[JK-PhD]

RIM leaning toward new chairman: sources

Read the last sentence of the article

Sounds like they are going to give it one more push to sell them in the first half of 2012 and see where that takes them. I sure hope they succeed.

[californiablackberry]

It feels like HP and the TouchPad all over again!

[auditman]

hope developers start porting apps to playbook.

[UKCatFan3]

a board shake up might just take enough heat off rim to get them thru the storm. but thats IF it happens, and if it happens soon enough.

[Dapper37]

The last sentance of the article has nothing to do with the title of your post.
RIM has stated enough that they are sticking with tablets, to think otherwise is not well informed. Others can believe what they will but the future is phones, tablets, cars and more. Or there is no future.

[emtunc]

The last sentance of the article has nothing to do with the title of your post.
RIM has stated enough that they are sticking with tables, to think otherwise is not well informed. Others can believe what they will but the future is phones, tablets, cars and more. Or there is no future.

Let's hope they don't actually resort to making and selling tables eh?

PlayBook FTW!

[Pearl9100]

Don't be so sure. Things can change very rapidly.

[anon3396357]

Don't be so sure. Things can change very rapidly.

Exactly. RIM was committed to BB Java development too - look what happened?

�The upcoming addition of BlackBerry Java and Android apps for the BlackBerry PlayBook on BlackBerry App World will provide our users with an even greater choice of apps and will also showcase the versatility of the platform.�

RIM Expands Application Ecosystem for BlackBerry PlayBook

[kill_9]

Exactly. RIM was committed to BB Java development too - look what happened?

RIM Expands Application Ecosystem for BlackBerry PlayBook

I am more inclined to think the BlackBerry PlayBook "development team" is primarily snot-nosed co-op students without any real-world experience between them aside from "click and drool." If the tablet fails there should be heads rolling down the hallways in Waterloo and until the bloody purge is finished those involved with the tablet development and marketing should live their final hours in fear. For a bit of amusement perhaps those ding bats ought to be packed in wooden barrels and tossed over Niagara Falls. But then again I have stopped expecting competence from Research In Motion. What a tumultuous year was 2011.

[djnshores]

The two co-CEO's are ALSO co-Chairmen of the Board? What kind of nonsense is that! No wonder RIM is in trouble. There are no checks and balances to prevent stupid decisions! Instead, power is concentrated in two individuals who can do pretty much whatever they like.

I bet the annual shareholders meeting this summer is going interesting!

[kevinnugent]

The two co-CEO's are ALSO co-Chairmen of the Board? What kind of nonsense is that! No wonder RIM is in trouble. There are no checks and balances to prevent stupid decisions! Instead, power is concentrated in two individuals who can do pretty much whatever they like.

I bet the annual shareholders meeting this summer is going interesting!

Evidently there are several "independent" board members too, but one wonders if they were handpicked and form a rubber stamp for the co-CEO's and co-Chairmen. It does seem that way.

[ecliptor]

i hope to all that is holy that they will stick to tablets. i love my playbook and i wouldn't want to buy a tablet from another company. i find the os to be the best i have ever experienced

[fj_cruiser]

That "850K PB's sold" is an older figure from like almost a quarter ago before the PBs went on sale.... I am most interested in seeing what the market penetration of the PB is after the sales began. Has RIM published the numbers or any analysts have speculated on those?

The current $299-for-any-size sale, which is supposed to last until Feb 4, 2012 will also, I believe, increase the install base at a much faster pace than the first 6 months of the PBs launch. Also, I wonder why the sale is going to last till Feb 4th? Could the date be tied to the release date of OS2? Could it be that RIM, besides needing to clear the inventory, wants as many PBs in the market as possible before the OS2 launch. So their numbers look good at the next quarterly conference call? Just wondering.....

What are your thoughts?

[blackjack93117]

Never had any doubt but thanks for helping the doubters have faith..

Unlike HP, they are a smartphone company. Soon a bridged tablet will be a necessity to stay in the smartphone market, RIM having led the way. How would it serve them to abandon this? The heavy lifting has already been done.
.

[anderson620]

I'm confident that RIM and the BlackBerry brand will bounce back after some much-needed restructuring. The hardware is simply to good to abandon, and as much of a fan as I am of Android, QNX is by far (already) a much more stable OS.

