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RIM CEO: 'There's Nothing Wrong With the Company'
redletterdave writes "Research In Motion is in trouble. The BlackBerry maker has been suffering from an identity crisis for the last six months, which has resulted in mass layoffs, lots of job shuffling, dramatic drop-offs in market share and a quickly decaying portfolio for investors. But not according to Thorsten Heins! The newly-appointed CEO published an op-ed in the Toronto Globe and Mail on Tuesday, and also appeared on a radio program the same morning, to deliver one message: 'There's nothing wrong with the company as it exists right now.'"
"I'm not dead yet... I'm happpeeeeeeee!"
Please, someone call the doctor..
CEO: "But this ship can't sink!"
CFO: "She's made of iron, sir! I assure you, she can... and she will. It is a mathematical certainty."
CEO (to shareholders and public): " Everything will be juuuuuust fine, folks! "
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Why am I reminded of the Iraqi Propaganda Minister?
Maybe it's better to have a credible CEO who says things are going poorly than an untrustworthy CEO?
They're as good at positioning and marketing in the mobile information technology market as Microsoft is in the on-line advertising market.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Of course he's going to say that, he's the CEO and he's expected to say that.
Coming out and saying "we're screwed" may be technically more accurate - but it'll only hasten the demise of the company even more. Who knows? Maybe BB10 is amazing - but if he says anything other than "we're doing just fine" then he's running the risk of his careless talk meaning that it'll never ever see the light of day.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
"I'm Thorsten Heins! Try our new Blackberry. I liked the phone so much - I bought the company!"
#DeleteChrome
Sure, there's nothing wrong with RIM. You could argue that. Just as you could argue with any company that's seen their market disappear from under them due to inaction. If things simply hadn't changed, they'd still be rolling along nicely.
But that's the problem: Things change.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
If it's obvious to everyone that a company has problems, the worst possible thing a CEO can do is say everything is fine, because it makes everyone think he's out of touch or not interested in fixing what's wrong. A good CEO would acknowledge the problems and present a high-level plan for fixing them. Whistling past the graveyard just makes things worse.
I'm not sure why we're seeing all of this. But if you RTFA, you'll see a totally different message. Heins gets that they are in a lot of trouble. He's simply saying that they aren't going anywhere. They are executing their strategy in the midst of a transition. All of the negativity is expected. But they haven't lost their head, they know where they're going. The headline should read: "RIM CEO Acknowledges past, hopeful for future" Nice to see a CEO be candid about their problems.
Well I think we just found one thing wrong with the company: The CEO is delusional, a liar, or both.
They missed the small wave he made with his fingers when he said it. Move along.
Democracy: Crowdsourcing a country near you
As we prepare to launch our new mobile platform, BlackBerry 10, in the first quarter of next year, we expect to empower people as never before...am the first to admit that RIM has missed on important trends in the smart-phone industry...RIM is undertaking a corporate overhaul that we expect will reduce annual operating expenses by more than $1-billion by the end of our fiscal year...
I read that to mean pretty much what you think a good CEO should say.
Some small differences:
Apple in 1997 actually had a viable roadmap, and succeeded. They also completely shook out the incompetent CEO once Jobs came back.
Microsoft in 2006 had a metric shitload of money still sitting in the bank, and a lock on the desktop.
It is possible for a business to come back from the brink, but RIM has shown absolutely no sign that they'll be a business that does so. All they really have coming up is BlackBerryOS 10, and even that's not much to trumpet, considering the far more fluid competition. RIM has given zero indication that they're working to break new ground, nor any hint of innovation in any area which could be considered as having future potential.
Long story short, RIM is circling the toilet swirl, and shows no promise of doing anything but getting sucked into the drain.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
I feel for RIM... I really do... this whole iphone thing has f'ed them. And the android isn't helping... and a resurgent interest in smartphones by microsoft is just more bad news.
The competition for the smartphone has increased exponentially and RIM might well not have a place in the future of it.
I don't see how they compete with the cool factor of the iphone or the adaptability of the android.
They still have a pretty solid lock on having the most secure phones but how long is that going to last? And more importantly, will the IT departments that care be able to enforce a RIM only standard over the cries of "But I want an iphone!!!"
The whole situation is pretty desperate and I don't know how RIM gets out of it.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Their choice of locations speaks volumes...though it doesn't SELL volumes!
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
RIM is betting it all on BB10. But BB10 will not save RIM. Why not? Because the *only* people looking forward to BB10 are RIM investors.
The Internet King? I wonder if he could provide faster nudity.
Slightly off-topic, but to avoid making Toronto even more of the center of the Canadian universe than it already is...
The Globe & Mail is only a Toronto newspaper insofar as it's published in Toronto and is utterly obsessed with the Toronto Maple Leafs. It would be much more appropriate to label it a national newspaper, as it's read and distributed throughout Canada, and attempts (not always successfully) to provide a balanced perspective from all regions.
"There's nothing wrong with the company as it exists right now."
BUUUUUUUT, there will be something wrong with the company when all those delayed write-offs hit the books in 6 months to a year, then you are all fucked. Haha!
http://www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com/images/07-minister.jpg
The last time I saw this much press about a tech company swirling around the drain, it was Apple in the mid-to-late 90s. There's a huge contrast between Jobs' approach in interviews and keynote addresses right after his return to Apple and what we're seeing here (this guy is reminding me of Gil Amelio, the CEO of Apple that preceded Jobs' return). Jobs was up front about the fact that the board of directors was almost entirely abysmal, that their executive team had become a wreck, and that they had too many products. He also made clear that the anti-Microsoft mentality needed to go and that if they were to survive they had to stop thinking of it as an "us vs. them", since that would result in "them" winning. In his first two years, he ousted the board, ousted the execs, and ousted most of the product line. In their places, he brought in great board members, excellent executives, and set them up with a handful of extremely focused products that could generate excitement for the company (e.g. iMac).
