We all have noticed how we are daily bombarded with ads of Blackberry, its in the streets, on cable (MBC channels), its on yahoo.com its all over. There is a small secret with technology, if your product or service is wide spread enough that everybody is using it becomes the norm or the medium. An example would be Microsoft Explorer, not long ago Netscape use to be the most used browser and free, but Explorer was installed with each PC getting sold from Dell, and Dell was at that time the number one PC seller in the states, as a result every new comer came into the market only knew how to use Explorer and slowly killed Netscape. Same idea with the Ipod frenzy, if some of you have noticed a battle between Blue Ray and HD, and it seems that HD is winning. It depends on how the technology is being marketed and how strong backing its getting from its developer. Old user of digital cameras can remember the weird looking memory sticks from sony (the one with a hole in it), these are disappearing because they are loosing what is called the protocol battle, now its the small squared looking memory stick. Each company comes up with a certain technology and then launches it into the market, sometimes the consumer chooses the technology and sometimes we accept it by force. Then you got the OEM companies, that wait until the technology introduced takes base, then they come in making these low cost OEM products and sell to the world like the USB sticks. Same with the game console industry, if some of you can remember how fast 3DO died, game gear, Philips CD-I and many more. Obviously the PS won the battle there and may loose it to Wii. So is it really our choice to accept the Black berry?
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June 27th, 2007 at 11:49 am
3DO, Game Gear and CD-I failed because they had problems.
Game Gear for example took 6 AA alkaline batteries but only lasted an hour and a half which really didn’t make it portable so it failed.
3DO sold for $700 which was super expensive and so wasn’t sold in mass and developers really saw no reason make games for it and the level of quality software just dropped.
CD-I really wasn’t created as a video game console.
The PlayStation didn’t win the battle against them. It had a different battle with SNES and Genesis in the beginning which it won easily because the other 2 systems were really old then. Afterwards it competed with the Sega Saturn and N64 and it beat them for different reasons.
The Saturn was extremely hard to write games for, it cost more then the PlayStation and Sega had a problem with the retailers.
The N64 was successful but not as much a PlayStation because it was cartridge based. Cartridges cost more then cds to make which meant less profit for everyone, and more expensive games. Cartridges also couldn’t hold as much information as CDs meaning no video motion, cd quality soundtracks etc..
PlayStation just came in at the right time and place and thats why it succeeded. It had nothing to do with having a bigger advertising budget then Nintendo or Sega. If that was the case the Xbox would have been more successful then the PS2.
The PS3 is losing now because
a) its over priced
b) same graphics like the 360 but a weaker online community and less games on the system
c) its to similar to every other system thats ever been released (360 has this problem to)
The Wii is succeeding because
a) its really cheap
b) its targeting the mass and not just gamers
d) its a totally different gaming experience to anything before it
So basically you could spend as much money as you want on advertising but all you will do is just have some gain in the beginning but once things settle down and people realize your product is crap your product will fail. You can’t sell people something thats broken and expect it to sell like crazy just because you spent a lot on advertising.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:53 am
My friend at the office was just telling me that its been proven that when you come a bad product with a lot of advertising, the product fails faster.
June 27th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
A question regarding the black berry; is it true that in kuwait, it can only be sold to companies, and individuals can not buy it?
June 27th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
A blackberry is used mainly for push e-mails and employees of the companies which has microsoft exchange server based email system only can use them. 99% of companies use the traditional pull email setup. Push email you will get the mail at the same time it reaches the server, prettymuch like an SMS (i.e without any action from the user)
Where as pull email you might need to refresh the inbox or press the send/receive button to get synched between the mobile and the server.
Now the question is Do you really need to see all the mails (including spam -if you are not protected well) reaching your server inbox at the same time. Won’t it be reasonable to check the inbox from time to time if you are expecting any urgent emails or updates.
I am sure most of the guys buying the blackberry because of the advertising frenzy and 90% of them wont be using what blackberry is really used for.
June 27th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
And for those still want to use this technology then there is good news for them
get an account in http://live.mail2web.com/ and forward your existing emails to the mail2web address. then you can use even your gmail account as push mail for blackberries.
do not for get to edit the “reply to” address settings in the blackberries or your existing ids will not be visible to the recepients
June 27th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
http://services.mail2web.com/Business/Exchange/Blackberry.asp
June 27th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
game gear was beaten by Game Boy
and CD-I & 3DO died long before PS1
also if you read any video game magazine you would see that geam gear was more advertised than game boy advance
same goes for 3DO
June 28th, 2007 at 1:06 am
Blackberry ads in kuwait truly sucked ! BLACK IS IN ?! for a week or so and then ends up with what ?! a shinny picture of the black berry ?! and thats for one of the biggest companies in Kuwait ?? for one whole week with that black is in reminded me of a funereal with a forced tag line. and after everyone was expecting a very hard-hitting launch, we just get the picture of the product ? why didn’t the designer put a price tag next to it, that might sell faster .. ops ! sorry the blackberry is for corporate use, so we cant put a price tag on
June 28th, 2007 at 10:48 am
you can’t get a harder hitting launch then that. blackberry sells by being blackberry.
June 28th, 2007 at 6:27 pm
The “price tag next to the product comment” was a sarcastic one, the creative is not up to the standard of blackberry nor to the company that is introducing the blackberry ( MTC). for example you can check out this NOKIA phone ad.
http://www.ibelieveinadv.com/commons/NOKIA1.jpg
they position the phone as an MP3 phone, and deliver the message precisely. im not a big fan of nokia, but its a big company that has a big share of the market.
Here is another one for Sony Ericsson- http://www.freespaces.com/cinfikrim/sony2.jpg
SARCASTIC : ” GGEEEEE black berry ” I KNOW !! WOW !! LETS DO SOMETHING BLACK !! THATS ORIGINAL !!
July 1st, 2007 at 9:07 am
Mark: you got to understand that there is no one reason for a product or service to fall out, there are allways many factors and each factor corresponds to a weighting ratio..
Rejoys: time will tell about how successful the blackberry is, ie: palm lost the market and now is out..
August 6th, 2007 at 10:03 am
I have to say, that I could not agree with you in 100% regarding What a strong advertising budget can do, but it’s just my opinion, which could be wrong