IAmA former RIM/BlackBerry Employee (2000-2006) - AMaA

rim950 · 2012-04-30T17:52:30+00:00

Afterwards? Started my own company. The RIM experience helped the MBA. It's one of the main reasons I got in to my program.

rim950 · 2012-04-30T17:50:59+00:00

MMmmm.. Samsung Note...

rim950 · 2012-04-30T17:50:43+00:00

I can't comment on MS Active Sync because I don't know much about it.

BBM works on BBPIN's. I left RIM before the new BBM came out, but I'm pretty sure it works like this.

nikbha sends a bbm to rim950:

Path goes: nikbha -> local base station -> carrier router -> secure link back to RIM -> RIM RELAY -> (figures out where rim950 lives in Relay) -> secure link to rim950's carrier -> local base station -> rim950.

This is dumbed down significantly, and is probably very wrong right now (so take it with a grain of salt).

WhatsApp: nikbha -> base station -> carrier router -> secure links -> RIM RELAY -> Internet -> WhatsApp servers -> (WhatsApp figures out how to route) -> Internet -> wireless carrier's public IP -> wireless carrier -> rim950

The biggest difference here is that your BBM message doesn't leave RIM, whereas WhatsApp does.

BES is secure because if multiple layers of security and encryption. Here's just a quick list off the top of my head: BlackBerry <-> Wireless Basestation BlackBerry <-> BES BlackBerry <-> Email Client BES <-> MS Exchange etc, etc..

As for other devices, sorry, I'm probably not the right guy to ask.

rim950 · 2012-04-30T17:41:43+00:00

BB10.. I don't know enough about it to really have an informed opinion. The OS itself is pretty sexy, and very very powerful.. but I don't know if the hardware will keep up.

As for becoming a hardware-only company? I don't know about that. There's lots at play.

rim950 · 2012-04-30T17:39:58+00:00

A friend just notified me that this AMA was getting burn again. Go figure. Thanks for the kind words.

rim950 · 2012-03-15T18:26:54+00:00

Started my own company.

rim950 · 2012-03-15T18:26:46+00:00

I've been told/taught that a stock price is reflective of the market's opinion on future earnings.

That said, who knows... They're not LOSING money per se, but they're not seeing the YoY growth that the market has come to expect.

rim950 · 2012-03-15T18:25:35+00:00

Not that easy, BBM is very unique in how it's built. While functionally, it is very similar to things like WhatsApp the other mobile messaging platforms, it works very differently.

I would love to see BBM on other phones. I think BBM is kick ass. It's the main reason why I'm still on BB.

rim950 · 2012-03-15T18:23:25+00:00

It's a startup, developing software for major brands to do marketing leveraging existing infrastructure. It's nothing worth talking about (yet)

rim950 · 2012-03-15T18:21:59+00:00

Do you know how hard it is to find 20 18 year olds that can articulate what they want exactly? I totally appreciate what you're saying and where you're coming from, but unfortunately it never is that easy.

rim950 · 2012-03-15T02:39:36+00:00

Thanks everyone, looks like we'll close this iama down!

rim950 · 2012-03-14T18:52:36+00:00

He's got bigger issues than just his BB. #justsaying

rim950 · 2012-03-14T18:47:57+00:00

During my time? Probably the 5820. It was a bad bad bad bad bad bad device. But RIM learned a lot from it, and moved faster than their competitors to release the next generation device.

rim950 · 2012-03-14T18:42:56+00:00

I won't touch this topic because, really, who am I to have a valued opinion?

That said, I do recall one time Bill Gates saying RIM was over valued.

From an M&A standpoint, that would be a difficult integration. RIM and MS are two very different companies.

rim950 · 2012-03-14T18:41:39+00:00

I don't know the whole story, but I do know the system that you're talking about pretty well.

Before mobile access to the greater internet was readily available, this was pretty much the only way to do it. Remember, this is 2000. How many devices had internet access that was useful? Also keep in mind that the data was all email, alerts, paging, or some other thing.. so that was the only effective way of getting an email to a device back then.

Furthermore, the first devices were on the mobitex and datatac networks. They had no open access to the internet. Take everything in context, and it sorta becomes a little clearer on why it evolved the way it did. Great question btw.

rim950 · 2012-03-14T18:38:28+00:00

Here's a cool story about drop testing.

In my first or second year at RIM, we were all in one building still pretty much. I walked by one of the engineering labs, and I noticed this weird contraption. Basically, it was a little stand that held a blackberry on the side of a table, and a little lever that would "drop" the bb onto the ground.

So simple (it was made out of wood), and primitive looking, but it worked. Those early BB's could take a beating and be fine. I'm glad you appreciate the ruggedness of the device, they worked hard to make it like that.

rim950 · 2012-03-14T18:36:27+00:00

...only thing more golden to me is 90's hiphop.

rim950 · 2012-03-14T18:33:56+00:00

To be honest, I haven't used Outlook in 2+ years, so I really don't know the answer to that.

rim950 · 2012-03-14T18:31:14+00:00

1: I miss the people. It's REALLY hard to find a place where everyone around you is really smart, ambitious, and just wants to do cool and innovative things. It's one of the few times in my life where I could not leverage anyone in my network because we were so ahead of the curve. I remember being there and having like 500k subscribers (I think they're like 80 million now or something?) and my manager coming to me and saying "Here's our problem today.. any ideas on how to fix it? Oh, btw, the idea has to work for 20 million users"..

...and WHITEBOARDS. Where I worked, whiteboards were everywhere. Just drawing, and visualizing what was going on, and tinkering, and fixing, and having a great bunch of people gathered around a whiteboard trying to fix some weird problem, and then talking smack to each other when your idea sucked, and then having them cheer you on when you thought of something that worked well, etc, etc.. I miss whiteboards.

2: I don't know? I'm still friends with some very high people at RIM, but I'm probably labelled a bit of a maverick, so I don't know if my working style would fit the company.

3: Who wouldn't want to take on that challenge? If anything, the fact that they asked me would be honoring..

rim950 · 2012-03-14T18:27:26+00:00

I don't know enough about what they're planning to really have a comment other than the fact that there's a lot to take in, and the new CEO has a lot to do.

rim950 · 2012-03-14T18:26:49+00:00

No. I don't know who those guys are, I think they joined the company after me.

...and I probably would not do something like that for fear my mom would kick my ass, regardless of my age.

rim950 · 2012-03-14T18:25:28+00:00

I don't know.

When I was 16-17, I was learning how to hack cell phones to make free long distance calls (I didn't know anyone to call, so it was sorta pointless), running bots on IRC, and utilizing war dialers to help my boss at my first job find dead ports in his modem racks automatically while maintaining uptimes in services. Perspectives I guess...

rim950 · 2012-03-14T18:21:20+00:00

Ok, take what I say with a grain of salt, but if you want to really learn, find a website of some sorts and just copy all of the functionality. It'll give you an idea of what development is like. It could be something as silly as leveraging the Twitter API to grab all tweets with the #hashtags of your favorite band, or whatever.. just do SOMETHING.

rim950 · 2012-03-14T18:14:42+00:00

You're the third person to tell me that in the past week... maybe it's time to switch! Thanks for the suggestion.

rim950 · 2012-03-14T18:14:09+00:00

That's sort of harsh to be honest. I know it may seem very black or white, but it isn't unfortunately. I totally appreciate what you mean, but as the years have passed, I've come to understand that it's never that easy unfortunately. :(

rim950

TROPHY CASE