It’s no secret that I loathe the BlackBerry Storm and for good reason. For my own sanity and to keep Marc M. at bay we won’t get into why, but as a lover of BlackBerrys I’m giving the Storm another shot, but I doubt my initial impressions will change regardless of the firmware upgrades. The touch-screen just hurts my thumbs. A clickable screen? Come on. I know you can do better than that, RIM.
The numbers speak for themselves. Verizon was banking on the Storm and they obviously came up short with roughly half a million units sold in the first month. It’s a respectable number for sure, but compared to what Apple and AT&T did with the iPhone and iPhone 3G is astounding.
Adding a bit more salt to the wound is iSuppli’s breakdown of components for the Storm. Their estimate puts the Bill of Materials (BOM) for the Storm at just under $203. The BOM for the iPhone 3G was estimated at $173. Those numbers are important because AT&T sells the 8GB iPhone 3G for $199 while Verizon offers the Storm for $249 with a $50 MIR to bring the cost down to $199.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that RIM loses $3 for every phone they sell but it does mean that the company knew it wouldn’t do many unsubsidized sales of this piece. What will RIM and Verizon do? For those who already own the Storm we hope can only hope for more firmware upgrades in a timely manner. I hope RIM comes up with a different touch-screen device for the next iteration.
via Business Week