...mobile information game," Egberry says.
The change in tack is because some 60 percent of RIM's enterprise customers now use BlackBerry devices not only for email, but to browse the Internet and access corporate applications such as SAP and Siebel. "So we're in the mobile data space and that's our focus going forward," says Egberry.
But Elsa Lion, a wireless software analyst at Ovum, believes that RIM's leading position in the enterprise customer space may not be enough to sustain high growth levels into the future and that it may need to make more of a mark in other user segments.
"The addressable market for RIM is typically the higher end of the organisation. But there's now a gap in the market for something more all-embracing in the form of cheap devices. If it really wants to address consumers and mainstream business users though, the software has to be more affordable and on cheaper devices," she says.
Nokia and Motorola
While Lion acknowledges that the vendor is attempting to make inroads here with initiatives such as the BlackBerry Connect and Built-In third party software licensing programmes for handset vendors such as Nokia and Motorola, she says that success in these new markets has yet to be proven.
But Egberry is upbeat. Although she refused to divulge the revenue splits between the organisation's different product lines, she says that each is of equal importance in terms of priorities.
On top of the Connect and Built-in schemes, other BlackBerry offerings include enterprise services for corporates and small-to-medium businesses, which rely on server software that is run internally, while another option is the Blackberry Internet Service. This enables individuals and small businesses or so-called "professional consumers" to use their own ISP to access email and browse the web without having to purchase an additional server.
"It's about offering choice. The professional consumer base is growing rapidly and I hear what you say about price, but if you look at how quick the business is growing, I'd say that pricing is not an issue," Egberry says, although she refuses to be drawn on growth rate or revenue figures.
Cameras, games, music players?
Michael Gartenberg, vice-president and research director at Jupiter Research, meanwhile, believes that RIM still has work to do in increasing the number of features such as cameras, games or music-playing facilities that BlackBerry devices provide and which are now becoming expected.
"This is more important in the consumer space than the business one, but it's why RIM is going to need to adjust its product set if it wants to go beyond the business space. It's going to be important because, while people may not use them all, they are a checklist item, and on a feature comparison, BlackBerry [devices] can come up lacking," he says.
RIM's Egberry denies this is the case, referring again to the Connect and Built-In programmes, where handset manufacturers are providing all of the functionality that the market demands.
The 'beyond email' experience
"It's becoming a reality for people to do so many things on the move. The beyond email experience becomes people browsing the Internet, doing instant messaging and accessing important applications, and they're coming from all walks of life. This is happening today as people start to realise what they can do with the technology and when I look at the year ahead, I get very excited," she says.
Gartenberg is somewhat more sombre in his outlook. "RIM needs to resolve the legal issues that are creating fear and uncertainty among its core business customers and it needs to ensure that its products stay state-of-the-art. These are formidable things and, while at this point, the company has the ability to continue as a major force in the industry, it will have to work hard to execute against these challenges."
