RIM CEO terminates BBC Click interview
news.bbc.co.uk
news.bbc.co.uk
Lazaridis kept using the words "singled out" - his reasoning behind it was because they were so successful. He was trying to convince that the carpet has not been pulled from below RIM's feet.
It showed that RIM doesn't really "get" it. They think the world is being unfair to them - they think that as a problem - not the facts that they couldn't get decent, modern smartphone hardware with a competent OS (for the market) out in years. They are just like Nokia - except they believe they have no problems.
Sure Blackberry has the best security architecture, it has never had security issues until they started using WebKit, lots of people still use it. There is no denying that. What is problematic is that those things do not matter in the battle that RIM is fighting against Android and iOS. No sane Joe with a dumb phone is going to find BB compelling for his smart phone upgrade. It's just not cool.
What RIM needs is a dual OS/dual hardware strategy - let the BB folks keep doing "Pro" phones like they do today with BB OS. Let a fresh hardware and software team look at producing great consumer phones with a consumer OS. The OS part of it is a big problem - I am sure RIM could put together a great phone after trying - not so sure about the OS part. They could be better off taking Android and making it better and distinct.
Yes, they haven't had a good response to iOS or Android but that's completely irrelevant to the article at hand.
He can't be critical of the governments demands because they are in negotiations with them. He can't say they will weaken security, because that's not what enterprises want.
Either way, you have to be proud of a company for taking a stand and developing secure products that could help protect civilians from terrible governments.
What you are missing is the rumored ability of QNX to be able to run Android apps. RIM may already have the dual strategy in place - they might run BB on Pro phones which can run Android apps and they can run QNX on Consumer phones which can also run Android apps. For the user - it's Android, not QNX or BB.
Not sure why, since they have no need for business class email. BBM seems to be the main driver, even though there are plenty of altenatives on other platforms.
It's definitely a London thing. They became hugely popular in the summer of 2009, rapidly making their way into the constantly shifting memepool that is the grime scene.
Witness "Maxwell D - Blackberry Hype": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qtShEs5LQs
Believe it or not this isn't paid product placement. Hence he lists RIM's competitors in the intro. They probably still sent maxwell some units though.
EDIT: BBM was also heavily used as a way of sending shouts to pirate radio stations. You couldn't really ask for better marketing. It's very much waned now though.
Other stations I've heard, outside London, also give out BBM PINs - Radio City 96.7's dance music programming in Liverpool is one I've noticed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8OhnyziTPE
If you've not seen it, it really is an example of how deep the Blackberry runs in street culture - both back home in the UK and even here in the US (take a trip through Daly City or East Bay and check out the BB's).
There was another tune called "Blackberry Swipe" about mugging people for their mobile phones. Can't remember who did it though. The grime scene really is like a musical version of 4chan when it comes to memetics.
They take it seriously too, people have been hospitalised over meme ownership: http://njaithewriter.wordpress.com/2009/04/15/itsalot-gate-g...
In Canada the Blackberry outsells Android in the teen crowd according to a report in the Globe and Mail a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, I can't find the article now.
I would argue that this is a problem, not a solution. Plenty of alternatives, all incompatible, none of which are bundled with any phone, and none of which work (or work well) on Blackberry.
On my trip before, there was no Blackberry in the market. Zero.
And they did have problems in India and Middle East, where governments wanted access to emails. Rather than bailing out like this, RIM can turn it into a PR victory, like Google did with China, saying (i) "see how secure our systems are, governments can't break in" and (ii) "we are standing up for freedom, democracy, etc."
I probably wouldn't try to tout this. I'm sure it was sensitive matter maneuvering the matter when dealing with the governments and they don't want to bang on the hornet's nest. The governments could and probably would make doing business in those countries much more difficult than it has to be. You have everything to lose and very little to gain. It's like a black hat SEO gaining success in Google rankings and making Google's engineers look stupid to the world. Making Google look bad will only hurt you. Google makes the rules for their engines. The governments make the rules for their countries.
I think that this may be why he doesn't want to talk about the issue. Because as far as I understand it, the solution reached (at least with India) was to agree to co-locate the encryption servers in country and give the governments "live access" to them. So they didn't agree to hand over the keys but basically gave unfettered access all the same.
Not in this day and age. IMO candor and honesty is much better nowadays.
A reasonable response: "I want to assure our customers that the BlackBerry platform is, and will remain, secure, but it is necessary for RIM to follow the laws of the jurisdictions we operate in".
But in a word of sound-bites and short-quotes, I'm surprised Rory didn't consider - or at least pick up after the initial rebuttal - that if Lazaridis in any way answered the question pivoted around security that it could cause a significant PR issue and even effect the share price of RIM (given it's a core value of RIM).
I'm totally across the issue being refereed to and to be fair, it isn't a security issue to RIM. Sure, it is a security issue to its users, potentially. But it's not that RIM has a security issue with its technology, it has a privacy issue from draconian laws while operating under certain government conditions.
