1. vlade31's Avatar
    RIM Director: Our New CEO Isn�t a Moron Like the Rest of You

    via All Things D
    RIM Director: Our New CEO Isn't a Moron Like the Rest of You - John Paczkowski - Mobile - AllThingsD

    Research In Motion�s leadership change was a long time coming, not because its former co-CEOs refused to cede power, but because there was no one inside the company or out who was capable of running it properly � until now.
    Seriously?
    Seriously, says RIM director Roger Martin, who scoffs at anyone who argues that the strategic missteps that left RIM in the sorry state it�s in today might have been avoided had RIM appointed a new CEO sooner. Until newly appointed CEO Thorsten Heins stepped up a few months back, there was no one qualified to do that.
    Just infants and idiots and the critics calling for RIM to hire one of them.
    �So we�re supposed to hand it over to children, or morons from the outside who will destroy the company?� Martin told the Globe and Mail. �Or should we try to build our way to having succession? � I laugh at the vast majority of critics when they say �Oh, you should have made this CEO transition, like, four years ago.� Yeah, right � like, to who?�
    Oh, I dunno. Someone less myopic than the company�s previous leadership. Someone less complacent, someone who didn�t have their head in the sand when Apple�s iOS and Google�s Android first began to emerge as a threat back in 2007 � or at least pulled it out before 2011. Someone capable of infusing RIM with the culture of innovation it so sorely lacks?
    But evidently that�s just too difficult for an entrenched RIM insider like Martin to see.
    To be fair, Martin � who also serves as dean of business at the University of Toronto � does concede that RIM�s former co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie had made mistakes. But he insists that ousting them earlier would have been sheer folly. �People just don�t understand the depth of understanding these guys have of their business, the connections,� Martin said. �[Critics] ask �Why can�t you be more like Apple?� So we should go bankrupt and fire our founders and bring in a moron? That�s what we should do?�
    Have I mentioned Martin is dean of U of T�s Rotman School of Management?
    Anyway �
    I think it�s safe to say that no one is suggesting RIM appoint an imbecile CEO. What they are saying is that RIM has lost its competitive edge, that its stock is a falling knife after an abysmal 2011, and that they have little faith in the management team responsible � a team that will continue to dictate the company�s course going forward.
    Bringing in a moron at this point would be sheer folly.
    Clearly, the company�s got one too many to deal with already.
    kevinnugent, i7guy and batboris like this.
    02-13-12 10:04 AM
  2. missing_K-W's Avatar
    Congratulations to All Things D.....For yet taking another article out of context.....
    02-13-12 11:49 AM
  3. app_Developer's Avatar
    Congratulations to All Things D.....For yet taking another article out of context.....
    How is it out of context exactly?
    02-13-12 12:57 PM
  4. anthogag's Avatar
    I seriously doubt a business Dean at a University would allude to Apple's Jobs as a moron...I see red flags with the quality of this article...this journalist is all-things-D-bag
    Last edited by anthogag; 02-13-12 at 01:25 PM.
    02-13-12 12:59 PM
  5. Economist101's Avatar
    How is it out of context exactly?
    Also, how's it possible to take an entire article out of context? I get it if it's alleged that a quote from within an article is taken out of context, but I fail to appreciate how an article titled "Roger Martin: Defying RIM's critics" was "taken out of context" in the allthingsD report.

    I seriously doubt a business Dean at a University would allude to Apple's Jobs as a moron...I see red flags with the quality of this article...this journalist is a D-bag
    On the contrary, if "Apple's Jobs" had taken Apple on a similar path to RIM as of late, there would be a list of people calling him a moron, Business Deans and forum commenters alike.
    02-13-12 01:06 PM
  6. Sith_Apprentice's Avatar
    I seriously doubt a business Dean at a University would allude to Apple's Jobs as a moron...I see red flags with the quality of this article...this journalist is a D-bag

