UPDATED 10:40 EDT / FEBRUARY 01 2013

Analyst Calls BlackBerry a Dinosaur, BB10 Half-Baked [VIDEO]

One of this week’s top NewsDesk segments featured Wikibon networking guru Stu Miniman, who discussed the new face of BlackBerry and what it means for the future of the company (full video below).

Miniman starts by recapping on the latest news from the Canadian phonemaker: it unveiled the new operating system BB10, announced several new devices, and last but not least, changed its name from RIM to BlackBerry. The Wikibon analyst is critical of the changes and deems them as too little, too late; he even goes a step further and compares BlackBerry with Sun Microsystems, which changed its name to Java right before the company was sold off to Oracle.

In fact, Miniman deems BlackBerry an outright dinosaur. He himself used to be a BlackBerry user because it was convenient for the firm where he worked, for that firm’s IT department, and for himself because BB has historically done e-mail better than its competitors at the time. But e-mail is no longer the “killer app,” and the business user that has always had a BlackBerry in his hand is finally switching to Android and iOS devices.

Miniman says that he himself made the transition from a physical keyboard and email to a touch-screen and social media because of the apps. Android and iOS each possess a massive ecosystem of applications, and that is what BlackBerry lacks.

Miniman says that for BlackBerry to have a chance of catching up, its phones would have to be a lot more consumer-friendly than they are now. According to him, BB10 is still a “half-baked product” that is not particularly revolutionary – that is to say that it won’t gain the company an edge over Apple, Google, or even Microsoft.

It’s looking more and more likely that Windows Phone will win the number three spot in the mobile OS market, Miniman notes. He says that Microsoft is a “force to be reckoned with,” and notes its active pursuit to blur the lines between the Windows laptop, tablet and phone. See Miniman’s full analysis below.


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