Microsoft vs. RIM: Intense Competition Brewing
Research In Motion, which manufactures the popular BlackBerry device, is in for some tough competition at the hands of Microsoft, as the companies prepare to go head to head in the wireless OS and email market.
Microsoft says that it hopes to see the Windows Mobile operating system (presumably including its email software) achieve annual market growth of 100% for the next several years.
As luck would have it, RIM has set the very same goal, with
the company’s co-CEO, Mike Lazaridis, commenting that the company aims to double its user base with each passing year.
“It will certainly be difficult, but we have oriented our company toward this,” Lazaridis said in a recent interview with a German newspaper. When asked to describe the size of the wireless email market, he commented that “it’s huge, and we’re just at the beginning.”
Despite fast growth in the mobile email market, however, it’s difficult to imaging that both companies, with their competing software solutions, will be able to achieve these ambitious growth targets without one greatly overtaking the other – not to mention numerous other competitors in this crowded market.