The news seems to have hit the internet like a whirlwind, late Sunday night the world found out that not only were the co-CEOs Jim Ballsillie and Mike Lazaridis stepping down as CEOs (which apparently some employees were content with), they are also stepping down as chairs of the board leaving Thorsten Heins, an individual that they have been grooming for 5 years, formerly of Seimens to take the helm of their troubled company. News seems to have been taken well, their stock has been up in early trading, but don't expect that to last.
In the end, as many have already said I believe that the clock was ticking and they were running out of time. They had a report to deliver to their board showing just where they were going and why they should continue running the company in it's current form with the co-CEO structure. Their resignations to me are a signal of both defeat and an admission that they still don't have much to offer in the way of re-capturing or slowing the market share that they have lost to Android and iOS.
Much like Apple without Steve Jobs, I am sure that RIM has a lot of projects already in the pipeline so you won't see anything ground breaking from it's new CEO. In fact, he has said as much in the first hours of being CEO, the bulk of the articles interviewing him have him stating that they are going to be forging ahead with their current plans. So, what's the difference? It almost seems to me that the loss of Jim & Mike is only a sacrifice to appease the gods of the board and that the new CEO is just a new face to place the fault of any upcoming failures upon.
To me the whole thing just looks like another big distraction, I really can't see the new CEO doing anything else but perhaps executing plans a bit differently and communicating a bit better than the previous CEOs. I really can't see a new CEO making a huge difference in the direction that RIM takes or digging the company out of the hole it currently sits. But the man has not been on the job too long, so we could be surprised.
So far this is all that I have heard of as being on tap for the company:
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Playbook 2.0:
So what? These are all the features that the tablet should have launched with. Now we are supposed to be excited that it now has native e-mail (not sure how an e-mail company like RIM could have missed that in the first place) and the fact that we can remotely control the Playbook with your blackberry... which can easily be done in software by any other tablet. There is nothing exciting about this announcement.... it is just going to give back functionality they should have had in the first place.
Blackberry OS 10:
I like the idea of a different UNIX based OS coming out to compete with the other 2 (Android, iOS), but I feel that it is too little too late. Not only are they going to have problems getting developers to want to develop for the platform, it is very immature and people are not going to have the patience to wait around for bug fixes when they can have a better device from Google or Apple especially given how long it took to push out Playbook 2.0.
And this absurdity about licensing Blackberry 10? At best you would get a licensee because a company wants to differentiate their product... that's it. No one is going to license it because it will be an immature product with little to nothing to entice users into buying a phone with this OS. What's worse though would be the fact that RIM could no longer control the hardware and would now have to make Blackberry 10 work for all their licensees... would would no doubt create delays and make the whole development process more complex. They should not license the OS until it is mature and they have the ability to support other hardware... they can barely get it out of the door at this point.
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If this is what RIM going to continue to focus on as a company, according to the new CEO, then you can't really expect much to change. The only thing that I would expect to shake things up a little, or at the very least make the company answer to investors is the introduction of the newest board member Prem Watsa.
It is being said that he is the 'Carl Icaan' of Canada and has a thing for troubled companies. He did after all take Fairfax financial from a $5 publicly traded company to a $415 one. If he is the one driving the change and he is ready to put up a lot of his own money for RIM stock, then this would be the only reason I would believe in change for RIM.
In the end, as many have already said I believe that the clock was ticking and they were running out of time. They had a report to deliver to their board showing just where they were going and why they should continue running the company in it's current form with the co-CEO structure. Their resignations to me are a signal of both defeat and an admission that they still don't have much to offer in the way of re-capturing or slowing the market share that they have lost to Android and iOS.
Much like Apple without Steve Jobs, I am sure that RIM has a lot of projects already in the pipeline so you won't see anything ground breaking from it's new CEO. In fact, he has said as much in the first hours of being CEO, the bulk of the articles interviewing him have him stating that they are going to be forging ahead with their current plans. So, what's the difference? It almost seems to me that the loss of Jim & Mike is only a sacrifice to appease the gods of the board and that the new CEO is just a new face to place the fault of any upcoming failures upon.
To me the whole thing just looks like another big distraction, I really can't see the new CEO doing anything else but perhaps executing plans a bit differently and communicating a bit better than the previous CEOs. I really can't see a new CEO making a huge difference in the direction that RIM takes or digging the company out of the hole it currently sits. But the man has not been on the job too long, so we could be surprised.
So far this is all that I have heard of as being on tap for the company:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Playbook 2.0:
So what? These are all the features that the tablet should have launched with. Now we are supposed to be excited that it now has native e-mail (not sure how an e-mail company like RIM could have missed that in the first place) and the fact that we can remotely control the Playbook with your blackberry... which can easily be done in software by any other tablet. There is nothing exciting about this announcement.... it is just going to give back functionality they should have had in the first place.
Blackberry OS 10:
I like the idea of a different UNIX based OS coming out to compete with the other 2 (Android, iOS), but I feel that it is too little too late. Not only are they going to have problems getting developers to want to develop for the platform, it is very immature and people are not going to have the patience to wait around for bug fixes when they can have a better device from Google or Apple especially given how long it took to push out Playbook 2.0.
And this absurdity about licensing Blackberry 10? At best you would get a licensee because a company wants to differentiate their product... that's it. No one is going to license it because it will be an immature product with little to nothing to entice users into buying a phone with this OS. What's worse though would be the fact that RIM could no longer control the hardware and would now have to make Blackberry 10 work for all their licensees... would would no doubt create delays and make the whole development process more complex. They should not license the OS until it is mature and they have the ability to support other hardware... they can barely get it out of the door at this point.
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If this is what RIM going to continue to focus on as a company, according to the new CEO, then you can't really expect much to change. The only thing that I would expect to shake things up a little, or at the very least make the company answer to investors is the introduction of the newest board member Prem Watsa.
It is being said that he is the 'Carl Icaan' of Canada and has a thing for troubled companies. He did after all take Fairfax financial from a $5 publicly traded company to a $415 one. If he is the one driving the change and he is ready to put up a lot of his own money for RIM stock, then this would be the only reason I would believe in change for RIM.
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