>From: “John Poyser”
>To: “‘Ian Andrew Bell'”
>Subject: RE: Re: Rimm Job?
>Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 20:48:52 -0700
>X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook CWS, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2911.0)
>Importance: Normal
>
>For anyone (like me) who felt a bit out of the loop when reading the
>previous post, here’s a few links explaining what Ian was referring to:
>
>http://www.rim.net/products/handhelds/tech.html
>
>http://www.blackberry.net/pressroom/pr-11_04_00.shtml
>
>http://www.blackberry.net/overview/handheld_specs.shtml
>
>Reviews:
>http://aolcom.cnet.com/hardware/0-16332-404-1488962.html
>
>Interesting, but fluffy Salon piece:
>http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/21/wireless_fieldtrip/index1.html
>- field test with Palm VII, Laptop w Richocet modem, Blackberry 950/957, and
>two web-enabled cell phones.
>
>jp
>
>PS – Ian, I’ll take any of your mouldy Palm devices off your hands. 🙂
>
>—–Original Message—–
>From: Ian Andrew Bell [mailto:ian [at] cafe [dot] net]
>Sent: 22 June, 2000 7:19 PM
>To: Tom Whore; Linda
>Cc: ThosStew [at] aol [dot] com; fork [at] xent [dot] com
>Subject: @F: Re: Rimm Job?
>
>
>
>I’ve been a RIM user for a few months (BellSouth) and a RIM investor for
>more than a year (bought at $24CDN, thanks!).
>
>I think that the Blackberry is a kick-ass product that acutely hits the
>market it’s focused on. I also think that, even with the smaller screen of
>the 950, it is 200% more useful than any of the three Palm Computing devices
>I’ve owned (and subsequently abandoned to my stack of milk crates containing
>useless gadgetry).
>
>I certainly hope that we’re not going to get into a debate because your
>correspondent thinks that the Canadian government is engaging in unfair
>trade practises and trying to kill the US PDA market with cheaper, inferior
>products.
>
>Technology Partnerships Canada is a highly elitist and conservative venture
>capital fund that the government has created to help established companies
>(not startups) go-to-market and which returns short-term revenue both to the
>company and to the fund. Beyond the initial grant, TPC his supposed to be
>%50 self-funding. It goes without saying that TPC has a potential audience
>of fewer than 200 companies, and RIM is one of a handful of companies (read:
>NORTEL) for which TPC was specifically created.
>
>The RIM Blackberry is the fastest-to-market wide-area-coverage wireless
>email device on the market. Full stop. It’s an amazing success story from
>a company that’s really not the world’s greatest marketer, but with the
>right push it could unseat Palm and Handspring as the collective heirs
>apparent to the connected PIM (hell, even just the PIM) market.
>
>The RIM 957 has embarrassed everyone else:
>
>Palm, Minstrel, Microsoft, Handspring, IBM… they were all caught sleeping
>by the MOBITEX network (of all things!) and the device which exploits it.
>
>If I was RIM I’d be spending that $23M on opening up a can of marketing
>whup-ass on the PDA guys (looks like they are). Let’s see if the 957 passes
>the Palm VII in sales in the next few months.
>
>-Ian.
>
>
>
>
