An interview with Mike Lazaridis

**Reed McLay** · 04-15-2009, 12:20 PM

RIM CEO: Storm Just First Touch Product, Our Push Technology Crushes the Competition

RIM recently announced that the company had shipped its 50-millionth device since 1999. Meanwhile, Apple has shipped 30 million iPhone and iPod touch devices in two years. Are you concerned that it has taken you this long to reach that milestone?

The fact is that nearly half of our devices were shipped in the last year! We continue to grow and the number of devices we’re selling is increasing. At the same time, the number of phones doesn’t matter right now because we’re still at the beginning of the transition from feature phones to smart phones. We’re kind of riding a wave that’s well below the surface.

Why do you think you’ve been able to surpass analysts’ expectations? What have been some of the key ingredients for RIM maintaining its growth?
When the economy is challenged, people flee to trusted brands. BlackBerry is certainly a trustworthy brand. That’s the key in this market
...

How has RIM responded to user complaints since the Storm’s launch?
We didn’t stop and we’ve never stopped. We just keep making our products better and better and better. We’ve got really passionate engineers here, and developers, and you know they want to win. They want to make the best products. They really want to make their customers happy with them. They want them to be delighted.

Were you stung a bit when you read some of the negative reviews?
Quite frankly we are very open with our design teams. I hold vision meetings here where I go through reviews. I want to get everyone centered on the current reality out there. And we don’t hold anything back, we really don’t. In fact, we love to put more bad reviews on the screen than good reviews just to make the point. Because I want people to make the products better and this is all part of our continuous improvement program here
...

What about multitasking? Does it take too much of a toll on battery life as Apple claims?
If you don’t do it right. If you don’t make the right trade-offs, you have what we call a catastrophic effect on battery life. Unlike voice, data usage is growing exponentially. There just never seems to be enough bandwidth for Internet-based applications. So all the optimizations and conservation techniques we have developed for the BlackBerry system over the years is now paying huge dividends to our subscribers and carrier partners. The fact is that the BlackBerry was designed to multitask from day one. I think our operating system has constantly been underestimated.

...
How do you think RIM stacks up to the competition when it comes to your Web browser?
I look at it this way. I say that our browser technology was developed with very different requirements. By writing our browser in Java, that provides our CIOs and wireless managers the assurances they need, to allow the browser to access internal information at the same time it accesses external information. So the overriding design criteria for our browser has been to not compromise on that experience in the enterprise phase.

That being said, we have come a long way in offering a full Web browsing experience, now that we have larger, high-resolution screens, faster processors and faster download speeds. We’ve always been very careful and very sensitive to network bandwidth, battery life, screen size, screen real estate, and how we display Web content. There’s no reason why our technology can’t keep getting better and better.

What kind of response have you received thus far from users of BlackBerry App World?
It’s been wildly positive. Yesterday I was having dinner with my parents and my dad downloaded a golf game right there right there at the dinner table! When it has that kind of an impact to that generation, you know that it’s a success in anyone’s book. ...

**BergerKing** · 04-15-2009, 02:22 PM

Cool. Good to see that they're focused on improvement, making the device better over the spectrum, rather than narrowing the vision.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

**pkcable** · 04-15-2009, 02:53 PM

He kinda danced around the Storm question (IMHO).

**BergerKing** · 04-15-2009, 03:01 PM

Yea, but that might be somewhat understandable. Many things dance around the Storm.

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**exmeaguy** · 04-15-2009, 04:04 PM

Originally Posted by pkcable

He kinda danced around the Storm question (IMHO).

I don't agree with you. He stated how they go over the negative reviews and that they are striving for continuous improvement. Don't forget all interviews are public and he has to be concerned what he says and how it's perceived in the public, especially if he's negative. He followed the course of what any good CEO would say. If he's negative then that will create product-line harm. Behind the scenes, I know that there has to be a high "pucker" factor within the company because of the negative reviews and I would strongly assume it is being addressed accordingly.

**jhamilton3#CB** · 04-15-2009, 05:44 PM

Seems he isn't too worried about Apple.. if he wants to be ahead of them he better start to worry.

**ArmaK** · 04-15-2009, 10:01 PM

This was an interesting little read. It kind of explains RIMs current view of the storm and that they won't give up on it anytime soon.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

**exmeaguy** · 04-15-2009, 10:05 PM

Originally Posted by jhamilton3

Seems he isn't too worried about Apple.. if he wants to be ahead of them he better start to worry.

His biggest concern is not with the iPhone, but with selling the Storm to corporations.

**Reed McLay** · 04-15-2009, 11:01 PM

It will be while before corporate IT departments give the unconditional thumbs up to the Storm.

The Storm is a big component of the near 25 Million new BlackBerry shipped in the past year. It is directed at consumers and we are lapping them up.