RIM knew who their market was, and frankly should have been fine if there hadn't been a hype panic. Heck, their top market cap was a year after the iPhone.
I cannot help but think of a world where there was an actual "consumer" Blackberry device. I think the Bold form factor with the Passport keyboard UI and advances would have been a pretty nice machine. It was even thick enough for a really good camera and battery. I can even see the shooting video commercial tag line "Live Life in Widescreen" with snark about vertical video.
Sure, that's why I said the truth was in the ideas, not the statement itself. :)
> Heck, their top market cap was a year after the iPhone.
Sure, Apple added exchange support in early-to-mid 2008[1]. Add to that incomplete coverage of features initially, and the fact that Enterprises don't move as quickly as consumers, and it makes sense. I remember there being some hope RIM could pull off a good touch phone, but it was too later (I judge this by the fact that when they finally delivered a touch phone nobody really cared enough to give it the time of day).
1: http://www.computerworld.com/article/2537517/apple-mac/apple...
Then they rolled out a really good OS (bought QNX) but it took too long and delivered too late. By most reviews it was a quality product, but 3 years too late.
They should have bought Palm in 2010 when it was up for sale and built on their existing product.
But they bought QNX that year instead, and released their mediocre tablet a bit year later. Anybody who saw how flubbed that was could see the writing on the wall.
If there's a practical path to GM doing the same things Tesla is doing that's in line with GM's observed practices and capabilities, that would be much more interesting — but the fact that Bizarro World GM could beat Earth-1 Tesla doesn't tell us much of anything.