The quick version - Samsung didn't pay much serious attention to smartphones until last year, but once it 'woke up' it has run on all cylinders. They tick all the boxes, and have a great strategy - which they are executing perfectly. Do I need to say more? First off - this is an Tomi Ahonen analysis, thus your latte won't get cold while you're reading this. Sit back and enjoy.

To add to Tomi's quick intro above... the gist of the story is that Samsung has become all things to all people. They can provide a phone for every platform that allows licensing to third parties... this means no Apple, no RIM and no Palm/HP. But everyone else is in.

RIM started publicly talking about Super Apps on Tuesday of this week, though its been an internal idea for about 4 months. The idea is that rather than having each application in App World being a separate island, that apps should have a huge level of interoperation. Mike specifically said that they don’t want a thousand apps on a phone when just the right ten apps would do.

The primary example is the currently most used app on Blackberry: the Inbox. Yes, the humble email inbox is the most wanted aspect of a RIM device. Blackberry wants to make Inbox into a Super App by by having high quality, highly integrated apps included in it. For example - apps for scheduling, IM, VoIP, mobile internet and more can be built into Inbox in the form of clickable icons along the top of the screen. Rather than having each app being a standalone “island”, Blackberry wants them to be bundled together in inter-connected ways that make using them far faster and simpler.

This is fully open, so 3rd party developers can build their own stuff into existing RIM apps - and RIM claims it won’t even wield the “banhammer” too much. It wants to leave the success or failure of a third party app up to the market (although old rules like “no gambling, no porn” still stand).

RIM showed off one example of an app it says really gets the whole idea. Poynt is a free local search app for Blackberry, which integrates other services into itself at every point. If you want to find a movie, it will pull in weather updates, location-based service and email links. It will let you add the movie to your calendar app, feed it into a mapping app to figure out the route and (of course) buy the ticket.

What we think?

The “scheduling your movie” feature should be enough to show how business oriented the whole Super App idea is. These are not apps designed to be sexy or cool - they are apps designed to be ultra-functional. RIM isn’t even going to really publicise these until it already has a very solid line up of Super Apps ready for market. After that we’ll see a lot of promo from RIM based on getting that out.

Whether or not this Super App idea is a success really depends on whether the eventual applications are good or not - but I do like the way RIM is thinking. This isn’t a mindless leap onto the app bandwagon. This is RIM looking at a massively successful mobile service, and plotting out a way in which it might be made to work for Blackberry. Because Blackberrys may run on an OS, but they ain’t your typical smartphone.

This idea definitely captures my interest like no other news coming from any device manufacturer in a long time. Although not used, the operative word for me here is 'integration.' The integration of a few select and highly desirable apps into the 'inbox' seems like a good idea to me. Of course it all depends on the actual developers and the applications they build, but I am sure something of value will come out... especially when we start thinking at the enterprise level. Apps that integrate directly into my workflow are the ones that I will go be going after.

What's the use of having hundreds of thousands of applications that are of no value to me? When 5 well integrated apps into my processes will catapult my business into the next level?

In a series of patents filed recently, it seems RIM is working on methods for monetizing BlackBerry messages. One patent, titled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR INCORPORATING MULTIMEDIA CONTENT INTO A MESSAGE HANDLED BY A MOBILE DEVICE“, describes a method for examining a message and linking keywords in the message to an ad. This sounds just like what Google does in its webmail and RIM is probably going to see if it can generate some dollars from a similar service.

Another patent, titled “SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR EVALUATING ADVERTISING METRICS“, describes a method for determining whether an application or user has attempted to defraud RIM’s advertising model. Personally, I think RIM could do well with a partnership with Google, instead of trying to do it themselves. Google has figured all of this out already and I bet RIM will come across some of the same problems Google faced in its early stages of development. One particular problem I see on the horizon is a backlash from people seeing ads in their BlackBerry Messages. Email is a very private service and while Google saw a backlash from their web service, I think seeing ads on your handheld will generate more concern.

What do you think, would you care about seeing ads in your email? What if there was some benefit like cheaper devices in the long run?

This would never affect BES users. So that's okay for my BES email. But I certainly do not want to see ads in my BIS emails. This would be enough to make me finally streamline all of the different email addresses I use.