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For how much longer will Vivek Bhardwaj, BlackBerry’s Head of Software have a job?

If I were to guess, not more than 12-months to 18-months.

My prediction is that BlackBerry is in an unstoppable death spiral that will snatch not just Vivek Bhardwaj’s job but eviscerate many, many jobs at the Canadian company.

Blackberry – Once a Star

Just six years back Blackberry had no challengers to its vaunted status as the preferred high-end phone, the smartphone to own and flaunt.

In the second quarter of 2008, BlackBerry had over 53.6% of the still-nascent smartphone market in the U.S.

Owning a BlackBerry was a badge of honor.

The movers and shakers in the U.S. swore by it.

In Washington DC, in New York City, in San Francisco and many places in between you’d see the corporate types, politicians and their aides, lobbyists and IT support guys frantically thumbing away on their BlackBerry.

So popular was the BlackBerry that a neologism called BlackBerry Thumb to describe a form of repetitive strain injury came into vogue

Even Barack Obama, the Republicans’ favorite “Kenyan” whipping boy, was seen in public on several occasions pecking away at his BlackBerry.

And then came Apple’s touchscreen smartphone, the iPhone.

Finito.

The sun started to set on BlackBerry, slowly eclipsing its prospects in the fast-growing smartphone segment.

BlackBerry – Few Takers

Losing Market Share

Today BlackBerry seems to be on its last legs.

If you listen carefully, you can hear the death-rattle of the company, a feeble sound bound to strengthen in the coming quarters.

BlackBerry’s market share in the first quarter of 2013 was a pitiful 2.9%, according to IDC’s latest smartphone OS survey.

Hell, even Windows phones now have a higher markets share than BlackBerry.

In my lexicon, there can be no greater humiliation or dimmer prospects for a mobile phone vendor than trailing a bumbling blunderhead like Microsoft in mobile OS market share.

BlackBerry misread the shift in consumer taste and complacently sat on its haunches ceding the market to Apple iOS first and then to Android.

BlackBerry – Last Gasps

With iOS and Android so powerful, here’s the big question gnawing at many minds – Is there room for a third smartphone OS platform like BlackBerry’s BB10.

I doubt it. Continue reading »

Selling electronic gadgets to Hanumans scampering down from coconut trees, mango trees, neem trees, guava trees, palm trees, jack-fruit trees and a thousand other kinds of Indian trees is not an easy task.

Not some thing your ivy league MBA types can even dream of handling.

You see, selling smartphones to a nation of 1.2 billion Hanumans requires familiarity not with Marketing 2.0 but extensive knowledge of Marketing 0.2.

Unfortunately, Marketing 0.2 is not listed as a course taught at any of the management schools.

No sweat. It can easily be learned by watching a troupe of Hanumans (monkeys) performing their simian antics.

Tawdry, Tacky, Trashy

When South Korean electronics giant Samsung launched its new Galaxy S4 smartphone in partnership with its Indian partner Reliance Digital in Mumbai, it rightly eschewed the slick, classy show for the downright tawdry, tacky and trashy.

After all, India’s 1.2 billion Hanumans have demonstrated time and again in their abiding passion for the Bollywood, Tollywood and Kollywood horror shows that nothing resonates better with them than the tawdry, tacky and trashy from the bottom of the gutter.

iPhone has a low market-share in India compared to the U.S. or Europe not because it costs a lot.

Au contraire, the real reason behind iPhone’s low market share in India is that Apple deludes itself that it’s selling the smartphone to humans in India.

Samsung, Nokia and the Chinese smartphone peddlers are smart enough to realize otherwise.

Any surprise that Samsung’s market share for smartphones in India is 43.1%, leaving its main global rival Apple kissing the dust with an insignificant presence.

If Apple has to have any hope of gaining market-share for its popular iPhone 5 in Mera Bharat Mahaan, it needs to pronto hire a bunch of hijras, snake-charmers and a gaggle of clowns from Bollywood, Tollywood and Kollywood and get them all together on one stage to scream iPhone 5 in unison at five-second intervals to the tune of Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean or better still the hideous Dhadang Dhadang number from Akshay Kumar’s vomit-inducing Rowdy Rathore.