The Smartphone Wars: Exit Blackberry, pursued by a bear
<p>Comes today the news that Blackberry is <a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/news/blackberry-maker-cede-most-consumer-212323407.html">giving up on the consumer market.</a> Of course this means the company will be as dead as Antigonus shortly.</p>
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<p>Why do I say this?  Because one of the most ironclad rules of the tech industry is this: <em>retreat upward never works</em>.  If your company is failing, withdrawing from mass markets to focus on the high end may look like a smart move for a few quarters but it makes eventual doom more certain.  The decline and fall of Sun Microsystems is probably the most recent major example but far from the only one.</p>
<p>Retreat upwards fails because it leaves space for your competitors to attack you from the low end &#8211; in effect, you&#8217;re pinning a sign on your backside that says &#8220;DISRUPT ME!&#8221;  Also, in any hardware-centered business, process improvements happen fastest where volume is highest (that is, at the low end); retreat upwards means your competitors will capture those gains faster than you do.</p>
<p>More <a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_end_of_rim_as_we_know_it.php?utm_source=feedburner&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+readwriteweb+%28ReadWriteWeb%29">grim details</a>.  Company is not profitable and will no longer be issuing financial projections.  Balsillie is leaving. The COO and CTO are bailing out.</p>
<p>Everything about this smells of death.  Not that it should come as a surprise to regular readers, because I&#8217;ve been saying RIM was doomed and explaining why since <a href="http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=3373">last June</a>. </p>
