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.'"

Sensationalist Headline

[kae77]

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.

Re:CEO's job is to sell...

[tomhath]

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.

Re:Denial

[saikou]

Let's see...

- Smartphone market share that's been dropping like a stone? Check
- Quarterly losses reported? Check
- Large layoffs? Check
- Other providers offering remote wipe, encryption of the devices that users love? Check
- IT departments begrudgingly allowing users to bring their own phones instead of buying a BB for each and every user? Check
- Messaging service, that was supposed to take like a wildfire on other devices "because everyone wants BB Messaging" failing to catch on? Check
- PlayBook, that was supposed to be mega-popular with everyone who had BB device failing to sell, costing company shitload of money? Check
- New Holy Grail Operating System Demo having just one "major sexy feature" which is a camera feature? Check (bonus - made by company that ended up being bought by Nokia)
- That very same Holy Grail Operating System being delayed, thus no phones in the biggest holiday shopping season? Check
- New release timeframe being after new iPhone 5 and way after Android Jelly Bean and thus playing catch-up? Check

Am I missing something? RIM seems to be super-widely off-mark, been off-mark ever since the situation in consumer smart-phones changed enough to require some sort of a response, and so far everything that they can say is "our next product is surely to be a hit" and coast on the current one. Um... oookay....

Bonus: remember what RIM said about switching platforms? "No other technology company other than Apple has successfully transitioned their platform. It's almost never done, and it's way harder than you realise. This transition is where tech companies go to die." Balsillie, April 2011. (see here [guardian.co.uk]). And now they're switching platforms. Do I believe RIM 2011 or RIM 2012?

Sure, it's not dead just yet. But they're not in a "death spiral", they are in a "death nosedive" and keep on firing thrusters to the max. Unless they provide a new super-phone now (and not in half a year with, I bet, yet another "but we really-really need to make sure everything is polished so we delay until Q2 2013" announcement coming in January) the only way is down. Less market share, less interesting products. They could probably survive by cutting staff as much as possible, dropping to 1% of market share and not even try to make phones for non-military use. But that would be a different company.