1. Product Lineup: Go down to two phones. RIM has 6 BlackBerry phones in its lineup today, and announced yesterday that there would be 7 new handsets before the end of the year. Can you tell me the difference between a Curve and a Bold? Or the recently canned Tour? Or why the Storm 2 still exists after the release of the Torch? Have you even heard of or ever seen a “BlackBerry Style?”

You know what RIM’s product strategy is? A knock off of General Motor’s pre-bankruptcy badge-engineering schemes. You could buy the same crappy minivan as a Saturn Relay, a Pontiac Montana, a Chevy Uplander, or a Buick Terraza. Why? Who knows! Post-bankruptcy GM got a clue and so should RIM: products need value & differentiation.

So, how about this: Have two phones – one business oriented, once consumer oriented, and execute really, really well on both. Right now RIM’s design, engineering, and marketing efforts are spread too thin across too many products. Why do you think Apple executes so well on design and messaging? Because they’ve got one product and can put resources behind it.

2. Developer Ecosystem: Stop proliferating OS’s and models. To develop on iPhone, you need one development kit and one version of your app to reach a huge base of users. The BlackBerry equivalent is a nightmare: Multiple OS’s, multiple OS versions, multiple hardware setups with different screen sizes and formats – to get any kind of coverage, your BlackBerry development effort is going to be 5x the cost of the iPhone equivalent. And that’s without getting into the new models and OS’s in the pipeline.

RIM needs a single platform, a single hardware spec, and a concerted developer outreach program. Apps & developers create the virtuous cycle the drives adoption, customer retention, and ongoing app store purchases. Going down to two phones from 6 or 7 would help. The big challenge though is getting all of the current, old, weird (the “style”) handsets out of circulation. RIM needs to do some strategic accounting and figure out to a giant incentive program to drive upgrades can be capitalized & amortized as a product cost.

3. Product Development Cycle: Speed it up. The Bold first came out in 2008. It looks and works more or less the same today, three years later. The most recent tweak it to make it “touchscreen” – which will take the same dated form factor and mediocre functionality deep into 2012. That’s a 4+ year run: that’s sounds more like a car than a phone. Handset churn is 50% per year – and people always want something new. That’s why HTC, Motorola, Samsung, and Apple have a launch or significant upgrade (roughly) every six months. RIM has freshened up the curtains periodically, but their product line is pretty stagnant.

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RIM has the resources and customers get back on top; all they need is some bold leadership that’s willing to put forward a real vision and get behind it.

“…it wasn’t until I saw Lazaridis speak a day later that I saw the writing on the wall for me and the company: RIM doesn’t have a competitive smartphone now, nor will it have one any time in the near future.”

via Editorial: RIM seems to be as lost as my BlackBerry — Engadget.

That’s a quote from Joanna Stern, an editor at Engadget, probably the world’s premier consumer technology blog. And Joanna’s absolutely right. I’ve had an iPhone and currently have a BlackBerry Bold, and while the BlackBerry is great at a certain number of very specific business tasks (push email), it can’t compete anywhere else (web, GPS, apps, media, games, etc.).

Some would argue that it doesn’t have to – its a business tool and doesn’t need the bells and whistles that define iPhones or Android devices. But – iPhones and Androids are business tools as well (see Apple’s push: the best phone for business just got better), and are gunning for RIM’s core business market, and are succeeding (see: iPhone marketshare surges, RIM slips). So – Apple and Android are playing in RIM’s yard (business), but RIM can’t play in theirs (consumer) – that’s a structural inequality that spells at best stable market-share for RIM, or growth founded solely on a cheap-handset discount strategy.

And what that means is that RIM is going to end up being a second-tier handset maker like Nokia, and will eventually get acquired by Cisco (should Cisco by RIM?) or Microsoft (tie in to the enterprise market). In my opinion, the reason why RIM hasn’t been acquired already is that their hardware is generally outdated and stale, their software is outdated and stale, and their enterprise book of business is very vulnerable. I’m surprised Microsoft hasn’t made a play for them yet, to be honest. RIM is compounding their problems by further fragmenting their platform – the fact that there’s two phone OS’s (BlackBerry OS5 and OS6) and a new tablet OS (QNX) makes BlackBerry painful for app development, which further reduces the appeal of RIM’s ecosystem to businesses and consumers.

