[anon3700711]

Let's pretend hypothetically that RIM's CEOs Jim Balsillie & Mike Lazaridis directly reads Crackberry and here is your shot to address them and Research In Motion in-general as a whole.

What is your message to RIM's CEOs and RIM in all seriousness?

[palmless]

mkdir android ; cd android ; repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git ; repo sync ; make

[HybridGT]

Stop focusing so much on Enterprise

Getmore marketing out there

And stop waiting for the LTE chips which are delaying the BBX phones for almost half a year!

[_StephenBB81]

Delete your account, 90% of the stuff posted is drivel of, and a bulk of users are excited to see you fail.

that is what I would say if the were reading CrackBerry.

If I was having a coffee with them I would discuss their sales strategy as that is my specialty, They have territory managers who don't run their territory's well at all, their enterprise sales guys from what I hear 1 in 4 is actually a knowledgeable and builds the right relationships within organizations.

RIM among their hardware woes needs to address how they come to market, and that is something that can be addressed in the short term, where as their technical aspects are a little tougher to realize the improvements as fast.

[the_sleuth]

Time to pack it in and let someone else take RIM into the future.

[shemaree09]

Put more effort in marketing!!!!

[Fresh2deathJC]

MARKETING....MARKETING....MARKETING....MARKETING.. ..

Just can't stress it enough, you hardly hear **** about anything....if people were able to see what the new OS 7 devices were capable of, I think it would easily shut up alot of the haters and maybe even bring a few back

[anthogag]

I would say "you guys are acting like engineers"..."it's time to act like visionaries"

And I would say I'm lovin the pb and thanks for the great phones so far, and I'm excited about BB10 phones...

[Laura Knotek]

[menaknow]

Marketing... Most blackberry users I know who are not on this forum do not know what BBM Music is.

Think like a salesman, especially one that wants to keep there customers. Have better QC implemented.

And for the love of it, please remember that you need to be an innovation company as well as an improvement company. That is one thing you can beat your competition with.

Apple = Improvement company, took the mp3 player, made the iPod, took existing siri, made newer integrated siri

Google = Innovation company, makes new features and OS, but relies on third parties like HTC to polish off UIs

Don't fight the competition, be the competition and beat them at there own game....

And fix your upper/mid management, because when 1 engineers complain that nothing gets accomplished because of red tape. It is probably a pissed off coworker.

When many of your staff say the same thing... It is probably a problem...

[olblueyez]

These security guards are here to escort you out. We will have your personal belongings sent to you. By the way, are these pictures of a donkey, a miget ,and you?

[Caymancroc]

Marketing?

You have to have a great product to compete with. The reason GM failed wasn't because of lack of marketing. It was because of crap products like the Aztec. iPhone is not succeeding because of marketing, it is because it is the best product out there for the many who use it.

I still can't even hook a native BT keyboard up to any BB or HDMI out for presentations. BB is for business users, start designing it for road warriors and business people. I can do more on my iPhone than any BB.

What would I tell them? I got an iPhone and I love it and am not coming back to BB anytime soon because you are too slow in implementing necessary changes. I would show them how much better of a business tool this is than any BB. I can sign documents and send them back, schedule appointments with my voice, dictate emails and reports, easily find nearby things, AirPlay a presentation to a TV, easily watch and download movies, search for a nearby new home, take awesome pictures and share them easily, send a card, scan documents and send them via fax, etc. The iPhone is awesome.

Their flagship device doesn't even have AF camera and I bet BB Maps is still a waste compared to Maps on iPhone or Androids awesome mapping. Being a BB fan is tiresome because of delays, broken promises, and yesteryear technology.

They will eventually fail (and deserve to), as the time has passed for them to react. When they finally come out with their new OS Apple will have stolen an even larger portion of their business away with iPhone 5 or, heck who knows...at this pace iPhone 5S or even 6!!!

[sam_b77]

Leave the carriers as Points of Sales and appoint distributers. Wherever distributers are there RIM does well. India, Indonesia are examples amongst many.