But my reason for mentioning Rory is an experience business journalist is that this is not a technology matter, it's a subtle business-related matter, which I'd have thought Rory of all people would be cognizant of.
Am I misreading you?
Thus assuming the objective isn't to "trip the CEO up" (which I don't think it was, it isn't a BBC style) then asking/rephrasing the question differently might have helped achieve the interview Rory was looking for.
In other words, Adolph's remark is spot on.
On the other side, cool that the BBC posts this for all to see, rather than just hiding it away somewhere.
Though for the general public who don't know if RIM has a security flaw or not, what effect does something like this have??
"The [Ministry of Home Affairs] has asked the [Department of Telecommunication] to tell [RIM] in no uncertain terms that its emails and other data services must comply with formats that can be monitored by security and intelligence agencies."
The Indian government has threatened to cut off Blackberry services if RIM doesn't comply. I don't think calling that a security issue is off the mark.
The Indian government was asking for a backdoor into the system. That's more of a security issue than privacy.
As that isn't the case, then it's a privacy issue because the Indian government demanded RIM put in a backdoor for reasons or surveillance of its population.
Does this privacy issue potentially lead to a security issue? Yes, but not for RIM, but rather for it's users that depend on the privacy of RIM's service over which they may transmit sensitive information.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/igeneration/nokia-complies-in-indi...
"A deadline of March 31st has been given to the BlackBerry manufacturer, Research in Motion, to hand over encryption keys which would allow the Indian government to intercept corporate emails and other data used on the secure handsets."
"The corporate BlackBerry system works in such a secure manner, that even the BlackBerry manufacturer cannot intercept messages on its systems, leading to Research in Motion being unable to offer what the Indian government wants."
Was this resolved? I can't find anything newer than the above. Maybe the BBC-interviewer couldn't either and wanted to know what's happening.
"Can I move on to the problems you've had in terms of security...and your various arguments you've had with the Indian government and a number of governments in the Middle East"
This is like asking Craigslist about their "issues with revenue" since it's free to post anything outside of jobs, and being free is one of the key features that defines Craigslist. Craigslist doesn't have issues with being free, OTHER PEOPLE (like newspapers) have issues with the fact that Craigslist is free. Same with RIM, OTHER PEOPLE have issues with the fact that RIM is very secure. The question implied that RIM has issues with their security.
Worst is BBC then tried to act like he wasn't sensationalizing with their take on the question Rory asked...
"...he asked a question for BBC Click about RIM's problems in India and the Middle East, where governments want to gain greater access to the tight security system used for Blackberry's business users."
No he did not. The above question is framed correctly, and I'm sure would have gotten a response.
In the RIM case the system is secure except when they are giving access to the system to governments - making it not secure (at least in many people's eyes).
How are these similar?
My point was that the BBC reporter was trying to create an issue out of something that is a core principle of the company (and something they do well in fact) and is intentionally misleading. I was trying to show the ridiculousness of it and help justify why the CEO got flustered and ended the interview.
So RIM is secure, the CEO is proud of it, and the question inferred that they're not secure.
Craigslist is free, the CEO is (probably) proud of it, and a question that infers that they have a problem because they don't charge for listings would be similar.
Sure, the initial question was poorly worded, but he's not a stupid man.
I also think that the issue was dealt with, and the countries who had threatened to shutdown RIM, are no longer posturing, so it is kind of like bringing up old bad news for no reason, when the company is really there to promote the Playbook and show of their tech, not delve into an old issue that has been resolved, and answer questions that have been answered already.
I'd feel differently if this was an ongoing issue, but a google search shows that this was an issue last summer, and doesn't appear to really have come up since. That's just bringing back bad news which has no bearing on today.
Instead by getting so defensive he's guaranteed that the InterWebs will now be talking about this and not the PlayBook.
India: Give us access to your secure messaging service.
RIM: Okay.India: Give us access to your secure messaging service RIM: Sorry, that isn't technically possible India: Give us access to your secure messaging service RIM: Sorry, that isn't technically possible India: Give us access to your secure messaging service or we'll cut you off RIM: OK, we'll do everything we can
If he had answered Rory's question, would something like the one I asked above be the followup?
RIM have never been upfront with a response to the question[1] (unlike Google, and others) and what you saw in that response from Lazaridis was more of his cool PR trained responses at work ('we are being singled out', 'we have a lot of issues' etc. etc. blah blah balh)
[1] 'the question' is if RIM are providing backdoors to governments such as India, Russia et al to access encrypted messaging on the blackberry net
>>This is not fair... What are you doing?... This is a national security issue.
A national security issue for who? The US? Can't journalists ask questions about national security issues anymore?
I can see why the US would be weary to have business people/officials traveling to a country where all their conversations can be monitored. But is this a CEO confirmation that the RIM india/pakistan issue has become a US national security issue now?
A gag order would be perfect cause for this rather strange interview-stopping behavior from someone I reckon has a lot of experience dealing with journalists.
basically some middle eastern governments want easier access to BB users emails.
I don't really understand, why would Fry tag along to someone else's interview?