The business mobile industry is notoriously fast-paced and, historically, that pace has been driven and dictated by advances in design. However, as the smartphone rapidly achieves dominance in the mobile phone industry, do mobile phone customers now prefer data over design?

A recent report by US industry watchdog, comScore, found that in the last three months, the number of people who own a smartphone has risen by 21 per cent in the US, while correspondingly, the number of people using mobile content has grown exponentially since 2009.

While we are not suggesting that – with the stylised and tactile smartphones on the market – customers necessarily need to make the choice between substance and style, it will be interesting to see where the industry is in five years time, as customers continue to spend more time looking at their mobile, than actually talking on it.

Previously, Nokia, LG, Samsung, Motorola and Sony Ericsson were said to be the market leading manufacturers yet, RIM has now managed to enter the top five, surpassing the sales reached by Sony Ericsson and Motorola.

Researcher Strategy Analytics and International Data Corporation (IDC) both estimated that RIM sold 10.6 million phones within the first quarter of the year, edging just ahead of Sony Ericsson’s 10.5 million.

However, there is now a concern that despite RIM’s impressive growth, the smartphone giant is not doing enough to keep its software platform in line with Apple’s App World and Google’s Android platform.

Within BlackBerry App World, the few hundred applications available are cited to be not unlike those currently available from the already thriving application market, with the only difference being the BlackBerry App World branding. This said, the available applications are all easy to download, user friendly and intuitively presented, as you would expect from a BlackBerry based product.

Whilst the BlackBerry App World is functional and practical, it is said to lack the sleek style of Apple’s App Store. It could be argued that RIM and the BlackBerry brand are predominantly aimed at the business user. Indeed, many business specific software manufacturers developed applications for BlackBerry, long before the iPhone was conceived, further securing RIM’s status as the stalwart of the business mobile arena.

With this in mind, RIM have yet another string to add to their ever expanding business bow with the introduction of BES Express; a free software download which allows an entire business, regardless of size, the ability to simply connect all of its employees.

Since its release in March, BES Express has received a staggering 55,000 downloads proving that the popularity of RIM products and services is set to continue.