RIM can still recover, but it needs to stop flailing and actually start swimming in a direction. It also needs to realize that it isn't going to be beating Android and iOS any time soon, so it needs to think of ways to thrive with them still around, rather than trying to take them head-on. Most importantly, however, they need good leadership, and there's no indication they have it yet. This isn't the first dumb thing their new CEO has said. He's been with them for years and more or less expressed an interest in not changing anything on the same day he was set up as CEO. Rather disappointing.
At least he didn't announce, "Good news! The company is now safe. Microsoft has decided to invest $1bn in RIM"...
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
And there'll be nothing wrong with the company as it won't exist in the near future.
The first sign that something is wrong with the company is when the CEO feels obligated to say, "There's nothing wrong with the company as it exists right now."
It may not be the thing that he's trying to reassure us about (it probably is,) but RIM sure looks and acts like a duck that isn't going to be saved. Now Mr. Heins is just quacking like one.
Those are big promises, I know; and some doubt whether RIM can pull it off. I am the first to admit that RIM has missed on important trends in the smart-phone industry - especially in the consumer domain, focusing on its core value system for successful products and services. We are working diligently on BlackBerry 10 in order to provide a compelling experience for our loyal enterprise customers and consumers. While we are in a very competitive and constantly changing market, customers benefit from this competition and continued innovation.
Which sounds just like a normal PR.
Lord of De Nile.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
I read that to mean pretty much what you think a good CEO should say.
^ this. No where did he say nothing was wrong, everything is fine. He said they are reducing expenses, launching a new platform, and new products, etc, etc, etc.
That's the opposite of saying nothing is wrong.
"The lack of traffic in the forlorn BlackBerry store, which opened in 2007, also reflects how the smartphone brand has lost its allure with consumers and is in huge trouble in the U.S. market."
We aren't making any money, but we don't need no stinkin' money!
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
There's nothing wrong with the company as it exists right now.
Perhaps, but there soon will be a big fucking problem.
When do his options vest? He'll keep applying the duck tape and whitewash until that happens.
Don't worry, he is in the first stage right now.
Maybe it's better to have a credible CEO who says things are going poorly than an untrustworthy CEO?
He is a new CEO as the other 2 CEOs (yes 2 of them) were fired by the shareholders. However, there is not much he can do right now. I doubt he can pull a Steve Jobs moment. That was only one time in business history was a company that far in the red that did such an awesome recovery.
http://saveie6.com/
Sure we hit an iceberg and it is listing and taking on water, but as you see we aren't drowning yet. In fact I'm going to go get myself a gimlet and chill it iceberg shavings and listen to the band.
"We're fully behind yet another software release that nobody will care about, nor will have any impact on the company's future success.
Nobody cares RIM. Unless you're working to get android on your hardware, you might as well pack it up and go home right now.
If it's obvious to everyone that a company has problems, the worst possible thing a CEO can do is say everything is fine, because it makes everyone think he's out of touch or not interested in fixing what's wrong. A good CEO would acknowledge the problems and present a high-level plan for fixing them. Whistling past the graveyard just makes things worse.
At this time there is not much he can do. If I were him I would just sell his assets and give the money to the shareholders and turn off the lights and call it the day. BB has tried everything too late from tablets to putting full screen UIs like the IPhone. It is too late to do anything better or innovate as he is running in the red each day the lights stay on. The revenue is gone, his credit rating is gone, and only an angel investor can save it and why should one?
http://saveie6.com/
The brilliant thing about apps, from a manufacturer's perspective, is they lock the consumer into using a particular platform. Apple users are reluctant to abandon their app libraries, as are Android users. Folks who have already left RIM for the others over the past couple of years won't be be coming back without something really extraordinary coming from RIM. Which does not appear likely. At best they can hope to mitigate the exodus in order to buy enough time to win some market share back. Personally, I think it's hopeless.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
It is only our PHONES that SUCK.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I wonder if this, at some later time if the stock plummets, could be seen as a false material statement, an attempt to defraud the stockholders. The stock seems to be 10% of the value at the beginning of 2011. Another drop like this puts in the dollar stock.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Their CEO isn't very well plugged into reality. Somehow they went from being THE phone for business customers to going out of business in just a few short years. Bravo!
I'll bet he has a college degree.
He's only been CEO for six months. The problems didn't happen on his watch and he has an impossible task to fix them.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
While this is absolutely probable, it is highly unlikely. Blackberry was the business phone that was on top for ages and did a damn good job of it. However, since iPhone and Android have hit the market they have been slowly pulling the rug out from under RIM. RIM either was too confident in their product or simply failed to change and is now a cumbersome device. If they had changed along with the tech and developed new services, a better OS and possibly even upgrading some of the hardware, they may not be in this position. Apple and MS had to change strategy and they did good at it. IMO, I believe RIM is too far gone to recover. I could be wrong and I do hope the best for RIM as they are/were a fantastic company for a very long time.
"That's right...I said it."
He is giving another RIM job
...that the bankruptcy courts can't fix.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I remember I had this discussion with a friend when RIM announced that the Playbook relied heavily on Flash. It was the wrong strategy because the logic of the strategy was "Let's do the exact opposite of Apple. If Apple was not going to support Flash, we will support it everywhere in our OS." They could have moved and maintain old Blackberry OS down the line to feature phones and develop BBOS10 as the "smarter" phone platform with technologies they could control.
And then he leapt onto his mighty unipeg and flew off into the night shouting "second star to the right and straight on till morning!".
...although I doubt they'll ever rise back to pre-iPhone prominence.
