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Editorial: RIM seems to be as lost as my BlackBerry
The only way to open this editorial is to admit something I've been rather shy about on the pages of Engadget: I've been an avid BlackBerry fan and user for about six years now. I mean a real addict -- the kind who wakes up each morning looking for a blinking red LED, the kind who's refused to give up push email and BlackBerry Messenger in favor of more powerful, polished, and progressive mobile operating systems like iOS, Android, and webOS. In fact, when my Verizon contract was up last year I opted to get a Curve 8530 instead of the Motorola Droid or Palm Pre -- to say nothing of making the leap over to AT&T for the iPhone.There were lots of reasons I didn't want to give up my BlackBerry, but five days ago I lost that very Curve in a San Francisco cab. Then coincidentally, a day later I saw RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis speak at the D: Dive Into Mobile conference, where he almost embarrassingly avoided every question about the company's immediate smartphone strategy. I had always known that RIM was behind the curve (always a great pun!), but I also always had hope that the company would catch up with modern smartphones of today. Sadly, watching Mike dodge questions on the D stage took that hope away from me -- it's crystal clear that RIM won't have a solution to compete with those powerful smartphones anytime soon. So, what happens to a BlackBerry diehard like myself? Where do I go from here?
