Competitors putting the squeeze on RIM

Research In Motion, maker of BlackBerry line of smartphones, continues to face mounting pressure in the market it once dominated by itself.

Due to a weakening financial outlook report, analysts are beginning to lose confidence in the popular smartphone maker.  Aside from the Apple iPhone, there are numerous other handsets, including Google Android-powered devices, that continue to eat away at RIM’s marketshare.

The struggling company has more than 50% marketshare of the growing smartphone market, but that number is expected to fall slowly as overall competition increases.

“RIM Is unlikely to maintain its over 50 percent share in North America in the face increasing competition from Apple, Motorola, and Palm, among others,” Goldman Sachs analyst Simona Jankowsi recently wrote in a research report.

RIM still relies on its corporate backbone that offers an impressive distribution network.  But Apple and other companies continue to find ways to increase pressure on RIM — offering better smartphones with organized app systems — with at least one blogger predicting RIM will lose more than 10 percent of its current marketshare in the next four quarters.

I’m looking forward to seeing RIM’s response to this increasing pressure, especially as even more smartphones are released.  Since several Apple executives came forward to say the iPhone isn’t best for the corporate world, now is the chance for Motorola and others to enter the corporate workspace.

In North America, RIM has a broad catalog of devices across all four major U.S. carriers — AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint-Nextel, and T-Mobile — and that trend is expected to continue in the immediate future.  According to a recent report, customers can purchase a RIM BlackBerry in 170 countries with support from more than 500 wireless carriers.