one store is not about apple vs rim

Canadian media have been very excited about the opening of an Apple Store in Conestoga Mall, Waterloo, ON.  Broadcast sources, especially, have been telling the story as if it's Apple poking a finger in the eye of Research in Motion (RIM) to highlight its position in the smartphone marketplace.  We've been treated to such statements as "Waterloo is the smallest city in which Apple has opened...", a case of manipulating the facts to support a tenuous theory.  While Waterloo, at less than 100,000 persons is small, just about everyone knows it's a twin city of Kitchener (over 200,000) and part of a regional marketplace of about half a million.  Not such a small market, in fact, but one that is exceptional for hosting two universities, a community college, a young and highly educated workforce, etc. Not to mention, another university (Guelph) a few minutes away.

Less than taunting RIM, which it doesn't need to do to keep gaining market share, Apple is simply following good business practice by opening a store where demand for its products is likely to be high.  Apple began in Canada with stores in downtown Toronto and Montréal and swiftly moved out to the suburbs as customer numbers grew. In a few weeks another store will open in Burlington; population about 165,000 or about half the size of Kitchener-Waterloo.

Apple's new store opens close the the internationally renowned University of Waterloo, where Microsoft, Google, RIM and a host of innovating start-ups come to recruit the best and brightest technology graduates.  RIM has made Waterloo its home-base, but that is not to say it has any sort of monopoly on smartphone sales.  Apple has defined itself as being at the intersection of the Liberal Arts and Technology.  There are lots of "artsies" in Waterloo too, at both UofW and Wilfred Laurier University.  The city is young, especially during the academic year (wonder why Apple is opening 2-3 weeks before the students start flooding back to town).  These are the reasons Apple came to Waterloo and they have little to do with competing with RIM.

Apple is making shopping for its devices easier but this alone is unlikely to have any impact on RIM.  If Apple is poking RIM's eye, it's with technology that consumers seem to prefer over BlackBerries.  It's not as though consumers, if they want, have any difficulty buying a BlackBerry.  I can quickly count ten stores selling BlackBerries on Conestoga  Mall's website. If you count all the Bell, Rogers, Telus, Virgin, Fido, Koodo, Wind, FutureShop and Best Buy stores in Kitchener-Waterloo selling BlackBerries (most of them selling iPhones as well), you can hardly say that one more Apple store is an assault on RIM.

If anything, Apple is going after sales of its own devices which have been enjoyed previously by these licensed dealers.  If anyone has a gripe, its the businesses that will lose sales to Apple's corporately owned store.  The message might be to Rogers or Bell - "how are you going to make shopping for an iPhone as comfortable at your store as it is at the Apple store?"

Customers are choosing Apple products over RIM products it because of the relative quality and features offered by those products.  It has little, if anything, to do with proximity to an Apple Store.  A store in Waterloo has nothing to do with Apple taunting a competitor.