Comments on: I Dub Thee Verizon "Storm"

By: Brian

Brian — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 02:03:49 +0000

Personally I like thunder better but int he long run it does not really matter, I still want this handset.

By: Luciano ES

Luciano ES — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 18:40:36 +0000

Maybe Storm is a better name. It will come out and “take the market by storm”. Better than running the risk of some competitor launching something else and “stealing RIM’s thunder”.

By: Ben

Ben — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 17:53:09 +0000

Nokia uses clever marketing.
N73 Camera Phone
N95 Music Phone
E71 Business Phone

You get the idea

By: DavidB

DavidB — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 15:14:26 +0000

Naming a device is so new to Rim (no 7xxx or earlier ever had a name), yeah, they have a lot to learn. And have made some dumb decisions so far.

That said, Nokia sells millions of phones worldwide, without naming them right?

By: David

David — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 14:06:24 +0000

Personally, I think RIM’s naming issues are huge marketing mistakes. If they want to penetrate the individual consumer market, as opposed to just the corporate market, they desparately need to change their lack of attention to the importance of a device name. The iPod and iPhone are great examples of how a name can truly help drive recognition and acceptance of a consumer device. Curve… good. Pearl… good. KickStart… good. 8800 World Phone… bad. But what’s worse is to have a breakthrough device like the Thunder, but then have two completely different names for it. The BlackBerry Thunder on some networks, and the BlackBerry Storm on others. It’s a grave mistake. It haunted the Danger Hiptop, which is known as the Sidekick with T-Mobile and the Hiptop with SunCom.

RIM needs to designate the name (and a catchy one) and then that’s the name on every carrier. It’s the only way to drive device recognition successfully. Not model numbers, and certainly not multiple names. And I agree, the KickStart is a *much* better name for the new clamshell design than to call it another Pearl. My guess is they are doing it to help continue Pearl recognition so the older models will still sell.

By: DavidB

DavidB — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 14:00:37 +0000

I’m of the opinion this is a FAR better marketing decision than calling the 8220 a “Pearl” would be. However, this I think we can “take to the bank” at this point, I’m not sold the “Pearl” name for the 8220 is official yet.