Allow me to preface this by noting that I'm not a fan of RIM's current devices or software. I don't own a Blackberry, or any other cell phone for that matter (I truly have no desire to talk to on the phone. I have a 3G iPad and an iPod touch for messaging and Internet access). I find their phones uninspired, and their existing OS lineup and development environment to be highly fragmented, with older OS based devices often available at the same time as newer OS based devices, and little upgradability to newer OS's on older devices -- not exactly the most developer-friendly sort of environment.
I'm also not a fan of how they cow-tow to carriers, particularly here in North America. Specifically here in Canada (RIM's home country), newer phones and devices are often available elsewhere first, and Canadians frequently have to wait months for newer models to be made available, after they've already launched elsewhere.
All that being said, RIM still has over $2 billion sitting in the bank, and they still have a lot of talented people, and own some impressive technologies. I was particularly heartened when I had heard they bought QNX Software Solutions. QNX is quite the powerhouse of an OS that most PC users aren't familiar with, but which has made quite the name for itself in the embedded space as an efficient and extremely stable microkernel based RTOS (Real Time OS) which has powered PC's, vehicles telematics systems, and carrier grade routers, along with a variety of industrial embedded systems. In short, it's an excellent OS for driving smart phones and tablets.
So RIM has the money, they have the technology, and they have the talent -- and now they have an excellent POSIX compliant OS to base their devices off. I think they're in the right space -- assuming they can execute successfully. They really need to get their software game up, make the OS front and centre, provide best-of-breed development tools and systems, and wean themselves off the idea that the carriers are their device customers. Where Apple really succeeded with the iPhones was in their being able to tell carriers how things were going to work, and in many regions selling their devices directly to customers completely unlocked (which was a real breath of fresh air here in Canada), cutting the carriers out of the loop when it came to device features and functionality. RIM needs to play hardball with the carriers, and if the carriers don't want to play by their ground rules, they too needs to sell unlocked devices directly to consumers, so that their biggest fans don't have to wait for nearly a year (or more) to get the latest and greatest devices. And if they're not going to take older devices out of the sales channels as soon as they're replaced, they at least need to ensure those devices can be upgraded to the latest OS (i.e.: they shouldn't be permitting the retail sale of new devices that can't run the latest and greatest OS. A mishmash of BB OS options available simultaneously on new devices isn't good for a software ecosystem).
If they can do those things, they have all the things they need to persevere and even return to some form of prominence. Their devices could be great and even desirable once more, and even the Playbook could find a useful niche. But they have to get their software strategy on track, based on a standard OS core across devices and device families, make it friendly and easy to develop for, and start putting the end-user first, and the carriers second. Then they'll be able to produce devices more people will actually want.
As such, I don't feel the death spiral is inevitable. The pieces are all there for them to get back on track, and as a Canadian I hope they get their development plans in order, get the right people working on the right projects, and execute a smart plan to make devices people want to own.
Yaz
It is possible for a business to come back from the brink, but RIM has shown absolutely no sign that they'll be a business that does so. All they really have coming up is BlackBerryOS 10
You're obviously unaware of what RIM is doing except for what the doomsayers are trumpeting. RIM understands the work/life balance issue and the paradigm shift away from a work provided device to the BYOD model. Despite this companies still have to be able to keep their data secure. RIM has introduced two new technologies recently to address these issues. BlckBerry Mobile Fusion is RIM's replacement for the BES/BIS. Mobile Fusion allows an enterprise to manage thousands of devices running anything from BB OS to Android to iOS all from one web console. In case you were wondering RIM has indeed incorporated ActiveSync connectivity into their repertoire. The second thing RIM has introduced is called BlackBerry Balance which let's you keep your pictures of your family vacation and the slides of your upcoming presentation on the same device while being secured separately. With this technology you can walk into a new job with your own device and get it activated on their BES/BIS/Mobile Fusion server and it will create a secure work related partition on the device separate from your personal data. When you leave the company they simply wipe the work partition remotely leaving your personal data intact.
I'm sure you're probably saying that won't be enough to save them and you are right it won't which is why they are making the switch to BB OS 10. A lot of people are asking...even demanding that RIM just adopt Android and move on but as is evidenced in the market today none of the players in the Android space are making any money except for Samsung and they are making money on the handsets they sell as well as the chips they sell to their competitors.And despite the death knells being sounded by every industry "expert" developers are still lining up every day to develop for the PlayBook/ BB OS 10 because the few people using the PlayBook are actually paying to get the apps they want unlike the majority of Android users who want their apps to be free.Do they have a tough road ahead? Hell yes but considering they still sold more handsets in 1Q 2012 then they did in 1Q 2009 despite the RIM faithful all holding out for a BB 10 device I'd say they are far from toast. Most government agencies can't even consider another device because there aren't any that are FIPS 140-2 validated. There are a few here and there and there are third party solutions to make devices secure but they are far from optimal. We have a program where I work where they bolt on a security layer to iOS to meet the security standards and it is the biggest PITA I have ever experienced. Not to mention cumbersome and intrusive. Even people here who love their Apple device can't stand using it to access the network because of the hoops they have to jump through.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
RIM had it once.
Then Apple opened up truly mobile computing and RIM didn't respond.
End of story.
So a $20 Android app can also restrict the amount of damage a remote wipe causes by containing it to only the relevant data to ActiveSync and associated attachments. This has been around for about two years now - nothing new.
BB phones are actually pretty good for corporate types. They're tough, simple, have great keyboards, battery life, and so on. For corporate tough the basic phones do exactly what they need and do it well. Corporate types have a few critical needs: they need security and they need to respond to long emails with long emails. They don't need GPS, Angry Birds, or much else. I am not saying that BBs are better than the competition overall but they are extremely fit for the purpose they are put to with a single glaring exception. They are often crippled as someone who just stepped on a land mine.
First the Telcos often throw a few little twists of their own limiting things such as browsing over Wi Fi. Then the corporate IT people have and usually abuse the ability to set various permissions such as no installed Apps, no browsing certain web sites, and other anger inducing features. Phones such as the iPhone don't have these anger inducing features and leave lots of room for people to love them.
