Mystery Solved: RIM Needs iOS Talent in Push to Manage Others' Mobile Devices
While many were puzzled by an ad for Research in Motion seeking developers familiar with Apple's rival iOS, we thought we might know what they were up to. — Since last year, the company has been making rumblings …
Context & Ripple Effects
The confirmed facts are thin — RIM posted job ads seeking developers fluent in Apple's rival iOS — but AllThingsD ties them to rumblings going back to last year that the company wants to manage other makers' mobile devices, not just its own BlackBerrys. The pickup across eight outlets including Ars Technica, The Verge and BGR shows how closely every RIM signal is now read: the company that once defined enterprise mobility is being parsed for hints about whether it has a business beyond its own shrinking handset base.
That reading fits the arc. After 2011 brought public speculation about a change at the top, RIM's most defensible asset is its enterprise relationships — and the unconfirmed device-management push would repurpose them for a world where corporate fleets include iPhones and iPads whether RIM likes it or not.
First-order effects
- If the rumored strategy holds, RIM's enterprise customers get one console managing iPhones and iPads alongside BlackBerrys, which protects accounts that are drifting toward mixed fleets of Apple and BlackBerry devices.
- Each iOS-fluent hire embeds Apple platform expertise inside a direct competitor's tooling — no immediate loss for Apple, but its devices become something a rival's software governs.
Second-order effects
- Specialist mobile-device-management vendors suddenly face the incumbent with the deepest corporate IT relationships competing on per-seat management pricing.
- Every iPhone RIM manages concedes that the all-BlackBerry corporate fleet is gone — the ad itself is an acknowledgment that RIM's lock on enterprise endpoints has broken.
Third-order effects
- Enterprise mobility value shifts from selling handsets to governing whatever devices employees choose, and RIM's apparent playbook is to monetize management even as its own hardware share erodes.
- If a struggling handset maker proves cross-platform management is a viable business, Apple and Google have reason to treat device-management APIs as strategic surface rather than a developer afterthought.
The trend: Enterprise mobile value is migrating from selling handsets to governing mixed fleets, and RIM is attempting to ride that shift rather than be flattened by it.