1. E92Vancouver's Avatar
    Blackberry -- How RIM destroyed a great brand - CBS News

    (MoneyWatch) COMMENTARY What if the co-CEOs of Research In Motion (RIMM) were given three years to destroy the company, demolish the once venerable BlackBerry brand and wipe out $70 billion in shareholder value? Here's how they'd do it:
    Get caught completely by surprise when Apple (AAPL) launches the iPhone and Google (GOOG) rolls out its Android smartphone platform. Respond with disbelief and mockery. Finally develop and launch a feeble competitor, the BlackBerry Storm, nearly two years later.

    Realizing you haven't even caught up to where your competitors were two years ago, begrudgingly start working on a serious competitor with a multitouch display and decent web browser, the BlackBerry Torch. Remain completely baffled by the third-party app development phenomenon.

    Keep launching refreshes of your out-of-date products for a year until Apple does it to you again by introducing its breakthrough iPad tablet. Finally deliver the underperforming and underwhelming Torch three-and-a-half years after the original iPhone.

    Sit back and watch Apple launch iPad 2, then scramble to rush a half-baked PlayBook tablet to market and get slammed by reviewers because it lacks a built-in cellular data connection and basic apps like email, contacts, calendar, memo pad and BlackBerry Messenger.

    Send co-CEO Mike Lazaridis to a high-profile conference to demonstrate how completely clueless he is about the smartphone and tablet markets, confuse and baffle hosts Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher, and "babble on about who knows what" for 30 minutes, according to Gizmodo.

    Host an earnings call where co-CEO Jim Balsillie takes no responsibility for the company's meteoric fall (the stock plummeted 60 percent in 6 months), blaming it all on the "natural aging" of the company's smartphone portfolio and claiming the company is well-positioned in the tablet space. A month later, lay off 2,000 people, or 11 percent of your workforce.

    Respond to a blistering open letter by an unnamed RIM executive fed up with your incompetence with characteristic tone-deaf defensiveness and myopic optimism.

    After a four-day global outage that strands tens of millions of customers on five continents without email, messaging or browsing, offer a late but contrite apology, prompting one crisis communications executive to say RIM's crisis response is like its product design, "outdated, slow and not well-received by their customers."

    As the company's stock hits an eight-year low, shedding $70 billion in shareholder value from its peak, and investors openly call for a change in leadership, announce a $485 million charge on unsold PlayBook tablets, promise that you're both going to stick around through a transition to a new operating system for the entire product line, which, by the way, won't be coming for at least a year. Offer consolation to shareholders by cutting your annual salaries to a buck.

    Here's the thing. Three years ago, RIM announced that sales and profits had doubled year-over-year. Subscribers were signing up in droves and the company was poised to explode beyond its traditional corporate base into the consumer space. Since then, Balsillie and Lazaridis couldn't have done a better job of driving the company off a cliff if they'd cut their own break line and floored it.

    When you look back on it, it's hard to believe it wasn't all part of a plan. Really.

    And thanks to Al Lewis for the original concept in HP's One-Year Plan.
    1magine, azrin640 and phonejunky like this.
    12-19-11 12:52 PM
  2. sam_b77's Avatar
    Well any good company is one product away from a home run.

    Currently Androids and iPhones are the flavour of the month. There is a certain user fatigue. For the longest time Blackberrys have been the mainstay of smartphones. People got bored and Androids and iPhones are good devices and they sold.

    Is anyone willing to bet that people won't get bored with iOS and Androids? People as consumers can never be predictable. It can be seen with all products and brands.

    There was a time in India when the luxury car spelt Mercedes. People bought them and then got bored and shifted to BMW. Currently BMW is killing the Merc brand. Does that mean Merc is dead....no. But there will come a time when there will be BMW fatigue and simply to differentiate themselves Merc will be back in favour. Consumer choices are fickle, and the fanboys even more so.

