Hoover, and perhaps now Dyson, Biro and Coke: the business text books are full of examples of brands that have become so well know that the brand name has become synonymous with the generic product.
Maybe Blackberry is the latest example. Half of all corporate emails for mobile phones use Blackberry and when customers enter phone shops looking for a mobile phone for sending email, they often just ask for ‘Blackberry.’
But, for how much longer will Blackberry have the brave new world of email for mobile phones for itself?
Yesterday Vodafone announced a new email service, Vodafone Business Email, which uses push email software from Wisto. It’s a move which is sending out confusing messages since the company already sells Blackberry products and phones which are compatible with Microsoft software. In fact Vodafone finds itself in a difficult spot. As the world’s leading mobile phone network provider it needs to take a leading role in promoting email. But when it comes to Microsoft and Blackberry products it’s little more than a middle man. That’s not really good enough, hence the new move.
But this time even Vodafone might find the competition too tough, and as for Blackberry, some fear it could go the way of other pioneering companies such as Netscape or Psion, and ultimately be relegated to a bit player in a market it practically invented.
Nokia and Microsoft are both attempting to move in on the corporate market. Blackberry of course, has a massive head start, but only 1% of corporate email services allow the forwarding of messages to mobile phones. Research in Motion, the company behind Blackberry has got a problem hanging onto its lead. The snag is that Nokia, which really sees email as another feature to use to sell phones and Microsoft, which wants to make its software even more ubiquitous, are, according to Reuters, practically giving software away for free.
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