Why Blackberry Remains Powerful In Indonesia, and How It’s Still Going to Lose

Credit: BlackberryCool.com

A lot of my friends have had their fair share of complaints about the Blackberry Messenger (BBM) service in Indonesia, especially about the service’s lagginess. But still, a lot of them are wired into using BBM every single day, despite strong competition from apps like Line, Whatsapp, WeChat, and KakaoTalk. How deeply rooted is BBM in the Indonesian messaging ecosystem? The answer might lie in its importance in people’s professions.

I asked a few of my friends from four different professions for a layman’s take on Blackberry and BBM. They’ve got some insights on how important BBM has become integral in their life and work, and yet how frustrated they are about it.

BBM at work

Blackberry is well known as the phone for enterprise and it is very true here in Indonesia.

A journalist friend of mine uses BBM every day, mainly because of the journalist’s BBM groups. Inside the group, they can get the latest news tips and other helpful information like sources’ contact info from colleagues and other journalists. A salesperson and an online merchant use it every day to communicate with their customers, as well as for advertising their products through BBM. Another friend of mine who works in an office uses BBM for business communication purposes.

They all tell me that their friends inside the same profession are using Blackberry phones for work. Even those who did not use Blackberry at first would eventually be forced to buy one to support their job.

It’s also quite normal for all of them to restart their Blackberry phones – running things like BB OS6 or OS7 – when the devices crash every now and then.

Interestingly, quite a few of my friends who use their Blackberry phones for work are also using an Android smartphone at the same time. They use the Android phone for messaging apps like Line and WhatsApp, particularly for their inner circles of friends.

People who don’t like their Blackberry phones

Let me break down a few insights I got from the interviews:

• BBM has become deeply connected to people’s jobs, and it’s very hard to replace that anytime soon. Merchants and salespeople won’t ditch their exhaustive lists (which can reach over 1,000 contacts for some merchants) of customers on BBM, and journalists won’t ditch the chance to get valuable and timely information either. Those lists can’t be exported to the other messaging apps easily, and the network effect keeps people mutually bound to BBM groups right now.

• A lot of Blackberry users are not satisfied with their phones. For example, my online merchant friend regularly resets his Blackberry phone twice a day, and my other friend’s phone crashes often, apparently because her call history is too full.