    A RIM fanboy converted to iOS is the most ardent critic of RIM, if only to justify his/her switch

    Let iOS and Android mature and enter enterprise market, then lets see how quickly they can reinvent themselves every six months. Once they wont be able to do so, users will search out new products.
    VeGiTo, CDM76 and Mecca EL like this.
    12-19-11 01:04 PM
  3. CrackBerryTorch9800's Avatar
    Yeah i think that they may need to go. The direction they are leading RIM is wrong
    mud314 likes this.
    12-19-11 01:05 PM
  4. Dunt Dunt Dunt's Avatar
    Apple and Google were never part of the plan...
    azrin640 likes this.
    12-19-11 01:06 PM
  5. GingerSnapsBack's Avatar
    Currently Androids and iPhones are the flavour of the month.
    I disagree. If they were flavor of the month, they'd already have come and gone. iPhone is the #1 selling phone right now, closely followed by Android devices for all 3 major carriers (ATT, Sprint and Verizon).

    Flavor of the month is the Atkin's diet or Uggs.
    12-19-11 01:08 PM
  6. loneweasel's Avatar
    Is anyone willing to bet that people won't get bored with iOS and Androids?
    People have been bored with Windows for 15 years. Doesn't mean a competing OS will have any success in market share.
    CDM76, phonejunky and azrin640 like this.
    12-19-11 01:13 PM
  7. andyahs's Avatar
    I disagree. If they were flavor of the month, they'd already have come and gone. iPhone is the #1 selling phone right now, closely followed by Android devices for all 3 major carriers (ATT, Sprint and Verizon).

    Flavor of the month is the Atkin's diet or Uggs.
    You do know they sell phone outside of the great big USA right?
    12-19-11 01:13 PM
  8. JPMorgan_'s Avatar
    Ouch, 70 billion in shareholder value? the slide seems to have no end, I just wish there's time to see the BB10 phones get released. A lot can happen in 9 months time. Those CEO's can't execute, they should let someone else to try leading this company now.
    12-19-11 01:17 PM
  9. loneweasel's Avatar
    You do know they sell phone outside of the great big USA right?
    You do know the third world follows the tech trend of the first, right?

    APPL is exploding in China, which is not exactly in North America.
    nyplaya610 and moiselles like this.
    12-19-11 01:17 PM
  10. sam_b77's Avatar
    People have been bored with Windows for 15 years. Doesn't mean a competing OS will have any success in market share.
    But MacOSX has had great success. Consumers are switching to Mac. And then Windows comes back with Windows 7.

    Windows was around because of enterprise. Even though they lost the consumer's fancy, they had enough staying power to let MacOSX become long in the teeth. No company can keep coming up with revolutionary product indefinitely. They do settle into a rut of consolidation.
    That's when others innovate and spur competetion.

    Mac did it to Windows and RIM in the consumer space. Android came out and made its own space. They are all good products. Just that fickle comsumers want a change.

    Are you suggesting that there will be no other company coming along in 5-10 yrs to challenge Android and iOS? Is it your position that iOS is here to stay till the end of mankind?

    There will be new players coming. They will challenge existing players and will make their space.

    In the same vein RIM too can challenge and get back in the game.

    As long as RIM is profitable and have money they can bring up something completely new.

    This is the fun of free market. Apple got the touch screen to the forefront and forced the big lion in the market to change its thinking. Android is taking the challenge to iOS on the path shown by Apple itself. The market is always in a state of flux. Its always the underdog that innovates. So if the crocodile of yesterday (RIM) is the underdog of today, its a good thing. It will force them to innovate and ensure that Apple and Androids don't stop innovating. Its a cycle.
    CDM76, 13echo4, Mecca EL and 1 others like this.
    12-19-11 01:24 PM
  11. emirozmen's Avatar
    In the future, Google will rule the world!!!!!!!!
    12-19-11 01:24 PM
  12. loneweasel's Avatar
    But MacOSX has had great success. Consumers are switching to Mac. And then Windows comes back with Windows 7.

    Windows was around because of enterprise. Even though they lost the consumer's fancy, they had enough staying power to let MacOSX become long in the teeth. No company can keep coming up with revolutionary product indefinitely. They do settle into a rut of consolidation.
    That's when others innovate and spur competetion.

