Why

The Blackberry Storm Failed To Impress And Where Argus Insights Can Help!
At Argus Insights, are rapidly evolving our market intelligence tool-set. We would like to share some interesting analytical results developed as a side effect of our software development and validation. In the following Blackberry Storm case, you will see how these tools can be leveraged across the entire market intelligence workflow.

Collect

Assess

Share

Decide

Launch 0meline of the iPhone revolu0on

T-Mobile G1 (Android) iPhone Announced 1st Gen iPhone iPhone 3G Blackberry Storm

When the Blackberry Storm was launched in 2008, it was the first competitive response to the Apple iPhone by the established smartphone players. Just a few weeks earlier Google and T-Mobile had launched the first Android phone with huge fanfare. It would be months before Nokia and Motorola launched their own revised smartphones. There was tremendous pressure to respond with a touchscreen phone but even more pressure to make sure the user experience was on par with the iPhone. Blackberry fans and foes alike followed this launch intently to see if RIM could compete with Apple on innovation and user experience. The initial results were not pleasant. The Storm fizzled, responsible for almost $400 million of lost revenue for RIM. Self reported customer sen0ment from online reviews
Normalized sen0ment on a scale of -1 to +1 iPhone iPhone 3G Android G1 Storm

The Race to Catch Up to the iPhone

You can see, by measuring customer sentiment, that the iPhone sets the baseline experience for other smartphones to beat. The 3G started with a yawn until the market got hooked on faster data speeds. The Storm started with promise but rapidly diminished to a small shower. The Android-based G1 experienced a similar drop soon after launch, but still settled higher than the iPhone, providing an early forecast of the recent shift to Android as the smartphone OS market share leader in North America. (With Argus Insights methods and tools, this shift could have been forecasted much earlier, by December 2009.) The questions facing the leadership at RIM following the Storm launched were significant: What is happening with the market (beyond sales)? Why is the market responding the way it is? How can we respond to the perceived failure of the Storm?
Spread of posi0ve and nega0ve sen0ment across all responses analyzed -20% -10% 0% 10% 20%

Storm zzles on launch, Android leaps ahead

Oct 2008 Nov 2008

Jan 2007

Jun 2007

Jun 2008

OS Speed Virtual Keyboard OS General Screen Industrial Design User Interface WiFi Landscape Rota0on Learning Curve Freezing OS Typing Speed

When we dig deeper into what the actual users are talking about, we see interesting trends emerge both what they dislike about the Storm, as well as some surprising sources of delight. The chart at left is a ranked list of the topics that most concern users, along with the complete distribution of positive and negative sentiment. Simply reporting an average masks the span of the impact these attributes have on the user experience. The top issue is the responsiveness of the operating system, clouding every other aspect of the phone. Interestingly, these early users of the Storm are evenly split between loving and hating the virtual keyboard and the overall look and feel of the user interface. The real surprise is how much love is heaped on the new screen and the industrial design. The remaining features rate overwhelmingly negative, reflecting the overall market reaction to the Storm. So how can Argus Insights help RIM decide whether there should be another Storm and how to improve upon their last best effort at innovation?

Market Core Sample Reveals Why Storm Failed to Excite

New SegmentaIon Framework EmphaIc NO

While assessing the huge population of reviews for multiple products, a pattern of commentary organized itself around the user rating groups shown in the table to the right. Using this new backdrop, a different type of segment analysis is possible, based solely on sentiment.
Curmudgeons that are unlikely to change their minds regarding your product or service. Poten&al Roadmap Challenges -1.0 to -0.5

No, AND
Typically down on the experience but clearly able to see some silver linings to the product. Customer Sa&sfac&on Op&ons -0.5 to 0

Yes, BUT
These lead users are fans but experience the future sooner than the rest of the market. Source of Future Delighters 0 to 0.5

EmphaIc YES
True believers, these customers are ardent supporters of the brand and product. Marke&ng Posi&oning Points 0.5 to 1

Revised A_ribute Analysis using Sen0ment Segments

Empha0c NO OS Speed Virtual Keyboard OS General Screen Industrial Design User Interface WiFi Landscape Rota0on Learning Curve Freezing OS Typing Speed Browser Email Client No, AND Yes, BUT Empha0c YES

Strong Brand meets Poor ImplementaIon

By slicing across these segments and fusing the view with the overall distribution of ratings, we see some surprising insights popping out. For example, the haptic virtual keyboard rated very highly among those who were delighted by the phone. In contrast, this same sentiment segment offered lengthy treatises on the learning curve this new way of text entry required, an issue few of the other sentiment segments mentioned at all. We see that items such as the OS Speed, the lack of WiFi, and the problems with landscape rotation were uniformly sources of frustration for all sentiment segments, demanding to be fixed. This helps prioritize which product changes can have the biggest impact on the overall user experience -1 -0.5 0 0.5 1 for the next generation of Storm handsets. Also see that the new LCD, the industrial design and classic Blackberry email were all consistent sources of delight for users, showing that the main elements of the Blackberry brand are consistent throughout. This highlights the ability of the Argus toolset to assess the alignment between the promise of the brand and the reality of the product. Additionally, the attributes that ring true for the most positive sentiment segment illustrate what are the positioning points with the most integrity. This can be used to shape messaging to bring better alignment between the brand and the experience.

Storm II Brings Much Desired Improvements But At A Cost The Argus tools allow not only deep Storm II product analysis but also comparison Storm I across products and services. In the -10.00% -5.00% 0.00% 5.00% 10.00% -10.00% -5.00% 0.00% 5.00% 10.00% Storm case we used this capability to Virtual Keyboard see what improvements were made to OS Speed the Storm II. RIM was successful in addressing the major concerns of Screen Storm I users while maintaining most User Interface all of the positive attributes of the Ba_ery Life Storm I. We still see high marks across the Screen and design. There Industrial Design were also major improvements in the OS General views of the virtual keyboard, the OS Freezing OS speed and the user interface, all key elements for RIM to compete WiFi effectively with Apple. Unfortunately Learning Curve all of these improvements came at the cost of the battery life. Oddly enough, this could hint to the root of the issues with Storm I. Blackberry handsets are known for their tremendous battery life and is a huge point of pride. In order to keep the Storm I within that same standard as RIMs existing product lines, sacrifices were made in other areas, now known to be critical to the user experience. RIM needed richer market intelligence prior to the launch of the Storm to understand why the iPhone was resonating with the market. RIM could have avoided the negative impacts to brand, revenue, and market share with drastically improved market intelligence to support their decisions.
This is the promise of Argus Insights. Feel free to contact us at (650) 485 3595 or sales@argusinsights.com

Storm II Hits the Mark!