Research in Motion has seen its fair share of naysayers over the last several months. Now you can add Verizon’s top executive to a growing list of critics of the BlackBerry maker.
At a Goldman Sachs conference this week, Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam said there is a need for a third major smartphone platform, but he doesn’t think RIM will emerge as a player.
"The carriers are beginning to coalesce around the need for a third ecosystem. Over the next 12 months I think it will coalesce and you will start to see one emerge as a legitimate third ecosystem," TG Daily quoted Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam as stating. “In my opinion, it'll be between RIM and Microsoft, and I expect Microsoft to come out victorious."
Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 operating system has only a tiny sliver of the smartphone market, although that could change as Nokia Corp. incorporates Microsoft’s platform in its smartphones. A report from The NPD Group found that Microsoft’s platform is starting to peak consumers’ interests, and IDC analysts say the operating system could gain 20 percent market share in 2015 assuming Nokia transitions smoothly to the Microsoft platform.
RIM’s market share has been declining, but the company still controls significant market share. During the three-month average period ending in July, RIM controlled 21.7 percent of the U.S. smartphone market, ranking third behind Apple (27 percent) and Google’s Android platform (41.8 percent), according to comScore, Inc. RIM had controlled 25.7 percent of the U.S. smartphone market during the three-month average period ending in April, comScore reported.
