Blackberry loses more ground to Apple and Android

In a continuing trend, more businesses are shifting loyalties from Blackberry to iPhones and Android devices as the relative newcomers make inroads into the corporate world. Three-quarters of the 200 businesses surveyed in the United States and the U.K in the study reported that their employees are choosing other than Blackberry, Sanford C. Bernstein Ltd. reported to Bloomberg. The number was 83 percent for U.S. companies.

The biggest drop comes as bankers, lawyers and government workers - Blackberry's once-loyal clientele - abandon the phones for other brands on the market.

Several studies on smartphones have predicted the trend, including Nielsen Co. which said that new subscribers for Blackberry dropped and more than half of Blackberry users planned to switch to an iPhone or Android phone. Last month a study by the NPD Group also reported that in 2010's second quarter, Android phones rose to 33 percent of the market and Research in Motion's Blackberry dropped to 28 percent. The Apple iPhone was 22 percent of the smartphone market.

One of the latest products, the Blackberry Torch 9800, was deemed adequate but hardly competitive with recent Android devices and the iPhone. With a sluggish browser, a small and low-resolution touchscreen and a cramped keyboard, the phone may only appeal to previous Blackberry users and loyalists. Some are calling RIM's latest smartphones consolation prizes for executives who wish they could have an iPhone. Others are comparing RIM to IBM because it cornered the market for several years but seemed to stop reinventing itself or innovating.

The business world has spoken loudly and clearly, they want more from RIM and if it expects to stay relevant the company needs to comply. The next few years will tell us if RIM is still able to compete and innovate in the quicksilver mobile arena.

Contact or follow Barbara E. Hernandez on Twitter @bhern.

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