A SWOT Analysis of the Blackberry Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

A SWOT Analysis of the Blackberry - Essay Example SWOT Analysis Before 2002 the Blackberry was an ordinary two-way pager along with a thumb keyboard. Soon, it introduced the 5000 and 6000 series Blackberry and raised its market attraction with Java and e-mail features. The next launch of 7000 series included additional features such as full color screen and better web browsing. After the launch of 7100 series, the company focused the attention to capture the market of ordinary consumer rather than its past niche area of business professionals. In its desire to create a niche area of general consumers, the re-strengthening process began with the 8000 series, offering Wi-Fi capabilities, built in cameras, and memory enhancing alternatives. The latest 9000 series has heightened the Blackberry’s strengths with the inclusion of full HTML support for web pages, the capacity to receive RSS feeds, and other superior online social networking features (Vercillo, 2010). With this graph of innovative history, a SWOT analysis of the Black berry will show the mirror of what is in store for Blackberry. Strengths Till now the innovative past track of the Blackberry has enabled the RIM to capture a good chunk of the American market, with 37 percent of the US market for smart-phones relatively to its next nearest rival Windows Mobile at 26 percent (Hansberry, 2009). Smart Phone Market Shares for year of 2009 and last quarter 2009 SMARTPHONES Table 1 1 - Nokia . . . .   68 Million  Ã‚  Ã‚   39% 2 - RIM  . . . . .   35 Million  Ã‚  Ã‚   20% 3 - Apple . . . .   25 Milllion  Ã‚  Ã‚   15% 4 - HTC   . . . . .   8 Million   Ã‚   5% 5 - Others . . .   35 Million  Ã‚  Ã‚   21% Total   . . . . . . 175 Million The above table indicates the overall market share of RIM’s smart-phones at 20 percent of the total sale of 175 million; it was next only to Nokia . A big part of this market power is from the business category of IT professionals, increasing its sales with BlackBerry Enterprise Server, as IT p rofessionals can manipulate its features like disabling multimedia add-ons such as the camera and music player to limiting the specific websites’ user experience. No rival so far has succeeded in providing this functionality from the IT aspect (Morisy, 2008). Weaknesses The weaknesses of the BlackBerry erupt from its stronghold on IT capabilities; the IT section of the Company is not as keen about add-on IT features as media, web browsing and others, which are nicely managed by Windows Mobile and others. It has been late in introducing the touch-screen capability (Vercillo, 2010). Not offering High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) on all models, RIM has become a soft target from the rival companies offering this capability at competitive cost on various models. This drawback of the company policy could prove costly in the long run (Chan, 2009). The Blackberry’s network architecture since the global outage of April 2007, although it happened on a small scale can bec ome a serious problem in future (Blackberry Blast, 2007). Opportunities The Blackberry Partners Fund can be a great opportunity for RIM, as it is being leveraged to develop downloadable applications for the BlackBerry from other companies (Gardner, 2008). This market has been captured by Apples iPhone, and the BlackBerry has not shown eagerness for this model of developing applications. Therefore,

The great depression(conditions leading to the depression) Assignment

The great depression(conditions leading to the depression) - Assignment Example In the early-mid 1920s, production by farmers was far more than the population consumed. Mechanization in production techniques meant there was an increase in output that was expensive thereby putting firms in debts. Falling food production and reduction in land prices resulted in agricultural losses leaving vast populations poor and unemployed. With the demand dropping and supply increasing, the price of products reduced leaving the over-expanded firms short-changed leading to closure (Saint-Etienne, 2013). Top workers had their income rising by 75% while the bottom workers only enjoyed a 9% rise in wages. With industrial production growing by 50% in 1920s, there was wide a gap between high-income earners and those struggling in poverty leading to a reduction in disposable income to purchase the produce. With extensive unemployment, the poor required aid from the already cash-strapped authorities further deepening the financial problems. Explosion of stock markets built on speculation as seen in modern capitalist economy caused investors to buy stock believing it was going to rise quickly so that they could sell their stocks later. Most stock purchases were on credit as investors were required to have 5% of the stock’s value with the rest being supplied by a loan ‘buying on margin’. Speculation together with the short-term outlook of the investors did not offer consistency and stability for the system to yield economic benefits. The resulting tension led to selling of the stock causing a mini crash resulting in mass panic as the middle and upper classes lost money. The presence of numerous small banks with insufficient resources to handle the high demand for their money in conjunction with increasing nervousness about the state of the stock market played a major part in initiating the Great Depression. For this reason, they had to sell assets, borrow off other banks or shut down. Drying up of credit and reduction in lending