RIM headed for the scrapheap?

Industry observers are raising the question of whether current push-email leader RIM, with its BlackBerry offering, will be able to maintain its position or whether it is destined simply to become an also-ran - or acquisition target - as the sector continues to mature, expand and consolidate.

According to Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group, less than 10 per cent of the 100 million potential subscribers worldwide are currently using push email services, with businesses currently making up the majority of purchasers.

The market, he believes, has to date been held back because "it is still too hard to set these things up and smartphones that use push are still too large and difficult to use for most".

While the BlackBerry "remains one of the most attractive devices in the segment" and is "comparatively easy to use", the advantage of going with a Microsoft Mobile 6 and Exchange 2007 combination, for example, is that there is no need to set up a separate back-end push email server, "although the settings on the phone can be daunting".

Using RIM, on the other hand, does require the installation of a separate BlackBerry Enterprise Server, which means that there is "yet one more device to set up and administer, though the phone is still harder to set up than it should be".

Another issue is the cost of such services, which Enderle also reckons has to come down for the market to reach its full potential, particularly in the consumer space.

But the big test for RIM over the next two years or so will be the rising levels of competition in a market that it has more or less owned since the BlackBerry was first launched in 1999. Beyond the most dangerous of rivals in the shape of Microsoft, device manufacturers such as Motorola and Palm also have RIM solidly in their sights, as do mobile network operators such as Vodafone.

Charmaine Eggberry, EMEA vice president for RIM, is sanguine. She pointed out that the company now has eight million subscribers worldwide, some 70 per cent of whom are no longer using their BlackBerry simply for push email. Instead they are also employing it to access corporate applications, such as SAP and Oracle, as well as lifestyle packages, such as gaming and health, while on the move.

Cath Everett writes for ZDNet UK