Cutting Room: RIM hones B2B trick for vertical markets

BlackBerry looks to follow and expand its lead in business market by selecting key vertical markets to win over early

BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion (RIM) has innovation, foresight and good timing.

Its success in the past decade is down to the functionality, security and cost aspects of email delivery on its handsets.

For corporations, public and private, these matters are crucial.  It is now looking to repeat its trick in the business market in very specific vertical market sectors within it, such as healthcare, and to bring additional niche services to a broader base.

RIM won major share of the business market in the first place because it caught Microsoft napping. Microsoft had charge of the IT element and could have, and should have, produced a killer Microsoft Exchange mobile solution for its base of IT customers.

Instead, it messed around with mobile, failed to deliver, and has paid the price in the business market as second or third string ever since. RIM was smart.

It got into Microsoft’s servers in the business market, hooked up its platform and delivered stripped-down and encrypted email to clients’ staff in the field.

Only Google, very recently, has come up with anything that matches RIM’s service for the business market.

It is, then, unsurprising to find it on the mHealth bandwagon early. Belatedly, its competitors have made up ground on it in the business market, with iconic devices with fancy functionality of their own. Apple is a very real threat to it.

To attack vertical markets such as the healthcare sector now could see it tear away from the competition again.