Predicting the side effects 0f metformin demise of RIM and Blackberry is becoming easy sport by bloggers and in the press. Last week’s announcement RIM is retrenching from the consumer space, their management shakeup, disappointing earnings, lackluster Playbook tablet acceptance, and decreasing units shipped compared to iPhone and Android…well, saying more feels like piling on. Following their Q4 earnings call, RIM quickly countered with a blog post saying they aren’t exiting the consumer space, just taking a different tact.

My own experiences? Aligning with one company mobile supplier solutions is long a thing of the past. Consumerization of IT is and has been here to stay for the past several years. IT organizations have either recognized this or are being forced to by their IT customers. Blackberry enterprise server is on its way out – there’s really no reason for it any longer, I don’t have the Blackberry user population to justify its use. These trends are all counter to the top down, corporate IT supported mobile solutions which Blackberry and RIM helped create and thrived in. I still remember the days when Blackberries began showing up in meetings, carried initially by VC partners and then by execs and sales people, quickly followed by requests to install Blackberry Enterprise Server as it became available. Today everyone shows up at work expecting to use their own iPhone or Android smartphone and tablets, but I see few Blackberries.

What might RIM refocus on? Mobile Fusion device management is one possibility but there are many existing competitors in and entering this space, and RIM has to quickly become adept in a multi-mobile OS and device world. My suggestion: give Mobile Fusion away to gain adoption and offer paid for value add options. A business friendly consumer Blackberry? Not sure what RIM is hinting about here but that puts them back squarely competing against iOS and Android devices. Playbook OS 2.0 and Blackberry 10 are also on the horizon.

Steve Jobs has been a part of my career in computer and networking since it began in the 1980′s. My first computer and business were based on the Apple II Plus, creating medical office software and consulting to the State of Nebraska Education Department while attending college at the University of Nebraska at Kearney (then Kearney State). I also worked in the college computer department supporting other students in our computer lab using Apple II’s and our timesharing mainframe computers. As a computer science student, I practically lived on my Apple II, writing software, playing games and experimenting with everything I could do with my Apple II. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were two of my first heros in the computer industry.

My Apple II followed me to my first post-college job building banking software. While others thought I was crazy, I brought my Apple II into work to write software requirements and designs while others turned in handwritten pages for the word processing pool to type up. While living in NY, I saw the introduction of the Macinotsh and the Lisa, neither of which I could afford at the time. My first Macintosh was actually purchased by my employer EDS, and a few months later I was able to buy my own Macintosh.

During that time I was working on a lot of projects using Apple technology and working on EDS’s Apple account in Cupertino. For a while I even toyed with the idea of moving to Silicon Valley and signing on to work at Apple. I was able to attend a couple of Apple events, MacWorld conferences and a TED conference where I saw Jobs in his element, pitching Apple and its products. I also had the privilege of presenting a Mac-based product I was a part of creating to then Apple CEO, John Sculley. Those projects also gave me a chance to meet Apple Fellow, Alan Kay, and Hypercard creator Bill Atkinson.

Macs were my primary computers at work and home until the mid-90′s, when I made the switch to Windows. The Mac operating system had become too unstable, slow, and lacked the software options available on Windows. Windows was catching up and the Mac no longer held the advantages over Microsoft it once had. Jobs was no longer at Apple and Apple as a company was a mess. I felt Apple had let me down on so many fronts and it was time to move on.

courtesy of wikimedia commons

It wasn’t until Jobs returned to Apple and made the decision to abandon the proprietary Mac operating system and Motorola processor dependency by switching to the Linux Unix-based Mach OS kernel that I felt there was hope for Apple. I wasn’t enamored by the iMac, the cube Mac or other plexiglass generations of Macs, but today Macs are provided as an end user computing option where I work right along with Windows. Despite my dire (and insanely stupid) predictions the iPhone would succomb to other smartphone devices, it was developing software for the iPhone that brought Apple products back into my professional and personal world. For me, the iPhone and iPad were the revolutionary equivalent to the Apple II and Mac products of their day.

Apple’s launching of the personal computer (Apple II), their approach to ease of use and user interface design, the 1987 “Knowledge Navigator” concept video (link) and the ground breaking iPhone and iPad products have all had profound impacts on me. All of these innovations helped shape my own deeply held beliefs about designing for the user experience, creating usable software, innovation and customer service. And Jobs was at the heart of these and so many other innovations.

The loss of Steve Jobs on Oct 5, 2011, didn’t come as a surprise. When Jobs announced he was stepping down as Apple CEO, I knew the end was near. For Jobs to step down, I sadly knew he had to be living out his last weeks or maybe even days.

I heard of Jobs death while driving on my way to meet my wife for dinner and a movie. I told Jodi I was surprised how strongly his passing struck and saddened me. And then I realized that Jobs has been with me since the time in college when I discovered computers and creating software were my passion, hobby and vocation. Steve, his philosophies about products and customers, and many of the products he helped create have been a part of my journey, and while I’ve had my serious disagreements with and disappointments in Apple and Jobs, there are so many more things I love, appreciate and admire about them both.

Three of the things I appreciate most about Steve Jobs were his infectious passion, his visionary product innovation and his fundamental belief in the customer experience.

Thank you for everything, Steve.

Thanks.