Worse case scenario it all falls apart and they release source codes!

[bb-bandit]

It feels like HP and the TouchPad all over again!

RIM is from the Kamikaze school of running a business. Don't abandon a failing platform and re-group. Instead, crash the thing into the side of a mountain so no one else can salvage the business...it's a matter of honor.

[djnshores]

The shareholders are getting restless and it may not be long before the Tweedle dee and Tweedle dum CEO's are dumped. The call for the breakup of RIM has started. What it means for the future of the playbook is anyone's guess at this point.

RIM has "lost it": Shareholders call for company break-up, or sell-off | ZDNet

[peter9477]

That "850K PB's sold" is an older figure from like almost a quarter ago before the PBs went on sale.... I am most interested in seeing what the market penetration of the PB is after the sales began. Has RIM published the numbers or any analysts have speculated on those?

Let's not rewrite history here... that figure is definitely not before the sales started. The sales started in September, mostly with prices of $299 for the 16GB model, as I recall.

I think what you're talking about are the "firesales", where the 16GB unit was only $199 or even the Employee Purchase Program with 16s for only $99. You're right that most of those are not included in the 850K figure... only two days of the "firesale" in Canada, as I recall, and none of the sale in the US. (Or maybe it was two days of the US "firesale", and almost a week in Canada... I'm a bit too lazy this morning to check.)

Still, the main point is correct: there must have been a lot more sold after those numbers were tallied, and quite possibly we're a decent bit above a million shipped at this point. Neither RIM nor any analysts that I've read about have made any comments yet about the post-Q3 numbers.

[Magalaan]

Well Rim made a record profit growth in 2011, because the new phone models did unexpectingly well

Year Net Income
2002 (28,000,000)
2003 (149,000,000)
2004 52,000,000
2005 206,000,000
2006 375,000,000
2007 632,000,000
2008 1,294,000,000
2009 1,893,000,000
2010 2,457,000,000
2011 3,444,000,000

So it is not as bad as it seems. And what options do they have. They need a tablet in their lineup. RIM's past big growth was somewhat of an accident because it became so popular amongst youngsters. They should keep on doing what they are successful in and concentrate on the business segment of the market, they are enormously lucky that MS is concentrating on the consumer market. Apple is trying to get in there too, but RIM is the only one specialized in this area. they should tailor the Playbook better for this segment app wise and create some great communication apps for kids who love their stuff.

So what if they lose marketshare? As long as profits are growing this is no problem. Apple had a minor position in the PC-market for years but did well. You do not have to serve the whole market, just some profitable bits of it.

Dropping the playbook? And then what? First, it creates havoc. Look at what it did to HP. It totally destroys confidence. And without tablet they did not even see a future for the whole division. I think RIM did wise to slash the prices, they should have done that from the outstart. Many made the mistake of thinking they could introduce tablets at above or equal prices to the iPad. That is wishful thinking. First people must taste your product before you can ask that price. In the mind of people iPad is it and anything else can onlly be worse. That is why playbook never got a chance to proof itself. They should have launched it at $400,- from the start, then it would have fared much better even if profit was low. Now they have to sell it at a loss to get rid of supplies in time.

But now they have the user base they desired, and people are quite fond of their tablets. They should expand on that. that is their best strategy. The business market is very attractive market and they should tailor more apps for that.

I think they did wel with the bridge to the phones making it a natural companion. I think they were a little over ambitious in their expectations like most others. They underestimated the strength of the iPad. Thought they would sell at higher price tags. That is the problem here. You need to make big numbers to be able to compete in price and to create a user base. Apple has lower production costs because it sells higher numbers. The only way to create an entry in this market is take a loss. Microsoft/Nokia is planning to sell phones for $50 in januari just to get some marketshare for her system. It is they only way left.

Okay, it was not planned this way, but Rim now has a userbase for her appmarket. Now fix what needs to be fixed and start building from there. All that money invested are sunk cost anyway. But abandoning Playbook means a total write-off of everything invested, and even worse destroys the outlook of the company.

Look at Nokia, they dumped Symbian instead of fixing it. A huge mistake because there are many lovers of this system and it gave Nokia her identity. They destroyed by introducing Maemo, Meego and then sold out to WP7. Now they are like Saab that started building Opels. That is the fastest way to loose all you brand-loyal customers. Fix it, tailor it to the market segments you are in, finalize it, but do not give up on it.