    Mac did it to Windows and RIM in the consumer space. Android came out and made its own space. They are all good products. Just that fickle comsumers want a change.

    Are you suggesting that there will be no other company coming along in 5-10 yrs to challenge Android and iOS? Is it your position that iOS is here to stay till the end of mankind?

    There will be new players coming. They will challenge existing players and will make their space.

    In the same vein RIM too can challenge and get back in the game.

    As long as RIM is profitable and have money they can bring up something completely new.

    This is the fun of free market. Apple got the touch screen to the forefront and forced the big lion in the market to change its thinking. Android is taking the challenge to iOS on the path shown by Apple itself. The market is always in a state of flux. Its always the underdog that innovates. So if the crocodile of yesterday (RIM) is the underdog of today, its a good thing. It will force them to innovate and ensure that Apple and Androids don't stop innovating. Its a cycle.
    Has there been any credible challenge to Apple and Windows in the PC OS market? That's your answer. Android and iOS are here to stay as the default mobile computing OS's. The only company that can make a third OS is Microsoft. Because they have all the money in the world to burn, and because they have the inside track on mobile integration into Windows.
    12-19-11 01:30 PM
  13. sleepngbear's Avatar
    In the future, Google will rule the world!!!!!!!!
    I hope I get hit by the big asteroid first. :/
    12-19-11 01:31 PM
  14. qbnkelt's Avatar
    You do know the third world follows the tech trend of the first, right?

    APPL is exploding in China, which is not exactly in North America.
    You do know that there are more countries in the world which do not fall neatly into U.S.A, N.A., and third world, right?

    I'm thinking the whole of Europe, for example. Middle East. And so on.
    Last edited by Qbnkelt; 12-19-11 at 01:36 PM.
    12-19-11 01:32 PM
  15. sam_b77's Avatar
    You do know the third world follows the tech trend of the first, right?

    APPL is exploding in China, which is not exactly in North America.
    Not really. BestBuy closed down in China and was a laughing stock there.

    Same goes for Walmart.

    Countries are different with different cultures. No one follows the so called "first World".

    What works in USA doesn't necessarily work elsewhere. AT&T is not even a player in India. Amongst the top fifteen global GSM carriers American carriers are not there. The most in the top ten are Indian and Chinese carriers. How long before AT&T and verizon are taken over? They have a stagnant user base of only 360 million and no hopes of growing. Their policies make them uncompetitive in the so call third world.

    And for your information, iPhone only has a 2% share of the Indian smartphone market. The 4s is doing abysmal business here. Following North America you say??
    sleepngbear and Mecca EL like this.
    12-19-11 01:34 PM
  16. qbnkelt's Avatar
    I hope I get hit by the big asteroid first. :/
    Well, there is 12/22/2012....
    12-19-11 01:34 PM
  17. GingerSnapsBack's Avatar
    You do know they sell phone outside of the great big USA right?
    Yes I know that. In America, the iPhone is the top selling phone. The 3 carriers I listed are all USA carriers. I know in India and in other parts of the world, BB reigns surpreme.
    12-19-11 01:35 PM
  18. Economist101's Avatar
    Is anyone willing to bet that people won't get bored with iOS and Androids? People as consumers can never be predictable. It can be seen with all products and brands.
    They may very well "get bored" with iOS and Android, but that only gets you halfway there. We then have to ask whether they will shift toward RIM, and by how much, which are entirely different questions. As an example, consumers may have tired somewhat of Windows, and there's no question that some are shifting to (or back to) Macintosh. But Mac still has <10% market share worldwide, so the shift isn't exactly a revolution. Apple's resurgence has been on the back of its entry into new markets, not its comebacks in old ones.

    Also, I don't really agree that RIM's struggles are the result of user fatigue, in large part because even RIM's most successful quarter in terms of devices sales is still millions short of Apple's best quarter. This kind of evidence suggests that RIM's issue really isn't moving devices, but rather an inability to hold its market position.

    *Consumer choices are fickle, and the fanboys even more so.
    Ah. Well in that case, maybe RIM shouldn't change anything, and instead simply wait for consumers to swing back their way. It kinda seems like that's what they've been doing for the last couple years anyway, so it wouldn't exactly be a huge policy shift.

