What do you get when you mix Apple with Blackberry?

By Stuart Corner
Sunday, 04 June 2006 16:12

Opinion and Analysis

See also: Apple & Nike's deep and meaningful

Peter Misek, an analyst with Canaccord Capital has floated the idea that BlackBerry developer Research in Motion could team up with iPod developer Apple Computer.

On the strength, so it seems, of his fulfilled prediction last year of a partnership between RIM and Intel, the media is taking his latest suggestion half seriously and having great fun with the idea of BlackBerry and Apple pie and variants thereof.

Misek's rationale for this prediction is reported to be that it would have huge merit "because each company lacks what the other provides. RIM wants a firm foothold in the consumer market and Apple doesn't have a presence in the booming wireless data sector."

So what? Well, Apple has been snuggling up with some strange bedfellows of late, notably Nike in a "combination of two iconic global brands" for some gizmo that interfaces your running shoe to your iPod and gives you "the ultimate running experience".

Misek speculates that the two might jointly develop a new device: Apple could create a cellphone combining its iPod music device with RIM's wireless technology, or RIM might embed Apple's iTunes music into a future BlackBerry,

And he claimed that "Senior executives at Intel have recommended that Apple work with RIM".

Frankly I'm sceptical and so too was former senior Apple exec, Jean-Louis Gassée, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley who once oversaw Apple's global products division and research and development. He was reported in the Globe and Mail predicting an explosive clash of titanic egos should such an alliance eventuate.

"I want to see the two CEOs of RIM and [Apple CEO Steve] Jobs working together," he said. "The thought of this ménage à trois is absolutely hilarious."

Quite possible, but I can see plenty of more fundamental reasons why this wouldn't be a good idea.

First of all you've got a clash not a combination of two iconic global brands: BlackBerry and iPod. Would either be happy playing underdog to the other or with some hideous cobbled together combination: the iBerry, BlackPod, Blacki (Blackeye, get it?).

But, frivolity aside, such is the status of the BlackBerry handheld that people tend to forget that, like iPod and iTunes, there is server based system behind BlackBerry, which is absolutely essential to make the BlackBerry work.

You could be forgiven for not being aware of this: read any RIM literature and it talks about email messages going from the enterprise email system to a Blackberry enterprise server, which sits in the enterprise data centre and then via the cellular network to the BlackBerry handheld. RIM does not like to publicise the fact that every single message sent to every BlackBerry handheld in the World goes via RIM's servers in Canada. And RIM clips the ticket for every one, thank you very much.

So would Steve Jobs want to be hostage to this system?

Also such is the dominance of BlackBerry that people forget about all the other push email systems out there, such as Visto, (currently in a patent dispute with RIM) and IntelliSync, recently acquired by Nokia.

If there is a consumer market for push email functionality Apple would likely want more control than it would get with RIM. If it needs the functionality it could get it and offer it without having to compromise the dominance of its own brand or have to pay the high price of tying up with a big name like BlackBerry. Surely the iPod brand is strong enough to carry such an offering on its own merits.

Finally the iPod brand is synonymous with leisure, youth, fun, easy-going life style. BlackBerry with the corporate world, with over-worked, email-overloaded, time-poor executives trying to make the most of every minute of the day.

Not a good combination. This BlackBerry and Apple pie will turn to crumble before it's cooked.