RIM could pull its ass out of the fire tomorrow morning by releasing an update that eliminated all blocks that have been imposed by telcos and IT departments. These people would scream and moan and make long lists as to how RIM had ruined their lives but seeing that RIM accountants must be looking up Novell as a case study it is time for bold moves that would suddenly turn that resented little brick into something they would fall in love with again.
My only memories of Novell are how much of a drag it was on my system and how the IT people would dominate my laptop until I just bought my own. Oh wait isn't that just like all the people given free BBs who go out and buy their own iPhones.
There are BB people and there are iPhone like people. BB can keep those people if they could give them a reason; QNX is not a reason. Freedom is a reason.
There is something wrong with the company. They produce phones with minimal storage, especially for applications, and outdated interfaces. The browser is especially terrible.
In Soviet Russia meme tires of you!
> RIM can still recover, but it needs to stop flailing and actually
> start swimming in a direction.
I'd recommend they swim away from the burning oil platform. There's nothing but "fail" back that way.
Log in or piss off.
Unless you're working to get android on your hardware, you might as well pack it up and go home right now.
Yeah, being a "me too" player in a crowded market with a second-rate OS is a great plan. A shame that they're sticking with the most advanced mobile OS in the industry. That'll kill 'em to be sure...
Honestly, what on earth could possibly make you think moving to Android would be a good move for RIM?
Required reading for internet skeptics
Have you used one? There is no comparison.
After using a PB for any length of time, trying to use any Android or iOS device is like stepping back in time.
Apple uses know that "it's all about the experience". Well, RIM has that nailed as far as tablets are concerned, and all signs point to a revolutionary UI on the new BB10 handsets.
Required reading for internet skeptics
Did you read what he said?
As we prepare to launch our new mobile platform, BlackBerry 10, in the first quarter of next year, we expect to empower people as never before...am the first to admit that RIM has missed on important trends in the smart-phone industry...RIM is undertaking a corporate overhaul that we expect will reduce annual operating expenses by more than $1-billion by the end of our fiscal year...
I read that to mean pretty much what you think a good CEO should say.
Almost. Making the point about reducing operating expenses was a bad move. Its a red flag, as most of the easy cuts to operating expenses come in the form of killing off R+D. There just isn't that much low hanging fruit in manufacturing that they are going to save that kind of money any other way. Any analyst with even a modicum of common sense read that statement for exactly what it is. The cuts may or may not be the right thing for RIM to do, but they are the absolute worst thing to *say* that they're doing, as it will reinforce the perception that RIM is in a death spiral, which will hurt their ability to sell infrastructure grade product. Business' get jumpy buying from a vendor that might not be around in short order, and without business customers, RIM's death spiral will play out in a show worthy of Kodak. Making an admission like that will also help to convince RIMs remaining engineering staff that they need to get their CVs ready ahead of the end of the line.
-=Geoskd
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
So you're quoting a few trivial features, which marginalize their hardware, and make the claim that RIM is going to make their money in enterprise level software from here on out? The fact is that the entire line of BB hardware is on the way out, and without it, the rest of the company has no real market. As a software only provider, it is merely a matter of time before MS mops the floors with them, and as a hardware provider, they are barely an also-ran. Any way you slice it, they have no new product line, and their existing lines are demonstrably inferior in all but a few ways, with their competition passing them even in these few remaining ways soon. They are a niche player in a market that is destroying their niche. They would be better served making a speedy and reckless transition to manufacturing cooking utensils. Their impending doom is paralleled only by the spectacularly epic fail of Kodak (Whose executives to this day insist that digital photography is just a fad). Any company that uses the term "customer loyalty" in this day in age is out of touch. There simply is no such thing as brand loyalty anymore, and RIM keeps trying to trade on it. Worse still, they keep trying to make products that will appeal to corporate IT. This is a miserable bucket of fail because corporate IT doesn't get to make purchasing decisions, the end users get to make those decisions, and no IT exec is going to try to tell the VP of finance that he has to carry a BB instead of his favorite iPhone or Android. Any dumb ass in IT who tries to tell me I have to have a BB (whether the company pays for it or not), is going to find him/herself at the back of the unemployment line. I get to pick the hardware, they just have to support it.
Corporate needs are simple for phones. Just needs to get a decent cell signal on company property, needs to support my corporate e-mail. That's it. It does not need any other fancy software. It doesn't need any kind of access control. The idea that someone is going to glean valuable corporate secrets from our e-mail correspondence is bizarre at best, and patently absurd at worst. We don't email R+D materials. We don't use the devices to transmit anything of any espionage value, and as far as data retention requirements, the Fed can subpoena anything they want directly from our email archives anyway. Long story short, being paranoid about smartphones on the corporate network doesn't require anything as fancy as RIM makes it sound, and more and more executives realize that and tell their IT folks to deal with it. IT just needs to keep the smartphone data network and the corporate data network isolated from one another. Its not exactly hard to do, as any competent IT department will long ago have realized that having WiFi on your corporate intranet without isolation is just begging for trouble anyway. At the end of the day, RIM is innovating in a saturated and shrinking market space while their core business is being stripped out from under them by competitors with actual foresight. They are dying, and their new CEO is just more of the same.
-=Geoskd
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
A CEO is a salesman, not an auditor or an engineer. Sure they will not deny the obvious (or what they are legally bound to disclose), but they will hide non-obvious right until they file for chapter 11 : first, that would be idiotic to expose your weaknesses to your competitor and secondly the CEO, as a leader, need to keep its troupe focused and motivated.
Seriously, what good would that do if he said: we are aware of the problem and made lot of changes, however, there is little chance it will work out at the end because our competitors are just so much better ?
