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Operator News in Brief - 8th Sep 2010
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Blackberry Or Raspberry?
By Clive Simpkins, Fri Dec 9th
Could it possibly be that we gullible South Africanwidget-lovers are being seduced into buying Blackberry personaldigital assistants (PDAs) because someone didn’t anticipate thepopularity and swift uptake of 3G technology? 3G for those notyet in the know is wireless, always-up broadband (high speed)Internet and e-mail access. I’ve had it since inception. It’sgetting better all the time. How otherwise, is it possible formajor marketers to be throwing huge amounts of advertising moneyat the Blackberry? Do they know something we don’t? Being a compulsive early-adopter of technology, I’ve longbewailed my fate as an unwilling guinea pig when it comes todebugging new anything. On the PDA front, I kicked off with aQtek 1010 which was in the RSA, the first PDA-cum mobile phone.It was a sturdy, slippery, heavy handful. Not bad ergonomics andincredibly useful, even if you did have to keep soft rebootingbecause its tiny brain (a.k.a. processor) got addled by theleast complexity. When the next generation (loosely known as the Qtek 2020 but notbranded as such) appeared in SA, yours truly dutifully upgradedto the rebranded i-mate PDA. Only to find myself lumbered with amuch sexier looking device, lighter, more functionality, muchvaunted 400 MHZ processor and a host of problems. The problemswere not confined to me, but to a number of close associates andeven an audience of patients waiting in the Rosebank Clinicemergency room. As previously mentioned, Leaf Wireless, thepower behind i-mate in South Africa, swapped out the two failedinstruments I’d been through, for a later generation, the PDA2K.This baby, still with 400 MHZ processor, is quad band, Wi-fi,bluetooth, has
still and video camera, and a host of otherreally useful bells and whistles. It runs on Microsoft WindowsCE. I’ve found it to behave flawlessly, although two businesspeers with the device swear they’ll not go i-mate again.
But let’s look at the emerging scenario: South African MobileNetwork Provider MTN (I thought) ‘launched’ the Blackberry a fewmonths ago. I never heard more about it. Suddenly, Vodacom‘launches’ Blackberry with double page Sunday media spreads as a‘first in South Africa’. How the Advertising Standards Authoritydidn’t have someone getting their knickers in a twist over thatone, I dunno. The Vodaworld magazine received by me from South African GSMNetwork Provider Vodacom a while back features the Blackberry intwo flavours on its front cover. But here’s the rub: The‘editorial’ by Vodacom Group CEO, Alan Knott-Craig, thatvisionary maverick wasted on majority-shareholder Telkom, andfresh back from the 3GSM World Congress says this, quote: ‘Myinstructions to my team are to accelerate the roll out of 3G forVodacom customers. Build and build big! Do not try tosecond-guess what our customers will do with the bandwidth –they will use it.’ Unquote. Even higher speeds will be availablevia HSDPA, a 3G enhancement. So, why the Blackberry? Darned if I know! Why on earth would youwant to purchase a PDA at present that appears from theadvertising and product blurb to be little more than a fairlyincompetent e-mail forwarding machine? About the author:Clive is a marketing and communications strategist and publishedbook author. His speciality is facilitating sustainable changein individuals and organizations. Website: http://www.imbizo.com |
