BlackBerry Losing its Corporate Business Clients?

The news just keeps getting worse and worse for Research in Motion (RIM). It was only two weeks ago that Apple surpassed RIM to the 4th top mobile phone seller spot. Since the last couple of days, multiple news has been trickling down suggesting that big corporations are testing out other mobile phone platforms. For one, the Mac Observer says that Citibank and Bank of America are trying out the iPhone and phones based on the Google Android platform. Or more specifically, they're testing out software on these platforms that will meet their security needs for e-mail. Two days ago, Arstechnica also mentioned that Dell is moving one-fourth of its employees from BlackBerry's to their own Windows Phone 7 based Dell Venue Pro. Till now, RIM's stronghold had been in the business sector where their encrypted communication technology was of critical importance.

Supposedly, the reason Dell decided to move to its own stable's product was not just to save costs; but to indirectly publicize their own offering. But the two banks, Citibank and the Bank of America have no latter reason for switching. They are two of the largest banks in U.S. currently, and if fully implemented, RIM stands to lose a total of half a million customers. So, why is RIM seeming to slowly lose ground?

First, I believe there is a shift in people preferring touchscreen devices over candy-bar QWERTYs that BlackBerry has aplenty in its portfolio. Its only touchscreen device till now, the Storm series, wasn't particularly successful. Second, with the on-going tussle between RIM and countries like India and UAE who threaten to ban their services, corporates might be thinking twice before deploying BlackBerry handsets to their employees on a large scale. Also, what I think is an un-advertised USP of a BlackBerry - low power consumption. The reason why they decided to stick to a 624 MHz processor or a 480 x 360 pixel screen on their flagship Torch 9800, when other devices had moved to almost double the processing speed and four times the resolution (point in case, the iPhone 4). So, in the effort to maintain their reputation to make phones that ran for days without a recharge, I believe their compromise on battery-sucking features didn't gel so well with the audience, who is prone to make spec-by-spec comparisons before making a purchase. Also, BlackBerry's App Store hasn't hit as much popularity as the Apple iOS and Google's Android OS - both of which soar much higher in the total number of apps to offer. Lastly, there's the BlackBerry tax where you have to pay more than what you'd pay for a typical mobile internet data plan. What you get in return is encrypted content that's pushed to your phone, once again helping in saving battery life. But its recurring costs are something that people weigh a BlackBerry against, especially for those who don't really care for security of their data.

What do you think BlackBerry will need to do to give competing platforms a good fight? Drop in your thoughts in the comments below.