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  3. Five years ago, Research in Motion, maker of the BlackBerry, was one of the

Five years ago, Research in Motion, maker of the BlackBerry, was one of the

游客2023-12-15  22
问题     Five years ago, Research in Motion, maker of the BlackBerry, was one of the most acclaimed technology companies in the world. The BlackBerry dominated the smartphone market, was a staple of the business world, and had helped make texting a mainstream practice. Terrifically profitable, the phone became a cultural touchstone—in 2006, a Webster’s dictionary made "CrackBerry" its word of the year.
    These days, it seems more like the SlackBerry. Thanks to the iPhone and Android devices, R.I.M.’s smartphone market share has plummeted; in the U.S., according to one estimate, it fell from forty-four percent in 2009 to just ten percent last year. The BlackBerry’s reputed addictive-ness now looks like a myth; a recent study found that only a third of users planned to stick with it the next time they upgraded. R.I.M.’s stock price is down seventy-five percent in the past year, and two weeks ago the company was forced to bring in a new C.E.O. The Times wondered recently whether the BlackBerry will go the way of technological dodoes like the pager.
    The easy explanation for what happened to R.I.M. is that, like so many other companies, it got run over by Apple. But the real problem is that the technology world changed, and R.I.M. didn’t. The BlackBerry was designed for businesses. Its true customers weren’t its users but the people who run corporate information-technology departments. The BlackBerry gave them what they wanted most: reliability and security. It was a closed system, running on its own network. The phone’s settings couldn’t easily be tinkered with by ordinary users. So businesses loved it, and R.I.M.’s assumption was that, once companies embraced the technology, consumers would, too.
    This pattern—of winning over business and government markets and then reaching consumers—is a time-honored one. The telegraph was initially taken up mainly by railroads, financial institutions, and big companies. The telephone, though it became popular with consumers relatively quickly, was first used principally as a business tool. The typewriter’s biggest users were offices. The Internet originated in the military-industrial complex, and first found an audience among academics and scientists. The personal computer, though popular with hobbyists early on, came to market dominance only once I.B.M. introduced models targeted squarely at businesses. Historically, new technologies have been very expensive—when phone service was introduced in New York, it cost the equivalent of two thousand dollars a month—and so early adopters have generally been companies that could make money by using them. In 2006, it looked to R.I.M. as if the story of the smartphone market would echo the story of the telegraph.
    It didn’t. In fact, even as the BlackBerry was at the height of its popularity, we were entering the age of what’s inelegantly called the consumerization of I.T., or simply Bring Your Own Device. In this new era, technological diffusion started to flow the other way—from consumers to businesses. Social media went from being an annoying fad to an unavoidable part of the way many businesses work. Tablets, which many initially thought were just underpowered laptops, soon became common among salesmen, hospital staffs, and retailers. So, too, with the iPhone and Androids. They’ve always been targeted at consumers, and tend to come with stuff that I.T. departments hate, like all those extraneous apps. Yet, because employees love them, businesses have adapted. As a result, the iPhone and Androids now control more than half the corporate mobile market.
    Consumerization has been disastrous for R.I.M., because the company has seemed clueless about what consumers want. R.I.M. didn’t bring out a touch-screen phone until long after Apple, and the device that it eventually launched was a pale imitation of the iPhone. Although the BlackBerry brand name was once seen as a revolutionary success, over time R.I.M.’s product line became bewilderingly large, with inscrutable model names. If you’re a consumer, do you want the 8300 or the seemingly identical 8330? And the BlackBerry’s closed system has left R.I.M. ill equipped for a world in which phones and tablets are platforms for the whole app ecosystem.
    The consumerization of I.T. has deep economic and social roots and is unlikely to go away. Technological innovation has dramatically lowered the cost of computing, making it possible for large numbers of consumers to own powerful new technologies at reasonably low prices. The workplace is changing, too. The barrier between work and home has been eroded, and if people are going to have to be constantly connected they want at least to use their own phones. Companies have quickly come to love consumerization, too: a recent study by the consulting firm Avanade found that executives like the way it keeps workers plugged in all day long. And since workers often end up paying for their own devices, it can also help businesses cut costs. One way or another, consumers are going to have more and more say over what technologies businesses adopt. It’s a brave new world. It’s just not the one that the BlackBerry was built for.
                                            From The New Yorker, February 13, 2012 [br] Which is the implicit meaning of the author by elaborating on Blackberry in this article?
选项 A、The pattern how new technologies take the market place has changed.
B、We are now living in a consumer-oriented world.
C、Blackberry is no longer cutting-edge.
D、Blackberry has been working hard to keep abreast of the latest trends.
答案 A
解析 本题为主旨题。选项A是说新技术占据市场的模式有所改变；选项B指出我们生活在消费者为导向的世界中，选项C认为黑莓手机不再尖端，选项D指出黑莓公司努力紧跟潮流。一般为了掌握文章大意，我们看开头和结尾两段，以及每一个段落的开头几句和末尾几句，就可以知道了。第一段说了黑莓手机曾经的风光，第二段开头一句，就直接说These days，it seems more like the SlackBerry(现如今，黑莓成了“衰霉”)，第三段紧接着给出解释But the real problem is that the technology world changed，and R．I．M．didn’t．(真正的原因是科技世界改变了，而黑莓依旧不变)，第四段提到了一个曾经的商业运行模式winning over business and government markets and then reaching consumers(新技术最先赢得公司和政府的市场，然后才到了广大消费者手中)，并认为这个模式已经过时了，而黑莓依然不明就里。第五段和接下来的内容都在继续说我们进入了消费化时代，而它拥有自己的特质——消费者至上。最后一句点题，消费者的喜好对科技生意至关重要，而我们所进入的这个新时代，和古老的黑莓格格不入。因此，全文的中心其实在最后一句，而要选择的，是没有被说出来的暗含的内容，这就是现在的科技占据市场的方式也要随时改变。选项B说的是事实，而且有些范围过大。选项C和D说的也是事实，而且都是细节，不是最核心的内容。综上所述选项A正确。
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