I am a sports movie fan and the line, "If you build it, they will come" is from one of my all time favourite movies, A Field of Dreams. Well, it would appear that this applies to smart phone makers as well.
An expose on what went wrong at Blackberry was published recently by the Globe and Mail and it was noted that in early 2007 Mike Lazaridis, Co-CEO at Blackberry(RIM at the time) took an Apple iPhone apart and was "shocked" at what he found inside. The iPhone had a fully capable internet browser...meaning "it would strain the networks of wireless companies". To this point carriers hadn't previously allowed this. This is one of the earliest failing points of Blackberry...they failed to understand what their customers wanted. People wanted full internet browsing in a small form factor. Apple understood that if they drove this feature into the market, the market would in turn drive the providers to upgrade their networks to make it happen. RIM/Blackberry worried too much about the wireless companies and not enough about the customer!
Apple built it and people came...in the end Apple's success has been and will continue to be built on listening to what customers want...an isn't that the root of nearly all start-ups?
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