Was Blackberry’s Jam worth the W8?

Everyone is a titter about RIM’s recent launch of BB10.  If the social buzz is any indication, RIM has started the path back into the hearts and minds of the world.  Here at Argus Insights though we wait for the consumers to weigh in more than pundits.  Social buzz volume is not a guarantee of rapid (or vapid) market adoption.  We tend to relay on a mixed set of metrics to make that prediction.

What we can definitively is that RIM’s launch, while not on the level of the iPhone 5 launch in September 2012, soundly crushed Microsoft’s Windows 8 launch in October.

Below is the buzz volume around the Win 8 launch.  Notice the peak was just over 100k mentions for the day.

For RIM, ahem, Blackberry, there was almost double that, 198k, with honestly, a more global distribution of consumers interested and tracking the new os and handsets.

Even part way through the day after, BlackBerry’s post launch buzz already exceeds Windows 8.  Why is this?  Both firms realized that they couldn’t pull an Apple and let the ramp of anticipation be followed by the chasm of disappointment, cough iPhone 5.  Microsoft and RIM let the market peek behind the curtain leading to opening night as a way to both gauge interest and build anticipation.  The strategy seemed to work well for both though you could argue that given the low buzz around RIM prior to launch, they got an even greater lift once the curtain opened on Blackberry 10.

Question is whether this launch was enough for BlackBerry to boost their market share into a higher, more stable orbit or will it accelerate their already decaying orbit into the earth?  Windows 8 has had a tough ride.  We’ll know soon if RIM will learn from Microsoft’s and Apple’s recent challenge.