    I believe he was referring to jobs being fired, then the board hiring a moron before bringing jobs back.
    02-13-12 01:07 PM
  7. missing_K-W's Avatar
    How is it out of context exactly?
    The articles headline should answer your question....The highly saturated nature of US media and the competitive environment leads to so many sensationalized and over dramatized articles serculating in the US.....I guess honor in media is put aside through dramatic means of generating page views.
    02-13-12 01:08 PM
  8. undone's Avatar
    The articles headline should answer your question....The highly saturated nature of US media and the competitive environment leads to so many sensationalized and over dramatized articles serculating in the US.....I guess honor in media is put aside through dramatic means of generating page views.
    Well you can only report on Apple stock breaking 500 and Samsung being sue (again) by Apple so many times. RIM articles/comments of this nature are well...non-news. At least make up some wild stuff and make it fun. Like Cisco and RIM are going to merge. See, now isnt that completely insane...or is it???
    missing_K-W likes this.
    02-13-12 01:16 PM
  9. app_Developer's Avatar
    The articles headline should answer your question.....
    It doesn't answer my question, really.

    Martin said that the only choices RIM had for CEO were an insider they were grooming, or children and morons from outside. He scoffs at the idea that a CEO change should have been made earlier, and totally dismisses the idea that there are intelligent executives outside of RIM that could have been recruited.

    Paczkowski is pointing out that outside of RIM there are actually lots of people who are not children or morons, and that RIM would have been better off getting someone from the outside earlier to arrest their decline earlier.

    So how is this out of context again?
    Shlooky likes this.
    02-13-12 01:16 PM
  10. app_Developer's Avatar
    I seriously doubt a business Dean at a University would allude to Apple's Jobs as a moron...I see red flags with the quality of this article...this journalist is a D-bag
    Did Paczkowski say that Martin was referring to Jobs?
    02-13-12 01:19 PM
  11. southlander's Avatar
    I believe he was referring to jobs being fired, then the board hiring a moron before bringing jobs back.

    Exactly. The last so called moron if you will, was Gil Amelio. Apple at that point was destroying themselves by licensing the OS to third party hardware makers.

    Sent from my BlackBerry 9850 using Tapatalk
    02-13-12 01:21 PM
  12. OMGitworks's Avatar
    Is Mr. Martin still on the board? Whether or not the article is sensationalized or not, assuming he is properly quoted, then HE IS PART OF THE PROBLEM. He's fiddling, while RIM is burning.

    EDIT: Reading the "full" article makes me feel even worse about this guy and his still being on the board.
    Last edited by OMGitworks; 02-13-12 at 02:28 PM.
    kevinnugent likes this.
    02-13-12 01:28 PM
  13. anthogag's Avatar
    I believe he was referring to jobs being fired, then the board hiring a moron before bringing jobs back.
    I forgot they hired Skulley, the Pepsi executive, and then later Jobs replaced him...
    02-13-12 01:30 PM
  14. CDM76's Avatar
    Here is the ORIGINAL Globe and Mail article refered to in this thread. The interview with Martin was originally conducted with Globe and Mail staff.

    Roger Martin: Defying RIM’s critics - The Globe and Mail

    ----------------------
    Five years ago, Roger Martin, the influential dean of business at University of Toronto, answered a call for help from Jim Balsillie.

    As half of the leadership duo at Research In Motion Ltd., (RIM-T14.94-0.52-3.36%) Mr. Balsillie was anxious to restore the reputation of Canada’s high-tech darling, then mired in an options back-dating scandal.

    Mr. Martin became a RIM director, bolstering a weakened board, and the options scandal faded. But the upheaval swirling around the high-profile company has only intensified.

    Today, the 55-year-old is part of a RIM board under fire, facing criticism from investors and analysts who say it failed to take the dramatic steps needed to stem the decline of the Waterloo, Ont., maker of the BlackBerry smartphone.

    The combative Mr. Martin forcefully rejects that view, challenging the notion that last month’s resignations of the embattled Mr. Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis as co-CEOs and chairmen was a case of too little, too late.

    “I laugh at the vast majority of critics when they say ‘Oh, you should have made this CEO transition, like, four years ago.’ Yeah, right – like, to who?” Mr. Martin scoffs over lunch at Mideastro, a favourite restaurant in Toronto’s Yorkville.

