There might be hope for those who suffer from BlackBerry shame after all.
Once the de rigueur instrument of business communications, Research In Motion's smartphone has taken a beating lately. RIM's market share of mobile traffic has plummeted from 25 percent in September 2011 to just barely 1 percent in July, according to a recent Chitika study. Last month, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer practically declared the BlackBerry dead when she told her employees that she would buy them the smartphone of their choice, as long as it wasn't a BlackBerry.
Now comes word that some BlackBerry owners avoid using their RIM devices in public for fear of humiliation (see CNET's Friday poll on the subject). CBS' Bob Schieffer said he learned of the affliction from The New York Times while studying up on foreign policy to moderate the upcoming presidential debate.
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"She is so ashamed, she told The New York Times, she no longer takes her BlackBerry phone out at cocktail parties," he said in a video commentary this morning (see video below). "She says she hides her BlackBerry behind her iPad at business conferences for fear her clients will see it and judge her."
Admitting that he himself is a BlackBerry owner, Schieffer suggests that BlackBerry owners suffering this status shame take a few deep breaths.