Posting as AC due to being associated to RIM.
R&D will be the very last place RIM would cut money. There's TONS of middle management clout in the company which is more likely to get the ax, as well, a large portion the Java Devs which worked on the old OSes, that haven't updated their skill set to work with QNX/BB10 will also likely get the ax. Manufacturing is also likely to be outsourced, so most of the directly employed MFG employees will likely get cut as well. There's a lot of fat in the company, and tons of people not pulling their weight. They will be the ones who get cut.
Now, as much as I love the company, I'm really starting to loose faith, however, I'm trying to stay positive, along with a lot of other people I know. BB10 is delayed, however, it does still have a little potential to make a splash, but, its going to need to be marketed like hell, and hyped even more than ever. We'll see how everything plays out in the new year.
I basically see a lot of this happening right now.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Met him once while I accidentally walked into a gay-rights-conference. he gave me a card with 'RIM CEO'... I told him, man, you can't do that... You just can't do that... Brrrr.
RIM has yet to present any vision where it has a plausible future as anything but, at best, a marginal maker of nice "feature phones", and even that's unlikely, given their cost structure. Yes, they have cash on hand now, but what good is it doing them? What can they invest it in, beyond the new software, to rescue the company from the death spiral? RIM is in the same boat as Nokia right now, only without the MS-funded lifeline; they are a company with an expensive cost structure selling a shitload of phones into very cost-sensitive markets. One that the Koreans are becoming better and better at, for a lot less money.
They are stupendously late to the smartphone party, and they just announced it'll be another six months. It doesn't matter if the new software is so great, it ushers in the second coming of Steve Jobs; it's horribly late, and cannot possibly bring anything compelling enough to the party that they'll attract the developers needed to make it a viable platform.
Apple rose from certain doom because it outright created, from whole cloth, the MP3 player market. Existing MP3 players at that point were clunky and awkward geek toys that rightfully sold poorly; the iPod brought something truly different to the party, with a nice computer-based back end for an elegant front-end. Nothing we have seen about the new BB software has shown it to be paradigm-changing in any way. It's just another mobile operating system, in a market that already has three perfectly usable players. They simply haven't announced a single compelling feature that cannot be quickly duplicated on another platform. Their traditional strength, the enterprise market, has already shifted to the other players, which have more than caught up in that space.
Right! Where would any of these devices be without the carriers? And just because it worked for Apple, because there was pent up demand for something new, doesn't mean RIM can be successful with a similar attempt, after Apple and Android have sucked up so many customers.
I think that RIM has to do it precisely because Apple did it. Apple changed the game by putting end-user interests first. The failings of RIM and others were in putting the carriers first, and high-end customers who go after smart phones now expect to be able to buy unlocked, new models on the day they are released, with little or no carrier-specific restrictions.
You have to go with end-user expectations. Go against those expectations, and people are going to go with the device that meets them. It is simply yet to be seen if RIM has sufficiently read the writing on the wall to see that they need to meet end-user needs first, and not carrier needs first. I posit simply that if they do see this, then they have a chance for redemption. If they stick with the "please-the-carrier-first" idea they've followed thus far, they're going to have a much harder go of it -- the time is passing where customers are willing to wait an extra year for the latest and greatest device because carrier XYZ hasn't certified it yet, and when they do you get it it's with the carrier logo silkscreened on the front, carrier locks applied, and their useless apps pre-installed.
Yaz
Unless you're working to get android on your hardware, you might as well pack it up and go home right now.
Yeah, being a "me too" player in a crowded market with a second-rate OS is a great plan. A shame that they're sticking with the most advanced mobile OS in the industry. That'll kill 'em to be sure...
Honestly, what on earth could possibly make you think moving to Android would be a good move for RIM?
You're right. I don't think anything can be a good move at that point. It's just over.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
corporate IT doesn't get to make purchasing decisions, the end users get to make those decisions,
Actually corporate IT makes the purchasing decisions BASED on the criteria set forth by the business. In most mid to large size business that criteria is vetted through some type of security/legal department to mitigate problems before they can happen. If the business says we want iPhones then by the time IT gets involved the request is more like We must identify any and all possible attack vectors that might be exploited on the iOS platform and shore them up either through third party software or hardware. IT will consult vendors to identify the cheapest path since the business isn't willing to pay for the optimum solution to meet the requirements and then will bitch and moan about how cumbersome and glitchy it is. They will then spend an order of magnitude more money trying to fix the problem then they would have had they just purchased the right solution in the first place but it's OK because that money came out of the IT budget and not the capital budget.
Any dumb ass in IT who tries to tell me I have to have a BB (whether the company pays for it or not), is going to find him/herself at the back of the unemployment line.
If I am telling the VP of anything he has to have a BlackBerry (and I have) it is because the SVP/EVP told me that is what the VP had to have. You got a problem with that take it up with your boss. I simply deliver the solution I am told to.
Corporate needs are simple for phones. Just needs to get a decent cell signal on company property, needs to support my corporate e-mail. That's it. It does not need any other fancy software. It doesn't need any kind of access control.
I'm confused. Your saying you don't own a smart phone since all you need is to make/receive calls and get email but yet are lambasting RIM for not having a state of the art smart phone available for you who does not need one? RIM makes phones especially for you. Cheap, reliable, and sturdy. You don't have to have a BES for your email to work. For companies a little more paranoid than you though the BES is a nice option.
The idea that someone is going to glean valuable corporate secrets from our e-mail correspondence is bizarre at best, and patently absurd at worst. We don't email R+D materials. We don't use the devices to transmit anything of any espionage value,
It's clear from this statement you do not, in fact, know anything about what is valuable to businesses. That's not surprising as most employees, even executives, don't either. contacts list, potential deals, embarrassing ANYTHING can be used by your rivals and I've seen it happen on more than one occasion.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Denial comes before anger and acceptance, right?