    In a rare outpouring of candour by a RIM director, he heaps scorn on the notion that the board should have hired a star outsider to re-energize RIM – a strategy that, he points out, failed abysmally at other stumbling tech giants, including Dell, Hewlett-Packard and, in its troubled 1980s, the now seemingly flawless Apple.

    “So we’re supposed to hand it over to children, or morons from the outside who will destroy the company?” he says. “Or should we try to build our way to having succession?”

    It was only late last fall, he says, that a RIM executive, Thorsten Heins, clearly emerged as the next leader – and it was the co-CEOs who pulled the trigger on the internal transition.

    Mr. Martin has come to lunch to talk about his life as dean of U of T’s Rotman School of Management, where, having left a lucrative consulting career, he has served for 13-and-a-half years, built a formidable academic brand, and emerged as one of the world’s leading management thinkers.

    But today, he is distracted by two pressing issues – the Super Bowl loss by his beloved New England Patriots and the fate of RIM, a company perceived to have lost its way in the smartphone market, causing its stock price to plunge.

    In his defence of RIM, and in his role as dean, he appears as defiantly determined as Patriots coach Bill Belichik, with whom, he believes, he shares a willingness to embrace contrarian strategies, and overcome the skepticism of detractors.

    He also echoes Mr. Belichik’s disdain for certain critics, with Mr. Martin reserving his most withering contempt for those he derisively labels “geniuses,” who urged the recruitment of an outsider to break up the long-running team of Mr. Balsillie and Mr. Lazaridis.

    He says when he came aboard, the RIM leaders were still absorbed in building the company founded by Mr. Lazaridis, which had gone from zero to $10-billion in revenues in less than 15 years. As they coped with stunning growth, they were scrambling to build management depth.

    At that point, “If we were to say to Jim and Mike, ‘Well, we’re the board and you should go away now,’ they would have laughed at us.” There was no one internally or externally who could have replaced them, he says.

    That was the situation until the fall of 2011, when Mr. Heins, having joined the company in 2007 and shown he could master both hardware and software operations, emerged as a proven talent with the respect internally to lead the company.

    Mr. Martin agrees the two ex-CEOs made mistakes, particularly in the U.S. market for smartphones, where Apple and Google-based products have stolen the BlackBerry’s thunder. And he concedes the board failed to push for more marketing muscle in anticipation of serious competition.

    The BlackBerry had been the undisputed leader in handheld devices, and thus was able to sell itself in the period before strong alternatives emerged. “What would have been optimal is having the sales and marketing capability in place before that transition happened,” he admits.

    He also says he was forever urging RIM to consider the importance of the browser experience on the BlackBerry, which was seen as less than stellar.

    Mr. Lazaridis in particular was obsessed with his devices being efficient in their use of wireless networks, while more powerful smartphones coming on the market gobbled up huge chunks of bandwidth.

    “People were saying we can’t make powerful phones like Apple. Yes, we can, but we couldn’t believe consumers would put up with that kind of battery inefficiency and that kind of network inefficiency.”

    Still, he has little patience with calls to be more like Apple. He points out that Apple dismissed its own co-founder Steve Jobs in the mid-1980s in favour of an outside marketing specialist, only to bring Mr. Jobs back, laying the foundation for its current exalted status.

    “They ask ‘Why can’t you be more like Apple?’ So we should go bankrupt and fire our founders and bring in a moron? That’s what we should do?” Mr. Martin says.

    He is also dismissive of analysts who would scrap RIM’s integrated business model, getting out of hardware and licensing its software. That was the tack taken by successors to Apple’s Mr. Jobs, but when he returned to the fold, he reinstated the integrated platform.

    “So that is what the geniuses who have all these clever thoughts about business models are saying – and a big piece of me just laughs: Have you no memory? Do you not even think?”

    Before joining U of T, Mr. Martin, a Harvard MBA, spent 13 years as a management consultant. He still advises select companies, including long-time client Procter & Gamble Co. When his Rotman term ends in two years, he would consider staying on as a senior scholar or running a foundation, while continuing to write books and advise companies.

    But RIM is top of mind now, and he insists the board did not present an ultimatum to the co-CEOs to resign – they made the decision on their own over the Christmas break.

