of advertisements promoting the iPhone 5C (and not the more expensive 5S variant). This got me thinking; was this an attempt from Apple to try and attempt to use its marketing muscle to push this device in the market? A different tactic from previous generations of iPhone where the almost unheard of hype led to Apple having to literally ration the device.

The million dollar question to be pondered on – did Apple blunder in the release of the the iPhone 5C, so much so that it has to coax customers to buy this device? Note the following press releases

• Both Best Buy and Walmart began discounting the devices within 2 – 3 weeks after release
• Apple was forced to slash production orders of the device

This is a very different experience compared to what Apple has gone through in the past. Before, it had to figure out how to increase production to meet demand, now the tables seem to have been turned. Oddly enough, ask the common man on the street and the choice between the devices was nearly unanimous. If you had the money, you wanted the 5S; the 5C wasn’t cheap enough in comparison to appeal to a different segment – these folk couldn’t afford it in the first place! I would have assumed that a firm like Apple would have gone through a similar internal exercise, hence cannot figure out what may have caused such a pricing goof-up in the first place!

Apple executives till date haven’t stepped up to admit this wasn’t what they expected, referring to complicated supply chain issues with regards to production orders etc. However, the advertisements everywhere seemed to reflect just this – Apple has now to try to convince people to buy the device. Was this a calculated move, or was this hubris – we may never know. For Apple’s sake – I do hope not the latter. The memories of a Blackberry haven’t quite faded away, where executives thought that they could do no wrong – look where they are now.

All I can suggest is in the future, Apple should do a bit more research and understand their audience. If you want to appeal to a broader audience who cannot afford the flag-ship product then do provide something they can afford in the first place. Apple did it well by discounting previous generations of their products – these products sold well everywhere – including markets such as India. If you can’t do that, or do not want to – think hard why you would want to introduce this “in-between” product – which literally has no where to go.

RIM – a fall from grace

Two news articles piqued my interest last week. First was Marissa Meyer’s (the CEO of Yahoo) announcement that all employees would now be provided by free smart-phones and accompanied data plan. This would be along her priority that Yahoo would have to be a major player in the mobile world by 2015; in order to do so would require that employees use and understand user behavior to create a compelling mobile value proposition. What was telling were the vendors chosen Apple, HTC, Samsung or Nokia….. but no RIM. On top of this Yahoo would now discontinue IT support for the Blackberry platform.

The second was thescripted and belted out by RIM executives for the Blackberry JAM developers’ conference.

I have seen performances, but perhaps never something that sounded so desperate an effort to keep the few developers who haven’t deserted them – as yet. The company has now literally put all its eggs in one basket focusing on the BB10 launch promised for next quarter. If I was a shareholder I would have to ask CEO Thorsten Heins if this is the best punch that he could pack. I am also a bit mystified on their selection of their CEO in the first place – given that he came from Siemens who themselves do not have a stellar track record in this regard and hasn’t done anything radical enough to shake up a company which perhaps desperately needs just that – a different way of looking at their business.

This is just what I will try to postulate; perhaps not rocket science but drawing it up from first principles and positioning it against current competitive trends in this space.

What has been BB’s strength, the USP which drew enterprise customers in hordes during the boom years? It could be summarized as the phone with its ubiquitous keyboard as well as the BBM messaging and email platform offering secure communications prized by enterprise customers. This was the firm belief that this capability would not be replicated and stuck to their strategy over a decade. A decade is light years in the fast moving telecom space. Fast forward a decade later and touch screens are the order of the day with technologies such as swype making typing easier. At the same time 3^rd party companies have come up with compelling solutions which offer similar levels of security but are compatible across multiple platforms and/ or are available at a lower price point. Perhaps they do not maintain the BB legendary watertight server structure but for a majority of the populace this is just good enough. At the same time the shift in behavior has ensured that bring-your-own-device (BYOD) is gaining popularity and enterprises are pandering towards the preferences of their employees who prefer an Apple/ Android phone with thousands of apps to the Blackberry. To its own consternation Blackberry has been unsuccessful in wooing developers its platform – ‘no developers – no apps’. On top of this one USP was the ability compress data in order to squeeze data in older 2G – 2.5G network. With the emergence of 3G/ 4G networks media is now the primary bandwidth hog – email is no longer a red flag item. So now RIM is left with a device which few want, with an app platform which looks like a desert compared to the rest and with messenger and secure email no longer being the preferred service. I will admit that I do not have any deep insights into BB10, but perusing the news and blogs leads me to many skeptics and a few optimists. Perhaps it is drawn from past history with many promises and a track record of under-delivery.

So what could RIM do? On talking to present and past BB users one gets the feeling that although people have gotten past the desire for the handsets (now preferring the iPhone and devices from the Samsung/ HTC universe) there is still an appreciation for the neat and effective BBM and email service. Could RIM drop its pretense of being a device company and migrate along with the rest of the world into being the ‘multi-platform app’ for enterprises. Such an app (or an ecosystem of apps) would leverage the ‘security and trustworthiness’ of RIM, would appeal to the broad range of former RIM BB users who loved the service, but perhaps are now users of different handsets.

Of course, this is no Blue Ocean, but RIM does have the background, the brand and the history to deliver such a service. It would mean a harsh restructuring of the company, but RIM would be able to survive – find its mojo and hopefully emerge as a phoenix in the expanding and lucrative billion dollar mobile enterprise universe

Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours