Lawyers still love Blackberry!

[Mitlov]

Stumbled upon this today on Westlaw's page. Marketshare of law firms according to the 2011 ABA technology survey:

BlackBerry 45.7%
iPhone 35.4%
Android 17%
Windows Mobile: 2.5%

Mobile : WestlawNext Legal Research System: Thomson Reuters

[Hook]

Actually, that 35% iPhone in such a narrow, vertical market, is pretty damning. I'm sure BlackBerry may have at one time held an 80% market share on that market.

[lelisa13p]

Also, company issued Blackberries, not personal choice, might account for the ones in that percentage. I've never known anyone who had a BB that wasn't company issued.

Or was that the point of the survey, reporting employer results?

[weegie]

I'm sure most enterprise administrators would love BBE, it's just become trendy for the users to want other things as packing a BB doesn't have the same noter status it once did.
I'm surprised Android is on there at all, I would be seriously put off using any law firm that carried or accessed any of my legal stuff on an android device.

[Mitlov]

Also, company issued Blackberries, not personal choice, might account for the ones in that percentage. I've never known anyone who had a BB that wasn't company issued.

Or was that the point of the survey, reporting employer results?

I know people who have Blackberries that aren't company-issued, though I'm sure a lot of those numbers are. I think some people like the physical keyboards and the name familiarity.

Lawyers love to survey each other. I think the purpose is (1) idle curiousity of other lawyers (dressed up in fancy corporate-speak), and (2) providing guidance for court systems and app developers about what OSes they need to accommodate.

[Varjak]

It's not just company-issuance. Lawyers do tend toward BBs. People don't realize that there are legal guidelines for things like software and hardware (and security) and BBs were almost the default choice. Less so now obviously. There's also an 'institutional' bias towards certain things. Wordperfect for example had a much stronger and longer presence with law firms, long after it had been pushed out of the general marketplace. Some here poo-poo BB Messenger; but that also 'kept' people tethered to BB in the legal community to a degree.

[rkevwill]

Also, company issued Blackberries, not personal choice, might account for the ones in that percentage. I've never known anyone who had a BB that wasn't company issued.

Or was that the point of the survey, reporting employer results?

You know one now lelisa. And I gotta tell you, for professional and business use, after using the iPhone for about a year and a half now, I far preferred the blackberry for my emails, and texting. I almost re-activated my BB, with sprint, but for a couple of reasons (including waiting for the new versions, and phone number texting issues) have not so far. The iPhone is no doubt a superior device, but it looks like in the future, I am going to want 2 devices, just like I did before. I miss those nubby little keys

[Varjak]

Yeah, plenty of people buy BBs personally. My sister has had several and went back after trying an iPhone. The BB just works better for her, and she's not a technophobe. It's just that messaging, hardware keyboard, reliability (in her experience), voice calls, etc. were more important than most apps beyond the standards. Several of my friends also stuck with BB for some time before finally abandoning them fairly recently.

[phudson126]

That is strange. I thought Blackberrys were popular among the business people. What has blackberry got to do with lawyers?

[lelisa13p]

That is strange. I thought Blackberrys were popular among the business people. What has blackberry got to do with lawyers?

If you had bothered to read the first post, there is a link at the bottom of the post to an article which prompted this entire discussion.