RIM Looks To Consumer Market

Facing ever-increasing competition from a number of companies with rival push email solutions, Research In Motion is beginning to target the consumer market, announcing that Cingular will being selling a consumer-focused Blackberry model along with personal push email service. RIM's made minor (and apparently unsuccessful) forays into the consumer market before, through a linkup with AOL in 2000 and a small deal with Earthlink a few years ago. While certainly plenty of Blackberry devices had made their way into individual users' hands, this is the first time general consumers have explicitly been targeted. The problem RIM faces in this market, though, is the same it faces in the enterprise market: the cost of Blackberry service, and the availability of other push solutions on multiple types of devices. The Cingular plan still charges at least $30 a month for data and email -- a lot to ask of consumers, though it should fare well with small-business users. Plenty of carriers are already offering far, far cheaper push email services across a range of devices that are much more attractive to the general public than cameraless, staid-looking Blackberrys. For RIM to make a dent in the consumer market, it's got to attack it the way its rivals do, with cheap services (that often feature limited, but acceptable, functionality) that can be installed on many different types of handsets, not just its own.

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