Because then what? Then you do like Nokia that instead of fixing Symbian went on new adventures abandoned them for again new adventures and finally got nowhere. Now they are simply becoming a plant for MS.

I think much of the problem is too high expectation. RIM did so extremely well in the past people expectations become less realistic. RIM will never become the market leader, it is simply to small, but it can develop the business market as no other and they need a tablet, and what they have is fine, just not tailored enough. Tailor it and then you start making money. You can not make much money from a generic tablet no matter how good it is. It needs to be specialized. It needs to have USP's the others do not have. That is what they should be working on as soon as the Android player is ready. The base is excellent, but it needs to be tailored.

If they drop it they will have to hugely invest in something else, but they do not have the money for that and it would be just as big a gamble. It is much better to make it work. RIM did not do as bad as it seems. HP did much worse and made a lousy product in more time. RIM made something excellent in a shorter time, but made some mistakes especially in the marketing of it. That can be fixed.

If all else fails MS+Nokia will love to buy RIM because RIM is in the only special market segment that worthwhile and viable, the business segment. MS foolishly thought they could compete with Apple in the consumer market, creating products tailored for that. But they have no chance in against Apple and Android. Windows 8 will flunk big time. If all else fails MS will want to retreat in the business segment because consumers are trading their PC's for tablets and that is all they will have left.
that is when they will love to buy RIM. I think within the limits of being a smaller company RIM made excellent strategic decisions overtime. Saying the Playbook was wrong is silly, you need a tablet in your product line. It may be a difficult path in such a competitive environment, but that does not mean it is the wrong thing to do. It only means you have to work hard to cut out a segment that is less competing with the rest.

[[email protected]]

Never had any doubt but thanks for helping the doubters have faith..

Unlike HP, they are a smartphone company. Soon a bridged tablet will be a necessity to stay in the smartphone market, RIM having led the way. How would it serve them to abandon this? The heavy lifting has already been done.
.

"Unbridging" would have helped it appeal to non BB phone users.

With the size of most smart phone screens these days and their OS, there will never be s mandate to "bridge" tablets to phones.

I have a smart phone 6 years and counting and never heard of this term before coming to these boards.

[BoloMKXXVIII]

I hope Microsoft never buys RIM. They would simply buy them for the patents and the rest of the company would die. RIMs hardware and software just don't fit in Microsoft's world. I would rather somebody buy them that would understand the value of the hardware/software and want to continue it in some manner. I love the way my Playbooks OS works and the hardware is (nearly) bulletproof. A new owner with some vision and determination could make a lot of money with RIM.

[rvision]

In my opinion RIM won't stay in the market with a 850-1million (1% market share), its not worth the hardware, software, dev team investment and the shareholders won't stand for it.

Once the co-ceo's go the strategy will change back to bread and butter or someone will buy them out.

[BBThemes]

In my opinion RIM won't stay in the market with a 850-1million (1% market share), its not worth the hardware, software, dev team investment and the shareholders won't stand for it.

Once the co-ceo's go the strategy will change back to bread and butter or someone will buy them out.

you do realise that the playbook is essentially (for an OS perspective) a BBX phone right? so the software and dev team investement isnt just for the PB, but also directly for BBX.

people need to realise PB OS is the door to BBX. even the thought of trying to shut that door is moronic at best

[bb-bandit]

In my opinion RIM won't stay in the market with a 850-1million (1% market share), its not worth the hardware, software, dev team investment and the shareholders won't stand for it.

Once the co-ceo's go the strategy will change back to bread and butter or someone will buy them out.

Exactly. And changing the leadership provides cover for Mike and Jim to say they didn't kill the PB, it was the decision of the new leadership. PB is running like Michelle Bachman in Iowa. Its days are nearly over.

[alnamvet68]

you do realise that the playbook is essentially (for an OS perspective) a BBX phone right? so the software and dev team investement isnt just for the PB, but also directly for BBX.

people need to realise PB OS is the door to BBX. even the thought of trying to shut that door is moronic at best

Which brings to mind that possibility of adding phone features to the Playbook...that would be a first for a tablet.