Or, in this case perhaps, denial comes before the golden parachute.
Unlocked, carrier independent smartphones were common in many places around the world before Apple, pioneered by companies like Nokia. Given how long Apple's phones were carrier locked, all Apple really did was to replace one evil overpriced corporate master (AT&T) with another one (Apple). For the US, that may seem like an advantage, in the rest of the world it was a step back.
where Leslie Nielsen's nose starts growing after he says there's nothing to worry about :)
The middle managers are the ones that decide the cuts. "What does IT do for us anyway?!" (Never mind the fact that IT is also their research.) I think your guess about what is going to happen relies too much on cold introspection of a nerd, and not enough on "what's good for MY job".
And anyway, what the R&D has managed to produce, sucks anyway. They SHOULD be cut. The phones, OS, Apps, and batteries all suck.
You're obviously unaware of what RIM is doing except for what the doomsayers are trumpeting. RIM understands the work/life balance issue and the paradigm shift away from a work provided device to the BYOD [wikipedia.org] model.
Honest question here... do you work for them? I ask because honestly, that's not what I was shooting for when I wrote what I did. When I'm saying is that RIM has nothing coming that will make the world at large sit up and take notice. Nothing. A BES bolt-on and a pseudo-VM/app thingy isn't going to make the public cream their pants and line up for hours to buy it, like they would a new iPhone. It isn't going to make gadget-heads stumble over each other trying to get their hands on one, like a high-end Android phone. It won't appeal to the budget crowd, because Android took that crowd too. BB is scrapping with Microsoft for the ass-end of the market right now, and if RIM intends to survive, that needs to change... drastically.
The only reason RIM is accommodating the BYOD model at all is because their competition pioneered the BYOD model! Seriously - RIM is not even aiming for where the puck is now... it's following the damned thing. The Mobile Fusion "innovation" is just BB's way of accommodating existing demands - the tech is pretty and all, but it's not pushing any boundaries, and it's damned sure not taking the market at large into any sort of new direction. If anything, it's a desperate attempt to remain relevant.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
On what world does anybody believe that whatever Blackberry's doing is "the most advanced mobile OS in the industry" or that it matters at all even if it was?
The Android phone market is crowded all right, but I don't think anybody's really went in on a blackberry-style phone with a slate keyboard (I think Moto had one a while back and there was a kinda half-assed Facebook phone like that by HTC I think, but neither company seemed to really take them seriously). Since Blackberry OS and Symbian OS seem to be basically dead in the smartphone OS wars, it'd be kind of interesting to see what happened with Blackberry going Android and Nokia going WP7.
I don't reply to ACs
Unlocked, carrier independent smartphones were common in many places around the world before Apple, pioneered by companies like Nokia. Given how long Apple's phones were carrier locked, all Apple really did was to replace one evil overpriced corporate master (AT&T) with another one (Apple). For the US, that may seem like an advantage, in the rest of the world it was a step back.
I never made any claim that Apple was the first to do this -- but they certainly popularized the concept in the minds of consumers, at least here in North America. And if you read back in the thread, you'll note I mentioned which country I live in (hint -- it's not the US).
Having spent quite a good bit of time in Europe and Asia these last few years, I'm well aware that in many countries, SIM unlocked phones are common. However, in regions where they aren't (like pretty much all of North America, no thanks in part to the history of parallel, incompatible CDMA and GSM networks) most hardware manufacturers were more than happy to go with "business as usual" and simply sell to the carriers, and not directly to consumers. They were all more than happy to allow the carriers to lock the phones however they wanted, limiting (and in some cases even removing) features available in the rest of the world. Apple refused to play this way, and changed the game. Here in Canada (I've saved you from having to go back and look it up), Apple released the iPhone 3G without an exclusive carrier like in the US, and by the time the 3GS rolled around, Apple was selling them directly to customers completely SIM unlocked, so you could use them on any carrier (this was at a time when AT&T still had an exclusive contract for the iPhones in the US, resulting in many Americans buying their iPhones in Canada so they could get unlocked versions).
In context of this discussion this is important, because North America (and Canada in particular) is RIM's own backyard. RIM needs to be able to "win" (for some definition of "win") in their home territory if they want to be taken seriously. Which means they're going to have to appeal to the needs of its end-users, and not the needs and whims of the carriers if they want to succeed. The model in their backyard has changed thanks to Apple -- the genie is out of the bottle, and they won't be able to stuff it back in and succeed simultaneously.
Yaz
Why do Americans like to step on companies that have great technology, that have secure communication, and were leaders. True their handheld device is older and the new one is slow to reach production market stage, but RIM has never cheated anyone, never patent trolled, has not gone to court to bar competitors, or done all the tricks to prevent competitors from coming to the marketplace.
Their service is reliable, if not more than most.
You have a valid complaint if the handheld device is not of recent design. Other than that, what have you to say?
One analogy I have is that your father should be shot because he does not know how to use an Iphone or a tablet. Your father does not have the right to hold a job because of the mentioned deficiencies.
Keep away from negative people, they are not your friends. The USA was not built by negative thinking people.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
Yes, you did. You said "Apple changed the game by putting end-user interests first". Apple did neither. The only thing Apple put first is their bottom line, by selling phones that weren't just carrier locked but also much more expensive than other vendors and locked into Apple's app store. Palm and Nokia sold plenty of smart phones that were unlocked and unrestricted in the US, long before Apple, and Apple's policies were a step backwards.
As for RIM, they are toast. Anybody who wants control over their smart phone can get an unlocked multiband Android phone. Or they can just buy a cheap prepaid Android phone and not worry about carrier lock-in. For the price of a single iPhone 4S, you can get four Android phones, one on each major US phone network, if you like, making the issue of lock-in moot.