[boldkeyboardholic]

haha - good one.

I would suggest they both should retire - and the stocks would be rizing high (for 5 minutes )

""Joke" a side" - actual big downsides which should be immedatly be solved:

mobile wifi - without carrier servicebooks!
BIS for private customers with 5-10 >>put your currency in<< for me 5 Euro per month is not tollarable anymore, especially when the new devices even depend more on this service again and nothing is working without it. (for me it not just costs the 5-10 Euro but also reducing my options as no prepaid (here cheaper with minute costs of 6 Euro-cent) is possible and I need a post paid contract with a provider which costs 15 up to 30 Euro-Cent per minute/or sms without plans (which often only reduces the costs ideal to the pre paid)

the OS7 Browser is really better than anything RIM does before - but again there is a downside - at least for me: without the option to force real websites (e.G. "hide" as ie or firefox etc.) I am stuck what ever the website wants to over me, and a few I'm using have no "classic" or "original website" link in the BB7 Browser version.

Buy app developer and bring high quallity apps to the market. As if this would cost real money... Ok, this could kill free app developer but honestly i doupt that something not existing could be killed ;P

I mean where is my SIPclient or Skype (ok Skype with MS behind probably just does not want to be on BB anymore) with at least working in a wifi

and the most important thing:

you need to get faster! one year is not fast enough if you are about 1+ year behind.

to anounce the OS7 beginning 2011 and releasing it in August/September is not fast enough especially without wifi hot spot which is a feature my 100€ android can do even better as it does not depend on an actual ok from the provider/carrier.

[PeterRei]

MARKETING....MARKETING....MARKETING....MARKETING.. ..

Just can't stress it enough, you hardly hear **** about anything....if people were able to see what the new OS 7 devices were capable of, I think it would easily shut up alot of the haters and maybe even bring a few back

Marketing? Did you know how awesome BlackBerrys are before you owned one? It's not easy to communicate an experience...
Just go to your local store and try to test one - normaly nothing works what makes these devices the best ones out there (no BBM, no Mail...). Often ten or more apps are running in the background, slowing the device down (because nobody knows how to shut them down - or nobody cares). I've even seen a lot of devices that did not work at all (yesterday I saw the FIRST proper running 9860).

[qbnkelt]

Execution. Detail.

The ideas falter because of an inability to carry through.
Two examples:
Latest OS upgrade causes what should have been a phenomenal successful dream device for people who are not huge gaming or media enthusiasts, to inexplicably nuke or brick themselves.
First QNX device, the PB, having melded two highly secure platforms, is famously rooted.
These failures in carrying forward the future of RIM as a relevant competitor is causing even this long time fan of the platform to walk away, shaking her head.
RIM is in the fight of its life and these failures in execution and implementation are only helping the competition prepare for the coup de grace.

Sent from my BlackBerry 9860 using Tapatalk

[anon(55900)]

The most urgent problem is the media where most people base their buying decisions on. The news media, they are biggest reason people are afraid to buy a BB. You have to get them on your side by bringing in key, major players in the media to make them love BB. Just like politicians who have insulted reporters get blasted, ignoring them is just as bad. They are spoiled and need attention. Booze, broads and gifts, the usual perks reporters expect. Do whatever it takes to get good press, even if it's reporting that says, yes, RIM screwed up but wow look at what is good and look at what's coming!

Then it up to RIM to let people know a hard release date of phones with QNX, not leave them feeling duped by making them feel that, yeah, so what, some day, maybe a year from now, RIM might have a QNX phone out there, maybe, oh shxt! Get the damn QNX phone out there, screw the friggin perfect processor, everybody elses phone have crappy batteries so why not BB, at least up front! People want the phones NOW! Is it really that hard to get a phone running QNX?? Or is it worrying about carriers, screw carriers, give the people what they want and the carriers will have to follow!

