Tomfoolery and shenanigans 

Apparently the "pinstripes" at Research in Motion, makers of the once legendary and ubiquitous Blackberry, didn't get the memo that touchscreen devices are here to stay, and physical keyboards make about as much sense as connecting to the Internet with a 28.8 modem. The manufacturer of the once-upon-a-time, premiere, snooty, business person's favorite friend (and bane of those who know and love road warriors far and wide) might soon need to change its name to Verge or Brink — as in verge of bankruptcy or brink of disaster.

Having said that, RIM announced that they are launching a second device on their recently acquired QNX platform (of Blackberry PlayBook fame) named the Colt.  <crickets /> There are so many things to say here: I don't even know where to start. 

RIM's big problem (pick one, there are two ... or more) is that they have failed to deliver a worthy competitive operating system to rival Apple's iOS and Google's Android platforms. Second, they have had little luck wooing the developer community to churn out apps for their platform that don't suck, aren't boring 'make a Powerpoint on the plane' apps, and aren't riddled with crashes and bugs. So, in other words: No Angry Birds.  

A side-note here: QNX offers RIM a world of possibilities if they can get over their hardware issues (read on), but the QNX platform still can't offer Blackberry's legendary, or perhaps now infamous, secure email. <even more crickets /> Safe to say that on the QNX platform you don't need to worry about Canada reading all of your email: Native BB mail is unavailable on the platform, as is BES.

Hardware attachment issues

RIM also has an attachment, or more of an unnatural obsession, with physical keyboards. Sure, the Blackberry keyboard crutch helped them survive when those new-fangled iPhones came out and snooty business people turned their noses up; it satisfied their niche (for the moment). But that was five years ago; it's time to move on. Physical keyboards take up space; they are inflexible to the demands and features in modern applications and they lack interactivity that only a touchscreen device can presently offer. And RIM's assumptions that business people want to sit in the airport for hours on end and not play Angry Birds — "Pfffft..."— has apparently missed the mark. 

No one can make BB uncool faster than RIM can

Ironically RIM puts this in their branding guide: "And when it comes to lifestyle advertising, sometimes things can get cheesy. BlackBerry keeps it real."

Who doesn't want to party with the freaky circus mustache dude and this lil' corporate raider?
OMG, she like totally knows when you read that BBM message.

They didn't just say ... "keep it real," in their branding guide, did they??   

Allow me to steal a line from my other favorite mobile platform — really?

Can I say anything nice about RIM? Well, they have great battery life (because you can't play Angry Birds).