    But surely the slumping share price, despite a robust return on equity, advanced that decision? “You can think what you want to think. I think we are trying to manage the company as well as possible – and there’s a whole lot of reasons to take this next step.”

    The product pipeline looked strong, a qualified successor was ready to take over and the two builders were tired of the “brutal” pace, he maintains. Mr. Balsillie told him the day after he resigned, he had his first good night’s sleep in about 20 years.

    The tricky aspect, he says, was the former bosses deciding what they wanted to do. They decided to stay on as directors, while former banker Barbara Stymiest replaced them as board chair. Their continuing presence has raised concerns that Mr. Heins may not chart an independent course.

    If Mr. Heins had wanted the two off the board, they might have left, but that was not the new CEO’s wish, Mr. Martin says. “And people just don’t understand the depth of understanding these guys have of their business, the connections, whatever.” Mr. Lazaridis, he says, “is a genius – so having him off the board would be a good idea?”

    The two former CEOs are about more than RIM. Mr. Balsillie founded a global policy institute and pursued hockey teams; Mr. Lazaridis built a physics research hothouse. Had they become distracted when the company needed their full attention?

    “I just don’t buy that,” says Mr. Martin, arguing that the outside interests energized the two. “We’re all human beings – they’re not automatons.”

    Mr. Martin is himself the master multi-tasker, who juggles consulting, writing, tennis and running Canada’s top-ranked business school. He could be talking about himself when he says of Mr. Balsillie and Mr. Lazaridis: “They need their passions. I think it makes them better.”
    02-13-12 01:34 PM
  15. CDM76's Avatar
    And here is Time magazine article .... also refers to Martin's interview originally being with Globe and Mail

    RIM Director to BlackBerry Critics: No, You’re the Idiots | Techland | TIME.com

    -------------------
    RIM
    RIM Director to BlackBerry Critics: No, You’re the Idiots
    By HARRY MCCRACKEN | @harrymccracken | February 13, 2012 |
    1

    inShare
    9

    RESEARCH IN MOTION
    Roger Martin, the dean of the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, is also a board member of BlackBerry maker RIM. And in an interview with the Globe and Mail’s Gordon Pitts, he’s anything but sheepish about the challenges that RIM currently faces.


    Let’s see. Martin says that people who argued for ousting longtime co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie believed RIM should turn itself over “to children, or morons from the outside who will destroy the company.” He mocks outsiders who argue that RIM should split up its hardware and software business as “geniuses.”

    Okay, he thinks that pundits are dopes. We get that. If I worked at RIM, I’d probably be prickly myself. But Martin also seems to say that the customers who have opted for iPhones over BlackBerries over the past half-decade are clueless:

    People were saying we can’t make powerful phones like Apple. Yes, we can, but we couldn’t believe consumers would put up with that kind of battery inefficiency and that kind of network inefficiency.
    Bad consumers! Bad, bad consumers!

    Martin’s stance appears to confirm the conventional wisdom that RIM simply didn’t understand the iPhone after Steve Jobs announced it in January 2007. Rather than ensuring a bright future, the company’s enormous success and obvious competence in the smartphone world left it unable to identify a sea change when it saw one. That’s a powerful case study for an institution such as the Rotman School of Management right there.

    Martin does acknowledge some mistakes on RIM’s part, but like other company execs, he seems to think that weak marketing, rather than weak products, has hobbled the company in recent years–as if better ads would have made the BlackBerry PlayBook a winner. Which is yet another instance of RIM being unable to face the possibility that it’s lost its ability to build devices that the savviest businessfolk and consumers will crave.

    Along with Lazaridis, Balsillie, and new CEO Thorsten Heins, Martin is a RIM insider whose public pronouncements don’t provide much evidence that he understands the present and future of the smartphone industry. But at this point, no chatter about RIM matters much. It’s the upcoming next-generation BlackBerry models that will talk for the company. And they’ll say one of two things: either that RIM is back on track in a big way, or that it still doesn’t get it.



    Read more: RIM Director to BlackBerry Critics: No, You’re the Idiots | Techland | TIME.com
    02-13-12 01:36 PM
  16. missing_K-W's Avatar
    It doesn't answer my question, really.

    Martin said that the only choices RIM had for CEO were an insider they were grooming, or children and morons from outside. He scoffs at the idea that a CEO change should have been made earlier, and totally dismisses the idea that there are intelligent executives outside of RIM that could have been recruited.

    Paczkowski is pointing out that outside of RIM there are actually lots of people who are not children or morons, and that RIM would have been better off getting someone from the outside earlier to arrest their decline earlier.

    So how is this out of context again?
    Well to begin. Mike and Jim over the past 4 years were fully committed to assembling the pieces necessary to transform RIM into a mobile computing/software company. We see the results of the now through the QNX, TAT acquisitions etc. What many fail to realize is that Mike was utilizing his visionary capacity when he was acquiring the premier software companies in their respective fields. I personally don't see how a CEO change prior to Jan of this year would have helped bring RIM to a new position. I believe Mike and Jim deserve more credit then they get as unlike Nokia and Microsoft, they didn't simply abandon the platform. Not too mention remain highly profitable and still achieve tremendous global growth

    RIM has obtained the premier software companies globally in their respective fields.People fail to realize the intrinsic, indirect nature of how Mike and Jim were transitioning RIM to a new platform while still retaining growth on their current burning platform. No other tech company in history has achieved growth on an old platform while transitioning to a new platform. The only successful transition was Apple moving to OSX and iOS, but this came from the result of a collapsed financial situation and the result of 3rd party introversion.

    Lastly RIM is a very unique case.RIM is a very broad,extensive, and deep integrated solution. The only mobile company providing hardware, software and NOC etc. How long would it take for a neophyte CEO to come into the company....Adapt, understand, and develop a vision for the company, while still maintaining growth on a dying platform and transitioning the company to become one of or if not the "premier hardware /software company", in less then 3 years time?????

    It isn't fair to suggest Mike L and JIM B should have been ousted as CEO's for many reasons. Some of them include the fact we haven't experienced their vision of BB10, and no other tech company has successfully transitioned a platform while still remaining profitable and achieving tremendous international growth.

    It's very easy to adopt a change is necessary(CEO), RIM should be taken over mentality.....However we need to go beyond that and really unearth the realities of what was required and actually being achieved over the past few years.

    RIM was the pioneer of the Smartphone revolution. Apple and Google had the luxury of being late comers to the scene. However RIM is in the position Apple and Google were in the middle to early part of the last decade having the luxury of being on the outside looking in to be able to innovate on what was the current state of the art in mobile computing /communications. Being in the position to innovate on what Apple,Google and Microsoft have currently exhibited as the current state the art. RIM now has superior technology to that of their competitors. Anyone in the know, will agree with this.
    Last edited by missing_K-W; 02-13-12 at 02:54 PM.
    kbz1960, drjay868 and rjshahan like this.
    02-13-12 02:27 PM
  17. NJPhilliesPhan's Avatar
    Comments like the ones made by the Director of RIM are not only unprofessional but show the deep rooted mentality that has led RIM to its crippled state. They need visionaries and not people that will use "marketing" as an excuse. The problem is they produced products that consumers did not want, plain and simple.
    kevinnugent likes this.
    02-13-12 02:52 PM
  18. Economist101's Avatar
    It isn't fair to suggest Mike L and JIM B should have been ousted as CEO's for many reasons. Some of them include the fact we haven't experienced their vision of BB10, and no other tech company has successfully transitioned a platform while still remaining profitable and achieving tremendous international growth.
    Incorrect; you could argue that MS does this every time they offer a new iteration of Windows, and Apple switched from PowerPC to Intel without a lot of trouble. You have to remember that the case for RIM is actually stronger if others have done it before; if others haven't, the likelihood that RIM is going to successfully blaze the trail doesn't seem to high.

