So, here we are on 26th June, and Krakow has posted another video raving about the Blackberry Bold. And how great the screen is. And how easy it is to use. Seems all is rosy for Gary in the Blackberry camp.

Then you see some video of the unit in operation, and in comparison to the iPhone, it looks like the clunkiest lump of “new technology” you’ve ever seen!

You can’t simply touch the option you want on the screen. No, it has drop down menus and you have to navigate them with a thumb-operated joystick. What? I have a Sony Ericsson phone from three years ago that did that.

The “wonderful” screen is like a letterbox. The whole damn device is keyboard.

Maybe it’s nicer than previous Blackberrys, but how is it ever going to compete long-term with the 3G iPhone… which is available to buy in less than two weeks time.

So just in case you’re a bit underwhelmed, he covers all the bases by dropping the rumour of an “iPhone killer” that’s coming from Blackberry. Not this phone, another one that’s on the way. He hasn’t seen it. He doesn’t know any details about it. He doesn’t know when it’ll be available. RIM won’t discuss it. Yet he’s talking it up nonetheless.

You have to seriously wonder if Krakow and RIM have some secret sponsorship agreement.

The reality is that RIM, Palm and Symbian were caught with their pants down when iPhone 1.0 was released, and they will be in a constant state of catchup. Problem is, they’re competing with the most innovative hardware/software company in the world. So it might turn out to be a game of “fall-even-further-behind”.

RIM stock fell 13% today. Not that I mean RIM any ill will, but at least it’s a sign that not everyone is drinking the Krakow Kool-Aid.

Even if they did film this before the announcement, which I don’t think happened, the fact that they published this on June 3rd makes them just as incompetent.

I think any publicity they received out of this is negative. Having said that, I doubt many people will even remember it in a week or so.

But watching the video doesn’t give any sense of when the video was filmed except that it’s warm outside, but that could be last fall. I don’t know the location, is that somewhere in NYC? Maybe Wall Street?

Of course, if it wasn’t from before Apple’s announcement, I’d have to agree that this guy is horribly out of touch considering it’s his job to know what’s going on in the industry. At the very least he should be expected to scrutinize all the major official announcements from the industry leaders, so there’s no way he should have missed this.

Wm