Are Apple and RIM morphing into each other?

If both companies keep operating in different end user markets there is a chance they will alienate their traditional user base. That said, while both companies were busy morphing into each other, a greater threat in the guise of Google's Android appeared on the horizon.

Google's own smartphones are no longer a threat since it has announced plans to stop selling the Nexus One, but its open-source Android operating system has been widely deployed over consumer and business devices simultaneously. Android is ubiquitous on handsets from HTC's consumer Wildfire smartphone to Cisco's recently announced Cius business tablet.

Apple might have initiated the consumerisation of corporate IT, but companies like Cisco are keen to exploit that trend. This could make Android the perfect tool to expand in both directions, outfoxing RIM and Apple.

RIM still has the biggest slice of the corporate pie, but its market share is slipping in North America and it's not Apple's fault. Recent reports on the US smartphone market by research house comScore saw RIM and Apple lose share.

The research was performed over a three-month period ending in May 2010. RIM had a 41.7 per cent share, while Apple had 25.4 per cent and, in that short period of time, both companies lost share to Google. Android moved up to 13 per cent, nearly displacing Microsoft from fourth place.

RIM still has the heart of IT managers in corporations but, in trying to mimic Apple, the firm has taken its eye off the ball. RIM doesn't have Apple's technological savvy, and lacks the depth of penetration from third-party vendors to support its hardware at work.

The company is also running separate business and consumer portfolios, when the rest of the world is moving to consumerised enterprise IT. RIM has excellent hardware and needs to exploit the same trend as Apple and Google if it wants to come out fighting in the 2020s.