Sunday Times

Two 'Sunday Times' stories June 2012 - March 2015

Apple Watch makes UK fashion magazine debut with three-page feature in Style

Following from features in fashion magazines in France and Germany, the Apple Watch has made its UK editorial debut in Sunday’s publication of Style. Although the Watch is not on the cover of the issue I received, there are four covers circulating — one of them features the Apple Watch as the cover photo. Regardless of whether you get a copy of the magazine with the special cover or not, inside the Watch gets three pages of press coverage.

The main picture features Guinevere Van Seenus wearing a 38mm Apple Watch Sport with Space Grey case and black sport band. The written accompaniment says that the Apple Watch does not convey ‘power, status and discernment’ like a Rolex can but holds back no punches in saying it will ‘wipe the floor with existing smartwatch manufacturers and give mid-market watchmakers a fright’. The magazine compliments Jony Ive in particular, for the design.

Jony Ive has got the tone of the Apple Watch just right. It looks elegant but not standoffish, and as well as the 18 variations of the regular version, there are the 10 Sport options, which come with a lightweight case, strengthened glass and a rubber strap, plus the more expensive Edition range (six models), made from 18ct gold.

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RIM to be split into handset and services, sold off piecemeal?

TheVerge reads behind the Sunday Times’ firewall:

The Sunday Times reports today that RIM is considering a plan to split its handset division and messaging network into two separate companies, and will sell off the struggling BlackBerry hardware business. The British paper doesn’t cite any sources in the report, but it says that Facebook and Amazon are both “potential buyers.” As part of this plan, RIM could keep its enterprise-friendly messaging and data network (including BBM and BIS) in-house and license them out.

BBM and BES only run on Blackberry now, and that platform will have a market share heading toward zero by the time RIM gets all of this organizational structure sorted. So keeping that a separate business makes little sense.

The other option is selling out piecemeal to Microsoft for parts and people. I imagine that by then, the price of RIM will get so low, even Apple and Google would be interested in picking up the parts (patents, people, and tech). Microsoft is probably already lining up some cash to buy the remnants of Nokia as well, so it is less likely to pick up RIM (although it made several attempts to pick up RIM in the past).

Moreover, RIM’s QNX/Blackberry 10 might have some value for companies like Dell, HP (which recently fumbled WebOS), Lenovo, Toshiba, Acer, or ASUS due to Microsoft now building its own tablets and scaring OEMs.

That split could also see Cisco or Oracle taking the backend stuff.