[brfilora]

Hello All

I thought I could maybe use the collective knowledge of everyone on here with a simple question

Which Phones compete most with the Blackberry Pearl?
e.g. what are the 8100's competitors. i.e. samsung blackjack


I am doing a marketing project on my Pearl and this is part of my first assignment; finding the Pearls competitive set.

Thanks for any help guys!! (and girls)

[jorv88]

Originally Posted by brfilora

Hello All

I thought I could maybe use the collective knowledge of everyone on here with a simple question

Which Phones compete most with the Blackberry Pearl?
e.g. what are the 8100's competitors. i.e. samsung blackjack


I am doing a marketing project on my Pearl and this is part of my first assignment; finding the Pearls competitive set.

Thanks for any help guys!! (and girls)

hm...... well the phones that i would trade for my pearl would be
1)n93
2)sony ericsson s700/s710a
3)iphone
i would think these are good comp.

[canonbomb1987]

If it is not network specific make sure you include Motorola Q and Treo's that are available.

[NJBlackBerry]

Compete or compete well?

The Q is a disaster.

[Pearl3r3]

Blackjack?

[kurrupt_1]

Originally Posted by Pearl3r3

Blackjack?

Yeah, you know the Samsung Blackcrack!

[Willie115]

Marketing wise... Blackjack, Q, iPhone, w900i, s700, hell even Sidekick 3

[SanFrancisco]

You might want to search around the net for articles that compare "Smartphones" such as review sites.

Also consider that at MacWorld Steve opened the iPhone presentation with the bottom half of various devices, to talk about the iPhone was not going to have a keyboard.

As I recall he had the Pearl and a Motorola Q. Can't recall the others.

So maybe a nice piece for the the paper would be to have that pic of Steve and those devices on screen, Pearl included. Can saying something like "Well here is what Steve Jobs considers the Pearl's competition." Maybe a nice opening for the paper.

I thought I took a screen capture of that, let me know if you want it and I will see where I saved it.

[hrhenry]

I think it's rather telling that a phone that's not even due out until June has been mentioned a couple of times so far in this thread.

Gotta hand it to savvy marketing.

R.
==

[twgg]

you guys must be kidding...

iPhone is definitely not a competitor as it has no corporate email capabilities. It's not even a smartphone...

s7XX SE series ??? Are you kidding me ? I had one of these 3 years ago, and it's not even close.

Rim's BB line is mainly about the corporate services, so competitors must have such features... only thing on the market place now are the Q, Nokia's equivalent...etc.

[SanFrancisco]

Originally Posted by twgg

you guys must be kidding...

iPhone is definitely not a competitor as it has no corporate email capabilities. It's not even a smartphone...

s7XX SE series ??? Are you kidding me ? I had one of these 3 years ago, and it's not even close.

Rim's BB line is mainly about the corporate services, so competitors must have such features... only thing on the market place now are the Q, Nokia's equivalent...etc.

That's not the point of my post. I did not say that the Pearl and iPhone are competitors [see my posts in the iPhone thread], I simply said that Steve Jobs possibly considers it such when HE posted the picture of four smartphones on screen, Pearl included. Someone of Steve Jobs stature and business acumen selecting those four phones for the graphic means something, doesn't it?

To be sure people can talk about the iPhone and Pearl all day long, but don't get started on the iPhone since there is a thread for that.

[kathrynhr]

I know there are several of us here who switched from a Sidekick to a Pearl (myself included), and another large batch of people who switched from a Treo to a Pearl.

I've heard MDA/SDA mentioned as well, but not as often.

Might not be a bad idea to put up a new thread asking those who switched from a non-Blackberry device to a Pearl, to please name the device they switched away from. If you say it's for a school project, I'm sure most people here will be accomodating and help you out.

Then you'll get a picture of what the Pearl's competition is, and to what degree.

[brfilora]

Thanks for the help guys! That was a big help.

Originally Posted by SanFrancisco

Also consider that at MacWorld Steve opened the iPhone presentation with the bottom half of various devices...

SanFran; when my prof. assigned this part of our project that is the first thing I thought of...I posted the link to that article in the iPhone discussion to I can track it down that way, thanks though!

