Angry child demands BlackBerry for kids

 

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By Reuters

Posted on 15 Jul 2009 at 08:20

A young child left the inventors of the BlackBerry stumped after he demanded to know when the company was going to make a child-friendly model.

"Are you going to make a phone more for kids so that my mom will let me get one?" the child said from the packed audience at Research In Motion's AGM.

The world's second biggest smartphone maker has so far aimed its near-ubiquitous BlackBerry devices at executives, with US President Obama being its highest-profile user.

The child's question met with hums and haws from RIM co-chief executives Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis before they summoned up a vague response.

"There's lots of opportunity and, you know, if the current BlackBerries aren't acceptable to your mother, hopefully the next ones will," Lazaridis said.

The interaction was striking in light of a recent research note written by 15-year-old Matthew Robson, an intern at Morgan Stanley, on "How Teenagers Consume Media," which caused a stir after it was published by the bank.

At the otherwise uneventful shareholder meeting, RIM said it was advancing its campaign to win over more people to its devices, which includes sponsorship of the U2 360 Tour.

The RIM CEOs said they spent the past 25 years, since RIM was founded, catering to highly demanding industries, and for three years to the general consumer market.