RIM CEOs to Give Up Top Posts in Shuffle | Hacker News Reader

RIM CEOs to Give Up Top Posts in Shuffle

online.wsj.com

84 pointsmatt_p39 comments

Quote from The Globe and Mail article[1] I read earlier:

  "...new chief executive officer says the company is doing 
  everything right and does not need a change in 
  strategy..."

oh boy!

[1] http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/at-researc...

RIM is one of those rare companies that have the ability to gloat whilst having their ass handed to them.

That's generally a good thing to say when the people that he has to calm the most are the Street and their demotivated workforce. People as a whole don't like change.

Not if the status quo is terrible.

We techies know it is but RIM is very profitable and growing, the trade volume on the stock indicates that a lot of people think that they could be undervalued at the moment. They may even be under book value.

So techies know RIM is in trouble, and Wall Street is pricing RIM as though it is in trouble... The only people who think it isn't in trouble are inside RIM.

RIM is very profitable and growing

Actually the opposite is true: RIM profit drops 27 percent; shipments seen down[1], The Waterloo, Ontario, company said fiscal third-quarter earnings tumbled 71% on a charge related to a disastrous launch of a tablet competitor to Apple's iPad. And it forecast weak smartphone shipments in the current quarter. [2], etc, etc

[1] http://news.yahoo.com/instant-view-rim-profit-drops-27-perce...

[2] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020402680457710...

They had recently been increasing volume (and to an extent profit) by cutting prices, of course there is only so far you can cut into prices before profit suffers.

Gruber referenced something about this not so long ago - someone had written an article showing that historically companies that do this appear good in the short term, but in the long term it is a huge danger sign.

Hence the person to whom you were replying may have been aware of the "profits are up" song RIM has been singing for a while now, but not aware of the most recent results which indicate a rude awakening is imminent.

Pretty sure the piece you are referring to was by Michael Mace: http://mobileopportunity.blogspot.com/2010/10/whats-really-w...

Fantastic. Thanks for going to the trouble of finding and linking that. Much appreciated.

Yeah, I agree. Even if you can see the current strategy is failing, you shouldn't go throwing bombs unless and until you think of something better.

You don't accomplish this change in people by saying things are fine - you act and do things that show you and the company is strong. That's the only way people will change their feelings. And you better be truthful when promoting your enthusiasm or it'll come back to bite you..

Official press release:

http://press.rim.com/release.jsp?id=5358

and more info:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/jim-balsillie...

Too little too late? If we start seeing tons of "expense cutting" measures with no innovation, they need to

a) hire from the outside for a fresh perspective

b) get acquired

Way too late. RIM has very little in the pipeline and still seems determined to try and make the PlayBook work.

Rumors are that they're shopping the company around but asking too much.

I think their only chance to be relevant would be to get our of the hardware business and rush to be a service company. They should start making Blackberry Enterprise Server integration for Android. They should see if they could get Apple to let the iPhone hook in too.

Their phones are a lost cause. Even if they had an amazing phone in the pipeline, I don't think they could stop their slide if it was released tomorrow.

At this point, BES and their patents are the things with any value.

Spot on. People loved their CrackBerries because of the messaging services (and maybe the keyboards), not the tired phone software. iOS and Android devices dominate the enterprise now, but RIM could retain a server-side position BES. IT departments might like a single enterprising message service that can they can standardize across the variety of Android and iOS devices they will have to support.

Can someone enlighten me as to what advantage BES holds over the way iOS and Android communicate?

I agree that several years ago, when phone having an IP address was unheard of, BES made all the sense in the world. It's kind of pointless now.

Remember when people were screaming at Apple to get out the hardware game in 1997?

It is just as hard to see how you coukd build a long term sustainable company based on BES though. In the end selling it to Microsoft would seem the only sane outcome, so it can be part of a Windows offering.

Perhaps Ballmer will step aside at Microsoft for Qi Lu, next?

HP would be the other company in my "management-impaired former titans" portfolio which might benefit from a change (they'll probably want to wait a bit, and Meg Whitman is definitely an improvement over some of their other CEOs.)

I could see this company earning a spot in future versions of 'In Search of Stupidity'. (If you don't know the book, don't knock what I'm saying before you read it. It's one of my favorite reads about high tech business)

According to the press release, they are also out as co-chairs of the board.

Lazaridis is becoming Vice Chair (whatever that means) and Balsillie is retaining his seat but will be stripped of all titles.

Perhaps RIM's real value lies in their patents (or lack thereof) and this explains why they are unable to make a viable product?

Too less too late. They should focus all their energies on BBX and be a lot more developer friendly.

Full article without ad: http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB1000142405297020462420... Video: http://youtu.be/QUFwhpcrCTw

The fact that it took this long for the CEO's to step down reflects the extreme arrogance of this company. I've attended a few RIM-sponsored events in the Waterloo, and it's downright shocking how cocky the reps and developers are. RIM appears to be living in its own little tech bubble, blissfully ignorant that pretty much everywhere else in the first world owns or will own an iPhone.

This company makes a lot of money, they still have a lot of marketshare, but there's no question they are in a serious downdraft. It would be completely normal for any company in this situation to put itself up for sale. I'm a little surprised Google choose to buy Motorola Mobility rather than RIM, given that RIM has a lower market value and has more attractive assets.

Regardless of what it says in the press I imagine finding a potential acquirer of the company will be the first task of the new CEO.

"...blissfully ignorant that pretty much everywhere else in the first world owns or will own an iPhone"

Speaking of living in a bubble...

What I meant was that RIM and their execs have been insulated from the true damage being done to their business and more importantly their mindshare among developers. Apple's success with iPhone and iPad is absolutely not what I'd call a bubble.

You suggested that Apple has some kind of majority market share or something. They don't. Hence, your bubble is showing.

Depends on the metrics used, Apple has 52% of smartphone profit:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2011/11/04/apple-t...

But the metric your post used was Handsets, not Profit: "everywhere else in the first world owns or will own an iPhone."

I made a generalization, I didn't use metrics.

In any case, I find this type of pedantry kind of annoying. I made a point about RIM losing marketshare, my point was not about what percentage of a certain market Apple owns.

It's not really pedantry, though. You said that everyone does or will own an iPhone- that's demonstrably not true.

Nitpicking one aspect of my argument that RIM declines in marketshare based on whether my argument that Apple is or will become the dominant mobile platform is most certainly the absolute definition of pedantry.

It depends on if you are counting devices versus OS... Android sells more than iOS, but the numbers are split amongst all the manufacturers.

"Android handsets vs iPhones", not "Android vs iOS". iOS as a platform includes iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and AppleTV.

We'll have to wait until tomorrow [1] to find out whether Android as a platform has a bigger marketshare than iOS does.

[1] http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2012/01/20FY-12-First-Quarte...

>This company makes a lot of money, they still have a lot of marketshare, but there's no question they are in a serious downdraft. It would be completely normal for any company in this situation to put itself up for sale.

So you would sell a profitable company with a large market share?

Finally.

Deck chairs..Titanic..

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