    RIM was the pioneer of the Smartphone revolution.
    RIM was one of several players who combined to create the smartphone. Saying that RIM was "the" pioneer of the smartphone is like claiming Apple "pioneered" the GUI; "people in the know" are considered "in the know" because they know better. Of course, whatever role Apple had in the implementation of the desktop GUI didn't allow them to maintain marketshare when Windows started drinking the Mac's milkshake. Even today, the Mac has never really made it back.
    Shlooky likes this.
    02-13-12 02:57 PM
  19. alnamvet68's Avatar
    RIM Director: Our New CEO Isn’t a Moron Like the Rest of You

    via All Things D
    RIM Director: Our New CEO Isn't a Moron Like the Rest of You - John Paczkowski - Mobile - AllThingsD

    Research In Motion’s leadership change was a long time coming, not because its former co-CEOs refused to cede power, but because there was no one inside the company or out who was capable of running it properly — until now.
    Seriously?
    Seriously, says RIM director Roger Martin, who scoffs at anyone who argues that the strategic missteps that left RIM in the sorry state it’s in today might have been avoided had RIM appointed a new CEO sooner. Until newly appointed CEO Thorsten Heins stepped up a few months back, there was no one qualified to do that.
    Just infants and idiots and the critics calling for RIM to hire one of them.
    “So we’re supposed to hand it over to children, or morons from the outside who will destroy the company?” Martin told the Globe and Mail. “Or should we try to build our way to having succession? … I laugh at the vast majority of critics when they say ‘Oh, you should have made this CEO transition, like, four years ago.’ Yeah, right — like, to who?”
    Oh, I dunno. Someone less myopic than the company’s previous leadership. Someone less complacent, someone who didn’t have their head in the sand when Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android first began to emerge as a threat back in 2007 — or at least pulled it out before 2011. Someone capable of infusing RIM with the culture of innovation it so sorely lacks?
    But evidently that’s just too difficult for an entrenched RIM insider like Martin to see.
    To be fair, Martin — who also serves as dean of business at the University of Toronto — does concede that RIM’s former co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie had made mistakes. But he insists that ousting them earlier would have been sheer folly. “People just don’t understand the depth of understanding these guys have of their business, the connections,” Martin said. “[Critics] ask ‘Why can’t you be more like Apple?’ So we should go bankrupt and fire our founders and bring in a moron? That’s what we should do?”
    Have I mentioned Martin is dean of U of T’s Rotman School of Management?
    Anyway …
    I think it’s safe to say that no one is suggesting RIM appoint an imbecile CEO. What they are saying is that RIM has lost its competitive edge, that its stock is a falling knife after an abysmal 2011, and that they have little faith in the management team responsible — a team that will continue to dictate the company’s course going forward.
    Bringing in a moron at this point would be sheer folly.
    Clearly, the company’s got one too many to deal with already.


    Well, I guess RIM isn't going to be doing any head hunting here in CB.
    02-13-12 03:00 PM
  20. missing_K-W's Avatar
    Incorrect; you could argue that MS does this every time they offer a new iteration of Windows, and Apple switched from PowerPC to Intel without a lot of trouble. You have to remember that the case for RIM is actually stronger if others have done it before; if others haven't, the likelihood that RIM is going to successfully blaze the trail doesn't seem to high.



    RIM was one of several players who combined to create the smartphone. Saying that RIM was "the" pioneer of the smartphone is like claiming Apple "pioneered" the GUI; "people in the know" are considered "in the know" because they know better. Of course, whatever role Apple had in the implementation of the desktop GUI didn't allow them to maintain marketshare when Windows started drinking the Mac's milkshake. Even today, the Mac has never really made it back.
    Do to the dualistic nature of debating and the infinite possibilities of defending what side of the argument one is on. I have solidified my position. I am aware of where others stand in their views, and I clearly will exhibit mine from the comments and opinions I express. There is no clearly defined right/wrong in this instance. Hence I will affirm the dualism on this debate. Feel free to express your "intelligence and wisdom" on your side of this topic.
    alnamvet68 likes this.
    02-13-12 03:09 PM
  21. DenverRalphy's Avatar
    Well to begin. Mike and Jim over the past 4 years were fully committed to assembling the pieces necessary to transform RIM into a mobile computing/software company.
    What?

