Device’s early reviews have been mostly positive, with a glowing review in the Wall Street Journal
Mark Evans
Sun
BlackBerry Pearl, an e-mail phone with features including a camera and music player. The Pearl will go on sale Tuesday in the U.S.
Research in Motion Ltd. unveiled Thursday the BlackBerry Pearl, a “sleek, sexy” multi-purpose device aimed at straddling the business market now dominated by the more banal-looking BlackBerry and the large consumer market.
With the Pearl, RIM is offering a smart phone featuring mobile e-mail, instant-messaging, a web browser, camera, and ways to play music and videos. The Pearl, which has been in development for two-and-a-half years, has as much to do with cool industrial design as the BlackBerry’s traditional, rock-solid functionality.
“People say it’s sleek, sexy and elegant,” said Jim Balsillie, RIM’s chairman and co-chief executive. “We have done a lot of good things with the BlackBerry, but it hasn’t been called sleek, sexy and elegant before.”
There has been considerable speculation about the Pearl’s launch for the past few months, which helped the stock rally over the summer. Pearl rumours reached a fevered pitch three weeks ago when photos and details about the device began to appear on a popular blog called Engadget.
The Pearl’s early reviews have been mostly positive. Walter Mossberg provided a glowing review in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal, describing it as a “beautiful piece of work, a very nice combination of hard-core e-mail capability and fun features.”
Balsillie said the Pearl is compelling because it offers the “magic trifecta of a 100-per-cent smart phone, 100-per-cent BlackBerry, and 100-per-cent sleek phone”.
“A lot of people have said, ‘I love the BlackBerry for work, but I want to do more with it. Can it be smaller and stylish so it’s a fashion statement too’?” he said. “With the Pearl, you please your existing market base more. Second, there is no question, there’s a growing smart phone/stylish phone market out there.”
If the Pearl is successful in offering style, features and functionality in one package, it will have cracked a nut that many device makers have been unable to address. In an effort to be all things to all people, many smart phones such as Motorola Inc.’s Q have failed to do any one thing particularly well.
Rob Enderle, principal analyst with the Enderle Group, said there has been a trade-off between size and functionality. Many consumers, he said, want small, sleek phones such as Motorola’s popular Razr but must sacrifice some features. He said smart phones such as the Pearl are doing a good job of being thin and light while still offering multi-features such as MP3 players.
With Motorola, RIM and Nokia Oyj pushing the industrial design envelope, Enderle said there is growing pressure on Apple Computer Inc. to launch an iPod featuring a phone.
“There is no doubt in my mind we will get one eventually,” he said, dismissing the idea of an Apple-RIM partnership.
Mike Abramsky, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets, said the Pearl has a good chance of being successful because the smart-phone market is just beginning to emerge at a time when consumers and carriers want reliable, well-engineered devices with a variety of features.
“It is an evolving data point in the market,” he said. “RIM is stepping in because they can, and this market is four times the opportunity to where they are in the enterprise market. It is, frankly, something they have to do.”
In Canada, Rogers Wireless Inc. will begin to offer the Pearl next month. The Pearl will start to be sold on Tuesday in the U.S. through T-Mobile.
© The Vancouver Sun 2006
