Apps Fiasco Suggests Google Is At Least Fallible

Google’s decision to withdraw its App for native Gmail on BlackBerry smartphones follows the recent fiasco when Google pulled its iPhone Gmail app after only two hours in service. Whatever happened to testing?

Decision Confirms That BlackBerry Is Beleaguered

The surprise announcement does not preclude Google continuing to support the BlackBerry Apps to existing registered users who will be able to access Gmail through their browser.

Not good news for Research In Motion who are struggling to retain BlackBerry’s dominance in the Business Sector against increasing competition as touch-screen smartphones make the Qwerty image seem obsolete.

Microsoft Are A Softer Option?

Microsoft ignored BlackBerry when launching Office 365 earlier this year and RIM are only now Beta testing a link to provide Office 365 to BlackBerry Enterprise subscribers. Yet Microsoft struggle to convince users that it is a serious player in the converged world.

BlackBerry Is On The Endangered Species List?

For over a decade RIM has skillfully endeared itself to Industry and Government. It will take time, especially for Government bodies, to become persuaded that drastic change , such as switching to google android phones, makes commercial sense.

However no monolith is safe. The recent setbacks as smartphone technology and user interface surpassed are serious issues, especially as both Google  Android and Microsoft Windows OS have huge resources.

It is perhaps, at least for the moment, in RIM’s interest to play off these giants against each other; stay in bed with one and the other will bring flowers.

Other Market Forces Are At Play? 

Most certainly there are. Irrespective of their present global dominance both Microsoft and Google are simply players in a constantly changing world and just as the Twentieth Century was called the American Century the Twenty First is likely to be dominated by Asia.

Will China or India be content to continue as sweatshop to the West? Few doubt that the day will come when innovation and creative effort, combined with a more aggressive work ethic, will see both giants asserting independence to concentrate on increasingly affluent subscribers in the emerging world.

Technology and demand will change, homegrown Asian giants will dominate and suddenly BlackBerry and even Android phones will become an inconsequential museum item.

Will RIM, Google or MS Survive The Attrition?

Technical and service issues experienced by any one of these brands, in the bigger picture, are inconsequential. A flawed  Google Android App is a headache that in isolation rarely kills the patient.

What does matter is scale and while both Google and Microsoft currently maintain dominance in their field, history shows us that even an IBM can become sidelined and largely irrelevant.

Fallibility and Mortality

Just as the Roman Empire fell, so will Google and so will Microsoft. Productive patents have a given life and, even when respected, they must be replaced by better ideas, better systems, better products at less cost to a wider audience.

The current success of Apple iPhone is largely ephemeral, relying on competitors or potential rivals such as Samsung to produce their product. The time will soon come when the PC is an anachronism, where the mobile phone exists only in the few remaining Fourth World territories.

Something else will have satisfied our need with greater speed, less expense and greater longevity. There will come a time when the average subscriber is so satisfied with the mobile device that he demands reliability and longevity. Just as General Motors, Chrysler and Ford failed to understand the worth of Honda, Mazda or Toyota.

Will the world end?

At UnlockWorldwide.com we speculate that the world will not end, be because Google, Microsoft, BlackBerry, Amazon et al are obliged to find common ground.

Alternatively we may live to see the Google logo written in Mandarin or TATA.