I haven't tried iphone but have owned an Android tablet on honeycomb, the precursor of ice cream sandwich and I say it ain't that great! I sold mine after using my new playbook for one week and honestly don't want to go back. I was testing it to help me decide if I'd end up going all Android with Android phone to go with my Android tablet. Now I can't wait for a QNX phone to go with my playbook but I am pissed that RIM has pushed of QNX - 10 phones until, maybe, sometime, not sure, late 2012, hopefully, really pisses me off.

[JAGWIRE]

STOP LIEING!!!!
Stick to your guns guys. Either release all the information threw a press release or not at all. take a page from the book of Steve Jobs, RIP, as to how he kept tight lipped on his phones and MP3 players. If you don't promise things or say ya we are going to have this this and this and not deliver its worse then not saying anything and surprising us all.

The PB was a fail plain and simple, yes i love mine, yes i bring it everywhere but as a device its a fail. I would of rather waited an extra 10 months and gottn a fully functional tablet that will be *fingers crossed* OS 2.0 then deal with all the glitches and complaints that OS 1 brought to the table.

LTE is not a huge thing!! what you should focus on is making BB 10 world not LTE. This way you only need to make one model of each and the providers can deside what they want, perfect example the iPhone 4S. Its a world phone and thats what you have to compete against becasue you know they are going to put that into the iPhone 5 when it comes out next Christmas...hey isnt that when you said your bringing out BB 10....

[mjs416]

While I would commend them for producing what I find to be good phones up to this point - I would also strongly caution them that people like me who have owned almost a dozen different Blackberry's in my life will go to a different platform if this one stops being useful. Sitting stagnant along with constantly pushing off release dates (whether it be phones or software) will cause people to go elsewhere to get what they need in a mobile device. I am not to that point yet but when I go to upgrade next year around this time I would really like for there to be a BB10 device waiting for me in some capacity.

[HybridGT]

Everyone says marketing
But then why is that the last thing RIM is doing
-

[biggulpseh]

Marketing?? Are you guys serious? Most reviewers gave the current OS7 phones bad reviews. Do you ever see Apple ads on TV talking about the iPhone? I saw one last night that really impressed me and I'm someone that hates iPhones and will never in a million years buy one. The narrator is explaining how you can take a picture with the 8 MP camera, crop and edit it easily, save it and send it to friends.

How would this advertisement look for the 9900?? "Just take your picture with the camera but be careful to be steady and don't take a picture of anything up close because there isn't any autofocus. Okay now to crop it press the menu button and scroll up until you see crop. Okay now move the cursor until the area is over top of the area you want to keep. No you can't do minor rotations of the image like you can on the iPhone but you can upload the picture to your computer using our complicated Blackberry desktop manager program and then drag-and-drop it to your desktop and then edit it in photoshop if you wish to do that. Press the menu button and click on zoom in or out to change the size of the area you want to crop. Now if you want to send it to friends click the menu button again and go to share..." It would be like a 20-minute advertisement explaining the steps just to crop an image you just took, whereas on the iPhone ANYONE can figure it out easily and intuitively.

There's also a new crop of ads out for the Galaxy Nexus showing how you can unlock it with your face, how you can easily video chat with up to 12 friends or something like that (had those guys beatboxing to each other)... It shows off proprietary features of the phone that give it an edge over the competition and makes people wanna check out the phones and see what they're all about.

There really are very little selling features of the current crop of OS7 phones that RIM can market effectively. What could they possibly say to American customers right now?

BBM: "Buy a Blackberry quickly and you can communicate with your one friend who still owns a Blackberry before they upgrade to an iPhone or Android!"

BBM Music: "just convince all your friends who currently own iPhones and Androids to sell them and buy Blackberrys despite the press talking about how we are most likely going bankrupt and the fact that out current line-up of phones got comparatively bad reviews, then convince them all to pay $5 per month for our music service that lets you have 50 songs at once but you get to change a few every month...."

Display: "our displays may be of lower resolution and pixel-density that the most new smartphones, but look how much better they are than our previous models!"

Data connectivity: "our servers may go down every couple of months and threaten your livelihood and communications, but at least our data is compressed!"

