An Inside Look At the Rise and Fall of RIM 267
zacharye writes with this excerpt from BGR:
"Research In Motion is in the midst of a major transition in every sense of the word. Publicly, the company is portraying a very defensive image — one that is very dismissive, as if RIM is profitable and class-leading, and the media is out of line to criticize its business, as are investors. Internally, however, there's a different story to be told. It's a story filled with attitude, cockiness, heated arguments among the executive team and Co-CEOs, and paranoia. ... The three-year roadmap for RIM products focused on refining the technology in phones had already been released, rather than looking at where to add major new componentry or trying to identify or even shape future trends. 'One of the main reasons RIM missed the mark with the browser was because
they were always proud of how little data usage a user would use,' a former executive said. 'There was no three-year plan at RIM.'"
Netcraft confirms it... RIM is dying. (Score:5, Insightful)
RIM was cool back in the day when data was super-expensive. They came up with a then-innovative end-to-end service to cut data consumption to a trickle.
Those days are over, people want streaming video, full email, full browsers, etc. on their phones.
Arrogance rarely wins... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:With the end of unlimited data plans...? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope, to RIM 1 or 2 MB a month is normal data usage, “RIM would be proud of the fact that someone would only use 1MB of data in a month in 2005."
"Mike is convinced people won’t buy an iPhone because battery life isn’t as good as a BlackBerry,” a different source said. Mike apparently is in disbelief that people can use over 15GB of data on their iPhone and Android devices,"
So this genius at RIM is so much in denial that he doesn't get that Apple is cutting away at RIM while Android and iOS are raping RIM because he doesn't understand the market anymore.
Re:Use the Droid platform (Score:5, Insightful)
do what NeXT did. (Score:4, Insightful)
RIM needs to do what Jobs did to next in the mid 1990s. It's time for them to accept that their phone business is cooked. Nobody is waiting a week out in front of any stores to buy a RIM device. Nobody even knows what differentiates one device from another. It's 2011, not 1991, cellphone sets are widespread and the market has spoken, nobody wants a RIM phone.
RIM needs to get out of the hardware business, and port their mail reader to an application and sit on top of android, iOS, and Windows mobile (lol).
They need to focus on making BES suck less, and getting their application into as many hands as possible.
Loose the hardware, nobody will miss it.
Re:Arrogance rarely wins... (Score:4, Insightful)
Because, when arrogance wins, it reaaaally wins. See Apple.
Re:People overestimate the value of "cool" (Score:5, Insightful)
"RIM has something that no one else has and they need to stay with it."
Falling market share and profits.
Re:People overestimate the value of "cool" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:People overestimate the value of "cool" (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes RIMs are about Business. But the iPhones and Androids are entering the business field too, and they are entering very fast. As they are a Good enough phone for work plus a toy after hours.
Re:With the end of unlimited data plans...? (Score:5, Insightful)
So this genius at RIM is so much in denial that he doesn't get that Apple is cutting away at RIM while Android and iOS are raping RIM because he doesn't understand the market anymore.
Sadly, this type of yesterday thinking permeates most of Fortune 1000 and is what most CEOs aspire to. To be a good CEO today, you need to be able to lie, talk bullshit, and have a two week plan. Period. And oh ya, be on the board of your friend so you can continue to vote for ever higher and completely unjustified salaries and benefits.
Seriously, most CEO's have a plan for tomorrow and maybe the next product release. That's it. If they have a one year plan or hell, even a two or three year plan, its a complete farce and a joke. They have it because its deemed a requirement to have for stock holders, not because they actually believe it or intend to follow it.
American CEOs have been shorting the shit out of the entire country for decades now. Its SOP. Its why so much manufacturing has left the country. In in part why American is sliding from prominence all the while the pay divide has never been larger.
Pragmatically, with no hyperbole, most CEOs should be fired - and justifiably so. Realistically, they get bonuses and higher salaries while destroying the economy around them and anything else if the next guy's problem because their sole job is to short the company, you and me, to day.