Is all doom and gloom for RIM? Maybe not – but as the Engadget piece points out, the picture isn’t clear. RIM suffers from the very Canadian business problem of slow cycle times: products take forever to get out the door, and are slow to be updated and refreshed. In a market that expects major bi-annual product announcements, RIM can’t keep pace. The PlayBook has the potential to be a saviour – but only if it gets to market fast and is invested in going forward (how far along is RIM on the PlayBook 2?). I’m keeping my fingers cross that RIM can re-take their lead in the market and keep Canada a world player in the technology scene. Wishing you a productive New Year, RIM.

Tony Blairs “cool Britannia,”epitomized by hedge fund managers, Russian oligarchs and media stars, offered little to the working and middle classes. Despite its proletarian roots, New Labour, as London Mayor Boris Johnson acidly notes, has presided over that which has become the most socially immobile society in Europe.

via The Future Of Americas Working Class | Newgeography.com.

A very interesting perspective on how economic growth in the post-millennial western world is defined by a hollowing out of the middle, the consolidation of the super-wealthy, and the growth of a large, working-poor class. And, all of it is wrapped up neatly in a bow of complete social immobility.

It might be cliche to sound the call of the “rich get richer while the poor get poorer,” or it might be anti-conservative to suggest that there’s a policy agenda that should speak to mobility. But, having spent time in places like Bangladesh, Indonesia, or Mexico, I can attest to the value of social mobility. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the notion of “freedom” to which we vigilantly cling as conservatives is best reflected by social mobility, or “opportunity.” The freedom to take risks and strive for a greater future, the freedom to take risks, fall flat on one’s face, and be able to pick themselves up again. Each of these freedoms is dependent on access to capital, healthcare, and education, and a social net to some degree – making the each of these – capital, health, education, and welfare – fundamentally conservative values, in as much as they support the most conservative value of all – freedom of social mobility.

There’s a fine line, of course, between creating a state in which social mobility is a driving force, and creating a welfare state. Britain appears to be struggling to find that balance, with immigration and the widely available dole wreaking havoc on their social contract.

Perhaps worse that the effects of immigration and welfare policy, however, is the corrosive dissolution of manufacturing industries. This is something that I’ve observed in my travels. The Middle Class, as we know it, is the product of reasonably well-paid manufacturing jobs – a class of employment that drove our economies through the fifties, up until the late eighties. Countries that have never had such an industrial leg up on creating a middle class inevitably stagnate at an equilibrium comprised of a wealthy elite and impoverished masses. That’s where our western economies are headed today – the loss of those jobs is corrosive to our social contract and mobility. When the middle class can no longer afford to perpetuate itself, you’re left with Bangladesh, or Rio de Janeiro.

That’s not to say that western cities are going to turn into Rio over night – though some might argue that its happening already (see: Safer in Baghdad than Chicago). Regardless, I believe as conservatives we have an obligation to forward a policy agenda that cognizant of the value of small government, but also not forgetful of the “freedoms” on which our continued success, failures, happiness, and mobility are dependent.

However, analysts note the inflation data come with a caveat as the Winter Olympics in Vancouver drove up prices in some key categories.

The consumer price data, combined with robust retail sales figures for January, has likely set off alarm bells at the Bank of Canada, economists say, as to whether the central bank can keep its conditional pledge to maintain its target rate at 0.25% until July.

via Inflation surprise spurs rate speculation.

Taiwan-based optical disc drive (ODD) maker Lite-On IT's factory in southern China is running short of about 800-1,000 workers, about 10% of its regular personnel, due to a prevailing labor shortage in the region and eastern China, according to the company.

via Lite-On IT China factory facing labor shortage.

You might not have thought it possible, but airplane seating is about to get worse. Intended for short flights where comfort isn’t considered important (by who?) and claiming passenger count increases of 50% and fare reductions of 30% (who profits here), this design adapts bus and commuter train seating to airlines with decidedly mixed results.