    Let iOS and Android mature and enter enterprise market, then lets see how quickly they can reinvent themselves every six months. Once they wont be able to do so, users will search out new products.
    Neither Apple bore Google will ever be RIM in the enterprise market. At the same time, RIM will never again be the RIM of 2006 in enterprise, mostly because the competition is no longer Windows Mobile or Palm (which have since been revealed as platforms that completely collapsed once real players entered the field).

    If you really believe any reasonable person is suggesting that RIM reinvent itself every six months (or that Apple and Google have ever done so), I don't know what to say to you. I do know that I read often on these forums that the iPhone "really hasn't changed" since it launched 4.5 years ago, which of course is a lot longer than 6 months, and though Android releases new devices almost daily I don't think anyone would claim it is transformed every six months. Instead, it appears you offered an arbitrary, obviously ridiculous standard and then said "A ha! See? RIM will rise again!" without a shred of evidence beyond your own opinion. You're a sharp guy; you must have better evidence than the luxury car market in India.
    kevinnugent and moiselles like this.
    12-19-11 01:36 PM
  19. sam_b77's Avatar
    Has there been any credible challenge to Apple and Windows in the PC OS market? That's your answer. Android and iOS are here to stay as the default mobile computing OS's. The only company that can make a third OS is Microsoft. Because they have all the money in the world to burn, and because they have the inside track on mobile integration into Windows.
    You have a point there. But I wouldn't say that there is absolutely 0 chance of a new player coming up.

    And again Microsoft forgot to innovate and fell way behind the mobile computing race. Apple made the iPod and iPhone because they were fighting for their survival. People laughed when Apple made a "lowly" MP3 Player. But they had their backs to the wall and innovated to survive.

    Meanwhile, microsoft was smoking up on their victory and completely missed the bus for smartphones and tablets. They are now the underdogs and are trying to catch up. I agree with you that MS can build something awesome, but only because they were forced to, just as Apples was forced.

    So RIM, back to the wall is a good thing. They will either innovate and make a great product or fade away. Either way the consumer wins.
    Laura Knotek likes this.
    12-19-11 01:43 PM
  20. sam_b77's Avatar
    They may very well "get bored" with iOS and Android, but that only gets you halfway there. We then have to ask whether they will shift toward RIM, and by how much, which are entirely different questions. As an example, consumers may have tired somewhat of Windows, and there's no question that some are shifting to (or back to) Macintosh. But Mac still has <10% market share worldwide, so the shift isn't exactly a revolution. Apple's resurgence has been on the back of its entry into new markets, not its comebacks in old ones.

    Also, I don't really agree that RIM's struggles are the result of user fatigue, in large part because even RIM's most successful quarter in terms of devices sales is still millions short of Apple's best quarter. This kind of evidence suggests that RIM's issue really isn't moving devices, but rather an inability to hold its market position.



    Ah. Well in that case, maybe RIM shouldn't change anything, and instead simply wait for consumers to swing back their way. It kinda seems like that's what they've been doing for the last couple years anyway, so it wouldn't exactly be a huge policy shift.



    Neither Apple bore Google will ever be RIM in the enterprise market. At the same time, RIM will never again be the RIM of 2006 in enterprise, mostly because the competition is no longer Windows Mobile or Palm (which have since been revealed as platforms that completely collapsed once real players entered the field).

    If you really believe any reasonable person is suggesting that RIM reinvent itself every six months (or that Apple and Google have ever done so), I don't know what to say to you. I do know that I read often on these forums that the iPhone "really hasn't changed" since it launched 4.5 years ago, which of course is a lot longer than 6 months, and though Android releases new devices almost daily I don't think anyone would claim it is transformed every six months. Instead, it appears you offered an arbitrary, obviously ridiculous standard and then said "A ha! See? RIM will rise again!" without a shred of evidence beyond your own opinion. You're a sharp guy; you must have better evidence than the luxury car market in India.
    I'm a sharp guy because I choose to go up against you . You took my words out of context. Maybe because I wasnt sufficiently elaborate.

