CEO of Verizon Wireless thinks BlackBerry 8830 "is one of the most closed devices on the market today"?
This morning mocoNews.net covered some highlights of a San Jose Mercury News interview with Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam. The following excerpt caught my eye:
On an open ecosystem, he says: “If you look at the example of our content, when we first opened up, we had a completely walled garden. We have been bringing that wall down and opening up more applications. The balance is you have to keep the customer in the equation. It’s not just up to the Microsofts or the Intels or the carriers to make the decision. I carry a BlackBerry 8830. That device is one of the most closed devices on the market today. It’s also one of the most popular. Customers can rely on it. Return rates are single digits, 1 to 3 percent. You can put anything you want on some open smart-phones. What would you guess are the return rates on a comparable device to the BlackBerry, with open applications?..Over 40 percent. You can’t predict how applications are going to interact in the real world. It sounds really good. How can a developer of a device predict how those applications are going to interact in the real world? It’s back to the fact that they’re complicated computers and it’s not always predictable.”
Huh? I have a BlackBerry 8830 from Verizon Wireless too but I have the following software installed on my BlackBerry:
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Verizon's smartphones have always been the most open of their devices because none of these devices run Qualcomm's BREW platform which is what Verizon uses to lock down their "feature phone" devices (e.g. Motorola's RAZR). BlackBerry devices sold directly to consumers are totally open by default. However one of the attractions of the BlackBerry platform for the enterprise market is the ease with which the devices of employees can be controlled. One of the controls that can be applied is preventing the device from downloading and installing third-party software. However it is completely inaccurate to say that the BlackBerry 8830 (or any BlackBerry) is "one of the most closed devices on the market today". I'm surprised that Mr. McAdam would make such a statement.