One thought is that RIM could have a custom Android firmware that is more business oriented - like taking Android and creating an internal messaging system, email, calendaring, groupware, office functionality, intergrate everything together flawlessly and putting it in to the phones.
Any business person that used their phones to do quick work on the go would surely love this type of integration of multiple apps, and they could continue targeting their business users. Hell, they could even do a suite for the Android market for phones that aren't branded as their own.
Now could they actually do this? I don't believe they could in their current state, but this could seriously start to turn things around for them.
Well, because everyone irrationally wants an iphone if they can afford it, while those that cant buy android.
Where would you possibly think the market would be for a high end piece of hardware with an iphone price that isnt an iphone, at a time when many corporations are having their employees buy their own phones. Without corporate IT pressing a RIM solution and with android and ios growing enough enterprise capabilities to get by as a business phone, there is no market for RIM.
Not really my opinion...just look at the numbers...customers already voted with their wallets.
Seriously, take 5 minutes to think about all of the technologically superior products that didn't make it, right next to the betamax, os/2, and the delorean.
On what world does anybody believe that whatever Blackberry's doing is "the most advanced mobile OS in the industry"
On Earth. Sol-3, if you prefer. Check it out, it puts Android and iOS to shame from a technical perspective. Go. Read, and be enlightened.
Required reading for internet skeptics
And give up their objectively superior new OS, years of effort, and awesome suite of development tools (including their NDK)? Let's not forget the massive advantages on the UI front!
Android just can't do what BB10 does. It's a ridiculously bad idea. They'd be taking a massive step backward.
Required reading for internet skeptics
They've already taken a major step backwards with no BB10 until after the holiday season, what's a few more?
So ... you think they should lock themselves in to an inferior technology because their new, objectively superior, tech is going to be delayed a bit?
Yeah, that makes perfect sense...
Required reading for internet skeptics
Yes, you did. You said "Apple changed the game by putting end-user interests first".
Reading comprehension 101: Apple may have changed the game, but that doesn't imply that they were the first to do so. Simply that they were big and important enough in the industry to be able to force a useful concept where others had either a) not tried, or b) failed to gain sufficient traction or mindshare. Again, I didn't claim they were first -- you incorrectly inferred that. I suggest you look up the concept of "First Follower".
Yaz
Then why is PB such an epic fail as far as sales go?
Honest answer...no I don't now nor have I ever worked for RIM. I do like their phones and truly hope they can survive and thrive but I am not naive enough to dismiss the problems they are facing. What I find frustrating is the media acting like they have been on this downward spiral for the last couple of years when in fact this is the first quarter in years their sales are down. If you take a look at their 5 year financials you would assume they are very healthy and they actually are but investors are nervous. The sound bite I hear over and over is BlackBerry is losing market share. The truth is the market has grown almost exponentially and RIM's portion of the market hasn't grown in proportion. They have been selling as many handsets as they ever have until this past quarter. The reason sales are down this quarter has less to do with the iPhone or Samsung Galaxy III or the HTC One X and everything to do with BB OS 10. BlackBerry had fanboys long before there was an iPhone and they are a loyal bunch. They are also saving their upgrade subsidy for the next great BlackBerry. I should know I have been holding off upgrading my BB Torch 9800 for six months and I was crushed to hear the release date slip again. For the record I have a 4S and several Android devices but keep going back to my BB for everyday work. Unfortunately for them and RIM the launch of BB OS 10 has slid several times. RIM very much wants to avoid the criticism they received at the launch of the PlayBook but despite the great foundation of QNX creating the next great thing is hard. Their R&D budget has gone through the roof to get this done and done right. Unlike hp they don't have a printer or PC or server or services business to fall back on so they are not going to fold like hp did with WebOS. RIM is all in.
I took issue with your assessment of RIM's offerings and hoped to change your mind. If I haven't so be it.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
First rule of politics: never believe anything until it is officially denied.
No, that's from RIM's ridiculously poor marketing and training efforts.
The tech-press panned the device for lack of a native email client, which over-shadowed the otherwise glowing reviews of the UI, leaving sales personal with the impression that it was a worthless pile of garbage.
So, bad marketing coupled with gross incompetence on the part of sales personnel is why it didn't sell well. The product itself is still, more than a year after it's release, one of the best tablet products you can buy.
Go ahead and try one out. You'll wish you'd never seen it. It's just impossible to go back to the second-rate UI on Android or iOS and feel even a little bit satisfied after an experience so vastly superior.
Required reading for internet skeptics
I tried one out when it was originally released (it was in the store when I was trying to find some place to buy TF101). I did not see anything to be particularly impressed about relative to Android, much less "vastly superior". Your posts would be more helpful if they actually outlined what, exactly, is so awesome about PlayBook UI relative to competitors. You actually did a decent write-up on BES before, but your posts about BB10 and PB do read like mindless fanboi drivel, unfortunately.
. You actually did a decent write-up on BES before, but your posts about BB10 and PB do read like mindless fanboi drivel, unfortunately.
Yeah, I quit caring. Facts don't mean shit to anyone here. I'd rather not get in to a flame war over tedious, unimportant, issues with irrational idiots on slashdot.
I could compare their suite of gestures, for example, to iOS and Android but I'd just be wasting my time.
Now, with you specifically, I don't think I'll get anywhere. I don''t believe there is anything that I can write that could possibly sway you from your current position. I encourage you to take a second look at the PlayBook's UI and compare it to iOS and Android, though I'm sure that your only goal then would be to find something that the platform doesn't do as well as one of the others (though you'll have a hard time finding such a thing) and ignore things that it does so much better than the others. (This is, oddly enough, why I'd be wasting my time here. It doesn't matter if everything was better except feature X -- feature X is all the hater would care about. Stupid waste of my time.)
I figure fan-boy ranting is just as effective as a well-thought-out response here. Heh, and just as reasonable as the irrational, thoughtless, repeated memes RIM-is-dead / everything-they-make-sucks.