    You're obviously very naive. Beginning as far back as 2006 RIM was reluctant to even add telephony capabilities to their BB devices when at the time BB was nothing more than an email/messaging device. They had never been committed to making it a full computing device until after Apple had already done it, and even then RIM trash talked the idea stating that the iPhone would never succeed. Not until a year or more after other platforms well exceeded what BB was doing, did they even realize or attempt what their limited platform had potential to do. I remember the days when BB users were clamoring for their BB's to have phones in them. And at the time RIM didn't think it was needed. That alone was an indication of the short-sightedness of RIM.

    RIM has had a long history of deciding for themselves what would be needed on behalf of the consumers, instead of providing what the consumers have asked for. At the inception, RIM provided what nobody else was doing. And that worked out great initially... only as long as nobody else was in the game. The moment others jumped into the game, the game changed, and RIM has since been struggling to keep up.
    Last edited by rmjones101; 02-13-12 at 04:41 PM.
    Shlooky, kevinnugent and sosumi11 like this.
    02-13-12 04:38 PM
  22. missing_K-W's Avatar
    What?

    You're obviously very naive. Beginning as far back as 2006 RIM was reluctant to even add telephony capabilities to their BB devices when at the time BB was nothing more than an email/messaging device. They had never been committed to making it a full computing device until after Apple had already done it, and even then RIM trash talked the idea stating that the iPhone would never succeed. Not until a year or more after other platforms well exceeded what BB was doing, did they even realize or attempt what their limited platform had potential to do. I remember the days when BB users were clamoring for their BB's to have phones in them. And at the time RIM didn't think it was needed. That alone was an indication of the short-sightedness of RIM.

    RIM has had a long history of deciding for themselves what would be needed on behalf of the consumers, instead of providing what the consumers have asked for. At the inception, RIM provided what nobody else was doing. And that worked out great initially... only as long as nobody else was in the game. The moment others jumped into the game, the game changed, and RIM has since been struggling to keep up.
    That may have been the case in 2006, however I clearly stated the past 4 years(post 2008)....You should edit your comment to be in that time frame.

    Had I mentioned RIM being committed the past 6 years to becoming a mobile computing software company.I could value your opinion much more. We are currently in 2012, with RIM bringing out a more capable platform then the competition. Argue against that as much as you like. IMHO RIM's new platform is much more capable, and in hindsight it is ok to be late, as long as you are ahead. I notice you currently have an Android device. I currently have a BB device as RIM's platform is much more geared towards my needs. Thanks.

    In the future when you begin a comment with "What?.....You are obviously very naive", as you did....It leaves the impression that your opinion is much more special and of much more significance. Opinions are just that...opinions...and are to be held on an equal footing. That leaves much to be desired.
    Last edited by missing_K-W; 02-13-12 at 05:12 PM.
    02-13-12 04:56 PM
  23. DenverRalphy's Avatar
    That may have been the case in 2006, however I clearly stated the past 4 years(post 2008)....You should edit your comment to be in that time frame.
    Yes... you did indeed clearly state "the past 4 years". However, RIM has continued the same trend to this day. Hence the reason so many of the BB loyal are disgusted to this day that they're still getting the same treatment from RIM, and don't like seeing it reflected in the "biased media".
    02-13-12 04:59 PM
  24. kbz1960's Avatar
    Do to the dualistic nature of debating and the infinite possibilities of defending what side of the argument one is on. I have solidified my position. I am aware of where others stand in their views, and I clearly will exhibit mine from the comments and opinions I express. There is no clearly defined right/wrong in this instance. Hence I will affirm the dualism on this debate. Feel free to express your "intelligence and wisdom" on your side of this topic.
    I have to congratulate you. In all that you said economist could only pick out 2 little things to tell you that you wrong about!

    The only thing I think is they shouldn't be using words like morons if it was a professional setting.
    missing_K-W and maddie1128 like this.
    02-13-12 05:56 PM
  25. phoreoneone's Avatar
    Comments like the ones made by the Director of RIM are not only unprofessional but show the deep rooted mentality that has led RIM to its crippled state. They need visionaries and not people that will use "marketing" as an excuse. The problem is they produced products that consumers did not want, plain and simple.
    i agree! well stated! rim deserves everything that has, and is, headed there way
    Last edited by phoreoneone; 02-15-12 at 02:08 AM.
    02-13-12 07:21 PM
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