RIM Brewing Up Storm II

[Vincent Ferrari]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN0439320520090504' target='_blank'>http://www.reuters.com/article/tech...439320520090504</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"TORONTO (Reuters) - Research In Motion is planning a next-generation version of its touchscreen BlackBerry Storm smartphone as part of a continuing push into the retail market, its co-CEO said on Monday. "We see this very large and untapped consumer market," Jim Balsillie said during a presentation to analysts and investors, adding that more than half of RIM's 25 million subscribers now fall into the non-corporate category."</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/at/auto/1241489333.usr18053.jpg" /></p><p>Not that I expected him to come out and say the sales and reviews were disappointing, but Jesus, calling the Storm a "huge success" after initial reviews were, at best, lukewarm.&nbsp; It may not be the flop that some believe it is (in fact, I like it a lot, and as Jeff notes, it seems to be selling somewhat well) but when the most common refrain people can make when talking about your product is that it's a 1.0 product, you need to really evaluate its success in the market.</p>

[Janak Parekh]

From what I've heard, the newer software is much improved, although RIM screwed up bigtime by letting the unit out early and getting negative impressions established. I wonder if this new unit will be a minor hardware refresh but more to relaunch it in some sense.

My main problem with RIM remains the user interface; it's terrible compared to the iPhone's. I hope this improves in future RIM touchscreen devices.

--janak

[agent smith]

Has anyone heard if the Storm will ever be available to Sprint customers? I really would like to get this phone but I dont think I want to switch to Verizon to do it.