And for whats it's worth (My $.02)
The iPhone ABSOLUTELY competes with the Pearl. HISTORICALLY Blackberry's have been business orientated and aimed at the corporate world.
But clearly RIM was shooting for a younger different demographic with the Pearl (MP3 Player, Camera, small size, etc).

Don't get me wrong I think the 8100 is still very business oriented.

But to think that the iPhone is not going to compete with the same customer base as the Pearl is unbelievably nearsighted.

I for one WILL be including it in my competitive set.
But I digress...

Thanks again guys!!

[hrhenry]

Originally Posted by brfilora

...
The iPhone ABSOLUTELY competes with the Pearl. HISTORICALLY Blackberry's have been business orientated and aimed at the corporate world.
But clearly RIM was shooting for a younger different demographic with the Pearl (MP3 Player, Camera, small size, etc).
...

I'm going to repeat myself by saying this, but the iPhone does not compete with anything right now. It is not for sale, not distributed anywhere. This will be the case until June. If you think that it is current competition, it is because of marketing, pure and simple.

That said, based on the specs I've seen, it probably will be competition. But not until it's released.

My opinion, but if you're going to write a report regarding Smartphone competition, it's vitally important to distinguish what's available now, and what is being marketed as being available in the near future.

R.
==

[jorv88]

[QUOTE=brfilora]Thanks for the help guys! That was a big help.


Blackberry's have been business orientated and aimed at the corporate world.
But clearly RIM was shooting for a younger different demographic with the Pearl (MP3 Player, Camera, small size, etc).

thats the reason why i got my pearl.because its small,mp3,and its the first bb with a camera....+ its a blackberry

[FynxSyndct]

where is a "blackjack" mp3 player for the crackberry. If I could get my music to flow, that would be awesome.

[brfilora]

Originally Posted by hrhenry

I'm going to repeat myself by saying this, but the iPhone does not compete with anything right now. It is not for sale, not distributed anywhere. This will be the case until June. If you think that it is current competition, it is because of marketing, pure and simple.

That said, based on the specs I've seen, it probably will be competition. But not until it's released.

My opinion, but if you're going to write a report regarding Smartphone competition, it's vitally important to distinguish what's available now, and what is being marketed as being available in the near future.

R.
==

A product does not have to be readily available immediately to compete with another product.

Example: I was in the market for an iPod alarm clock/radio. I considered the iHome, which dominated the market. THEN I stumbled across the Xtremac Luna, which was not due to release for over a month but seemed a lot better than the iHome.

Needless to say I waited over a month for the LUNA to release and bought it on Apples website. Hence, iHome lost a potential customer to a product which was not yet available.

(For what it's worth to anyone looking for an iPod clock radio, I LOVE this alarm clock, highly recommend it)


Though thank you for the advice Henry, I will be sure to make that distinction.

[habanero69]

I have both the Pearl and the Q. I would not consider the Q a disaster as some have stated. Have you based that on first hand knowledge or not?

While the Q has its strengths, it also has weaknesses as does the pearl. The big screen on the Q is nice and web browsing, especially at their network speed, is very good. Text handling on the Q can be at times dismal. I personally like the 8100 much better but, the Q has a place especially for those on exchange server configs. The footprint of the phone is not bad considering the screen size. The stock battery life is horrible; without the extended battery you might as well use it as a paper weight. I'm not going to go on as this is a long winded debate. If anyone wants some specifics on the Q, let me know... I still consider the pearl my phone of choice...

[valmendarez]

Originally Posted by kathrynhr

I know there are several of us here who switched from a Sidekick to a Pearl (myself included), and another large batch of people who switched from a Treo to a Pearl.

I've heard MDA/SDA mentioned as well, but not as often.

Might not be a bad idea to put up a new thread asking those who switched from a non-Blackberry device to a Pearl, to please name the device they switched away from. If you say it's for a school project, I'm sure most people here will be accomodating and help you out.

Then you'll get a picture of what the Pearl's competition is, and to what degree.

Just stay away from the MDA its a PDA 1st phone last. I hated making calls on that PDA/phone. Text sucked it was just so slow. No way it can compete with the pearl.

[SanFrancisco]

Originally Posted by brfilora

A product does not have to be readily available immediately to compete with another product.

Though thank you for the advice Henry, I will be sure to make that distinction.

I was going to say the same thing, but did not want to start a war. You are right on.