    I dont claim that only boredom is the cause of RIM's troubles, but there is a definite anti-incumbency factor which plays here.

    The point I'm trying to make here is that a leader eventually stops innovating because they are afraid to rock the boat. In a way its good that Apple was nearly dead, and wasnkt afraid to explore areas which MS considered beneath them. Today MS is trying to claw back in a shifting computing market where they have little presence. Will MS bring out the next Magical product in Win 8? Who knows.Are they trying ...yes. And that try is simply because Apple and Android forced them to. Otherwise we would still be struggling with Vista.

    Same way RIM, reigning for so long didn't want to rock the boat. They dismissed touchscreens as failures because of Windows Phones and Palm. Apple showed something different. Android rose to the challenge and now its on RIM to rise up to the challenge. Of they dont they die, if they do, consumers get a good product which also forces a new round of innovation from Apple and Android.
    12-19-11 01:53 PM
  21. loneweasel's Avatar
    You have a point there. But I wouldn't say that there is absolutely 0 chance of a new player coming up.

    And again Microsoft forgot to innovate and fell way behind the mobile computing race. Apple made the iPod and iPhone because they were fighting for their survival. People laughed when Apple made a "lowly" MP3 Player. But they had their backs to the wall and innovated to survive.

    Meanwhile, microsoft was smoking up on their victory and completely missed the bus for smartphones and tablets. They are now the underdogs and are trying to catch up. I agree with you that MS can build something awesome, but only because they were forced to, just as Apples was forced.

    So RIM, back to the wall is a good thing. They will either innovate and make a great product or fade away. Either way the consumer wins.
    Microsoft can afford to fall behind in the mobile wars. Because it is a company with a hundred other products that do make money, it can tide over the cash burn necessary to resurrect Win Mobile, just like how they muscled into the game console business.

    RIM is in one business. It really only has three products, phones, BBM and BES. QNX doesn't have nearly the kind of power to stay in the race, especially with the additional delay scheduled recently.
    12-19-11 01:57 PM
  22. qbnkelt's Avatar
    Don't underestimate BES, especially with Fusion and BYOD.
    12-19-11 02:02 PM
  23. sam_b77's Avatar
    Microsoft can afford to fall behind in the mobile wars. Because it is a company with a hundred other products that do make money, it can tide over the cash burn necessary to resurrect Win Mobile, just like how they muscled into the game console business.

    RIM is in one business. It really only has three products, phones, BBM and BES. QNX doesn't have nearly the kind of power to stay in the race, especially with the additional delay scheduled recently.
    Again I agree with your points.

    But will you bet your life savings that RIM's efforts will be useless and they will come up to nought?. If you are that sure, short RIMM for every penny you have and any leverage you can get. You will make a ton of money.

    My point here is simply that you cannot count RIM out till the shutters have been brought down in Waterloo. Till then its wait and watch. Maybe your scenario plays out or maybe it doesn't.
    12-19-11 02:04 PM
  24. brucep1's Avatar
    It's sad that this is completely true.
    12-19-11 02:06 PM
  25. anon(757282)'s Avatar
    Palm was here to stay to stay too, until they weren't. Depends on your business plan and that of your competitors.

    In the phone and tablet market there is lots of volatility, and huge market growth potential. No company today has a lock on the future, even Apple. You think the iphone is the last great smart-mobile-phone-comouter? No way. There are visions for new devices and operating strategies out there that you could not guess. Remember, the Patent office closed over 100 years ago saying they saw no more inventions down the road. We still have keyboards that require typing (even in iphone), and a universe of apps that don't even look the same or have a common interface, MUCH less work with each other to know what you really want, not the limited function each app provides. We have nav apps, but the phone cannot drive your car, control your house, or manage your network security and backup program.

    The world is wide open for this growth in market and capabilities. The future is a lock for no one. RIM has substantial global market share and a track record of fine high quality, if not cutting edge products. They are in a good position to implement their short-term development program, and certainly have the motivation to do so as swiftly as they can.
    BlackStormRising likes this.
    12-19-11 02:07 PM
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