Required reading for internet skeptics
Yeah, "Reading Comprehension 101", take it to heart. You say that Apple caused a change from a customer-hostile to a customer-friendly market. I'm saying that no such change took place at all. Before Apple, some phones were unlocked and unbranded, while others were locked and tied into some company's expensive "ecosystem", and after iPhone... it's the same. And if you really want a cost-effective, unlocked, unrestricted smartphone, a $800 iPhone 4S is the wrong phone to get.
I encourage you to take a second look at the PlayBook's UI and compare it to iOS and Android, though I'm sure that your only goal then would be to find something that the platform doesn't do as well as one of the others (though you'll have a hard time finding such a thing) and ignore things that it does so much better than the others.
Well, at the moment I can't seriously consider PlayBook for the simple reason that it's the only tablet for which there's no Skype app. Since I use Skype (both as IM and as audio/video call) daily, and since there's no chance of two dozen people on my contact list switching to something else (and why should they? it works for them), it's effectively a no go regardless of anything else. I don't know, perhaps there may be some feature that'd entice me to switch, but I can't really think of any even theoretically.
Also, after a quick google search, I'm even more doubtful about your claims of developer popularity. So far as I can see, it still has no official Kindle app (even Windows Phone, another zombie platform, has that!), so you have to hack the Android version to run. Also, apparently, it doesn't have a stock Google Maps app nor does Google provide its own, which really sucks - it's one of the most used tablet apps for me; and on Android, by the way, Google Maps especially shines with vector maps and 3D buildings (though Apple is catching up in iOS 6.0). And, no, Bing Maps is not as good.
"Gestures" sounds like a fairly trivial thing. There's plenty of them in Android (4.0+ esp. stole a lot from webOS now that its UX designer works for Google), and I'm sure that some things could be done better, but ultimately I care about what the device can do, not - beyond a certain point - how convenient it is to control. Android really is "good enough" as far as I'm concerned.
I figure fan-boy ranting is just as effective as a well-thought-out response here.
No, not really. The difference is that, if you actually have facts and numbers to back your position, a well-composed post with references for every statement has a good chance of being modded up (and hence read by more people) even if it goes contrary to the groupthink. That's one thing that sets this community apart from many others - while it does have a lot biases, if you can present your thoughts in a coherent and convincing manner, people are willing to listen. Yes, the burden is higher on you than on people who post in agreement with the groupthink - they can get +5, Insightful for "BB sucks lol". Consider it a challenge. And lest you accuse me of preaching and not practicing, here is an old post of mine that I consider a solid proof of how you can argue against groupthink and win.
So if your goal is to educate, then fanboi ranting is not the way to go - all you'll get is a bunch of downmodded posts, and few people read at -1, so other than venting your frustration, it doesn't help any.
The difference is that, if you actually have facts and numbers to back your position, a well-composed post with references for every statement has a good chance of being modded up (and hence read by more people) even if it goes contrary to the groupthink
Don't be silly. I've had well-considered posted modded down for going against the group think, and I've had nonsense rants modded +5 insightful. I usually end up with a mix of positive and negative mods in either case. Excepting threads more than 2 deep, which generally get ignored no matter how much effort goes in to them.
Well, at the moment I can't seriously consider PlayBook for the simple reason that it's the only tablet for which there's no Skype app.
Considering that we were talking about the UI, I don't see how that's in any way relevant. Interesting. It fits the spirit, if not the letter, of my prediction.
but ultimately I care about what the device can do, not - beyond a certain point - how convenient it is to control
So, the UI isn't important. Okay. Well, the only two points I offered was that the year-old hardware is still competitive (it is) and that the UI was superior.
As for "what it can do" if you mean "run a few specific apps" that's clearly not a limitation of the platform! it's up to MS and Amazon to provide Skype and Kindle apps. Though a recent interview with RIMs Adam Stanley shows us that they're not just sitting around waiting for them to bring apps to the platform, RIM is actively working with 100 or so "big name" groups to bring popular apps to the BB10 platform. Do you need me to look up the interview for you?
The platform itself, again, is no limitation! Technically speaking, it's the most capable mobile platform out there. There's plenty of technical stuff to dig through if you're actually interested. (Why do I have no interest in giving specifics? Because anything I offer will be dismissed as being "no big deal" or "irrelevant to consumers" or any number of pointless wastes of time. Like above, "the UI is great" / "the UI doesn't matter" or more specific like "the gesture suite on the PB is superior to the gestures used on iOS and Android" / "Android has a bunch of gestures too!" WTF? It's ridiculous waste of bits that accomplishes nothing. We could go all the way down to something like task-switching and I'll bet the results would be the same. "Task switching is superior because of x,y,z" / "You can switch tasks in [other platform] too!" or [ignoring reasons x and z] "y doesn't matter!" You've seen it. It's a stupid waste of time.)
And lest you accuse me of preaching and not practicing, here [slashdot.org] is an old post of mine that I consider a solid proof of how you can argue against groupthink and win.
Nobody wins when you argue on the internet. Even in your link you don't get a concession, just more descent. The closest I've ever seen to productive argument is on c2, and that's a stretch most of the time.
The best you can do is offer an alternative opinion. On the viability of RIM, no on gives a shit about facts, so what's the point? You'll find lot's of posts from back in 2010 declaring RIM is dead / will be dead in under a year even though they were still the #1 selling brand at the time. Pointing out that fact then was a waste then. Pointing out how well the company is actually doing today is also a waste of time (they're in absolutely no danger of becoming insolvent any time soon.) and you're officially "delusional", no matter how many numbers you offer up.
Well reasoned post with facts and data or frustrated rant? There doesn't seem to be any difference. One is easier to write, however. Today i don't care enough to bother.
Required reading for internet skeptics