'People inside the distortion field will begin to resent being told half a story...'
Research In Motion co-CEO Jim Balsillie has published a cutting blog post aimed at Steve Jobs, after the Apple boss claimed BlackBerry was falling behind, and that seven-inch tablets are unappealing to consumers.
"For those of us who live outside of Apple’s distortion field, we know that 7” tablets will actually be a big portion of the market and we know that Adobe Flash support actually matters to customers who want a real web experience," writes Balsillie.
"We also know that while Apple’s attempt to control the ecosystem and maintain a closed platform may be good for Apple, developers want more options and customers want to fully access the overwhelming majority of web sites that use Flash. We think many customers are getting tired of being told what to think by Apple."
Oof! But there's more. Jobs claimed that Apple's 14.1 million iPhone sales in its fiscal Q4 put it ahead of BlackBerry, but Balsillie isn't happy about this claim either.
"By the way, RIM has achieved record shipments for five consecutive quarters and recently shared guidance of 13.8 – 14.4 million BlackBerry smartphones for the current quarter," he writes.
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"Apple’s preference to compare its September-ending quarter with RIM’s August-ending quarter doesn’t tell the whole story because it doesn’t take into account that industry demand in September is typically stronger than summer months."
Balsillie also draws attention to Apple "only" shipping 8.4 million iPhones in the previous quarter, and questions whether its latest figures are "padded by unfulfilled Q3 customer demand and channel orders".
He finishes with a flourish. "As usual, whether the subject is antennas, Flash or shipments, there is more to the story and sooner or later, even people inside the distortion field will begin to resent being told half a story."
As a reminder, here's what Jobs had to say about BlackBerry in Apple's fiscal Q4 earnings call earlier this week:
"We’ve now passed RIM. And I don’t see them catching up with us in the foreseeable future. They must move beyond their area of strength and comfort, into the unfamiliar territory of trying to become a software platform company... I think it’s going to be a challenge for them to create a competitive platform and to convince developers to create apps for yet a third software platform after iOS and Android."
