RIM Forgets It's 2009

[Vincent Ferrari]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://jkontherun.com/2009/06/01/no-verizon-blackberry-storm-update-for-me-windows-only/' target='_blank'>http://jkontherun.com/2009/06/01/no...e-windows-only/</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"[S]ince I visited the link using Safari on the Mac I get the message for "Other BlackBerry Smartphone Users." As you can see in the image above, "This page requires Windows Internet Explorer 5.5 or later, running on Windows. If you want to update your BlackBerry Device Software, you will need to revisit this page using Windows Internet Explorer." The update process stops at this point, as RIM will not even let Mac users download the update. There is no way around having to either fire up Windows on the Mac using Boot Camp or a virtual machine, or simply skipping the update. This is just ludicrous in this day and age, and RIM needs to get its act together."</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/at/auto/1243945095.usr18053.jpg" /></p><p>It's ridiculous, frankly, that in the year 2009 a company makes a patching mechanism for a cross-platform product that only works on one of those platforms.&nbsp; As James notes, RIM needs to get its act together in that regard.</p><p>And it's not even like the updater will work on Firefox on Windows, either!&nbsp; Honestly, requiring Windows <strong>and</strong> requiring IE?</p><p>Come on RIM, seriously.&nbsp; That wasn't even cool in 2004 and smacks of the same kind of stupidity I dealt with in Sony a few months ago when they wrapped their ISO for a Blu Ray player update in a Windows executable that literally did nothing but drop the ISO out of the archive (they archived and made a self-extractor out of an ISO!) and onto your desktop.</p>

[emuelle1]

It's not just RIM. Lots of companies somehow forget that time has marched on since 1998-2003. To this date, I still come across webpages that will only work properly in IE6. When I went to update my Magellan GPS recently, I found that the update would only work on Windows XP, despite Vista's SP2 just came out and Windows 7 is right around the corner.

I think it's just some kind of institutional laziness, personally.

[michaelalanjones]

I have seen this before - it is because the website developers are lame. They take a class in VB/ASP in high school and somebody hires them to do a website, because they are cheap. They use Web Forms, because it is easy-peasy, and doesn't require HTML knowledge. Then when they say cross-platform compatibility will, uh, cost more money to develop, the boss man says, "Uh, well, just do it in IE, that's close enough - everybody has IE, right?"

Apply the old adage: "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."