Camera: "our lovely non-autofocus camera on the 9900 will be sure to take blurry pictures for you at critical times"

Battery life: "Blackberry has always been known for fantastic battery life, and although our newest phones have terrible battery life, we are still somehow known for it if that means anything to you"

Browser: "It may be slower than the competition, but look at how much better it is than our old phones!"

Reliability: "Sure, our new phones may be renowned for bricking and losing all your important information. They may also be plagued with random slowdowns, memory leakage, and freezes which require battery pulls, but our most loyal users still consider them reliable so this must mean something right?"

Apps: "If you want the best app experience on any phone, then don't get a Blackberry. But if you want a far more restricted app experience with many of the most popular apps not available or having comparatively way less features than those of our competition, then look no further!"

Pathetic.

[olblueyez]

OS7 and the PlayBook are aimed squarely at the general public but an appropriate advertizing campaign has not been implemented to accompany these good products.

No Marketing - No increase in Smartphone/Tablet sales

No increase in Smartphone/Tablet sales - No revenue to ensure BB10 is on sechule

No revenue to ensure BB10 is on sechule - And people move to different platforms that will in all likelyhood keep those customers

Personally I think those two numbnuts don't spend any money on advertizing because THEY KNOW THEIR STYLE OF MANAGEMENT INVOLVES NOT BEING INVOLVED AND CAUSES DELAYS!!!!!

Uping sales and increasing cash flow when the PlayBook and OS7 devices were launched would have been easy as pie with some decent marketing. But those clowns knew damn well they had no intentions of following through with on these products in a competitive and honest fashion.

I beg the stock holders "Please Hire some Young Talented people/person who will take this challenge and fight for a better RIM so all the talented people at RIM can be utilized to their fullest and so the BlackBerry fans all over the world can enjoy bragging about the smartphone company of their choice".

Its sad when the leaders of RIM care less about the company and product than the people who have been let down and watched other companies skyrocket, but remained faithful none the less!

I don't know many companies that have such a loyal following but I think its time for RIM to cut the dead wood loose and start earning that reputation, don't you?

The Chairman

[lnichols]

Don't wait for an LTE chipset to get BB10 devices to market. LTE won't be mature or widespread until 2013-14 so holding off to support them isn't doing you any good. Go with an efficient HSPA+ in early 2012 and support LTE when then your miraculous chipset is here. Your hemoraging of customers in the US won't stop with marketing of OS7 devices.

[CGI]

I would tell them; stop making so many freaking devices! Narrow your focus! Make 2-3 really good handsets and that's it!

Get you arse moving on a user pleasing OS. That means it's got to bring the internet to the device with a PC like experience (see IOS and Android). It also means the OS has the ability to develop serious apps, not the lame ones we currently have on BB devices.

^ this is what people want. How can they not see that?

[steve911]

Now that you have reduced your pay to $1, what did you do with the rest? Did you just put it back into the company? Will that extra money you put back into the company be used to benefit the company in any way? Now that I've said that...

All these missed deadlines that you guys keep making need to change RIGHT NOW! Examine why it keeps happening. If you guys just came out with a more ACCURATE deadline for BB10 (and EVERY OTHER PRODUCT you have) when you first announced it, you guys would be in much better shape in the eyes of investors, RIM employees, journalists, and the public. If its you making these deadlines and ignoring the dates your underlings give you, then get out now or change your ways before you are disgraced and you lose everything you have put so much of your life into. If it's your people giving you these dates and you put your trust into them then you need to make them accountable. Get rid of them, replace them, or just make them disappear. They are destroying everything you have put so much of your life in to. You also need to get your staff excited about RIM again. Make them want to turn your company around and fight for it. Give them a reason that they would WANT to put their hearts into your company. Take ALL the money that you gave up to reduce your pay to $1 and use it on your people in a way to make them want to get these products out the door as fast and as solid as humanly possible. Maybe recognize your employees, give a couple of $$$$ to employees that execute, innovate, or to those that put their soul into your company. They are the force behind RIM. If your people don't want to fight for RIM then who will?

At the end of the day it comes down to this.
Find the weakest link and fix it... Even if it's you.