[jd914]

After todays bleak earnings news and BB10 delay, does TH get your stamp of approval?


edit: just for the record I didn't put the He is doing the best with what M&J left him on the poll, that was edited in by the powers to be.

[berklon]

The problem is beyond this one guy.

This company is cancerous right down to it's core. No one person is going to fix anything.

[ptpete]

It's too early to say. He did the right thing cutting 5,000. Under normal circumstances, Wall street would have liked this news (Less for you = More for me). Unfortunately this "good move" is negated by the BB10 delay and poor media portrayal.

He needs to strategically whack the shorts and negative Wall Street. He has to engineer a whack and make it risky to "be short". Ie he needs to surprise to the upside and clock the shorts. Once there's a taste to make $$ on the upside, the Wall Street lemmings will flip and chase the other way.

[bbmme]

I like him, I just wish he was canadian lol. I know dumb reasoning eh

[anthogag]

Thorsten is the CEO, this is his first failure.

Moving the launch date into 2013 should've been taboo

They should release a stripped-down version of what they're trying to accomplish, put it on the high spec dev alpha and give us software updates. They could call it BlackBerry Alpha.

IMO, this is better than nothing at all until next year

[ayekon]

Allowing Playbook owners to sign up for BB10 Alpha and also allow downgrading to PBOS would be a nice way to instill some confidence...

[needforbbx]

They might as well launched with the Alpha. Bold 9900 was last Aug-Sept. With this news, there will be no new hardware (excluding curve line) for over a year.

[sleepngbear]

Thorsten is the CEO, this is his first failure.

This isn't his failure. Maybe it happened under his watch, but there's no way in h3ll you can drop this in his lap.

They should release a stripped-down version of what they're trying to accomplish, put it on the high spec dev alpha and give us software updates. They could call it BlackBerry Alpha.

IMO, this is better than nothing at all until next year

Absolutely not. It would be another PlayBook all over again. I can hear the cries of 'another half-baked product from RIM' eating at the depths of every fiber of my being. No way.

Push BB7's for the time being, especially since they recently got FIPS certification. Maximize what they can with what they've got, and don't drop BB10 until it is 100% ready for prime time.

[anthogag]

This isn't his failure. Maybe it happened under his watch, but there's no way in h3ll you can drop this in his lap.



Absolutely not. It would be another PlayBook all over again. I can hear the cries of 'another half-baked product from RIM' eating at the depths of every fiber of my being. No way.

Push BB7's for the time being, especially since they recently got FIPS certification. Maximize what they can with what they've got, and don't drop BB10 until it is 100% ready for prime time.

Yes you're right, we can wait a few extra months

[SnoozerBold]

At this point I don't think it matters who's in charge.

[SnoozerBold]

Also they need to use a new photo of him. That's the same pic I see of him in all the time in every article and that blackberry is old and outdated. It's not really.up to him but he should try and get his photo taken with the 9900 more offers.

[amazinglygraceless]

edit: just for the record I didn't put the He is doing the best with what M&J left him on the poll, that was edited in by the powers to be.

This begs the question, what would the poll results look like had the choices not been
altered from your original version?

This isn't his failure. Maybe it happened under his watch, but there's no way in h3ll you can drop this in his lap.

Yes Bear, you certainly can. While he was not in charge while this decline started he is in charge
now. In the time he has been in charge he has known about the issues with this device and still
represented to the press, the public, the developers and anyone else in earshot that all was well
when clearly it wasn't.

I don't know if it was fear of getting trashed in the press or the threat of users leaving en masse
that lead to the less than honest representations of where things stood but THAT does actually
lay directly at Mr Heins' feet.It's not like he's new to RIM and he sure as h3ll didn't rise in
rank yesterday.

[grover5]

This begs the question, what would the poll results look like had the choices not been
altered from your original version?



Yes Bear, you certainly can. While he was not in charge while this decline started he is in charge
now. In the time he has been in charge he has known about the issues with this device and still
represented to the press, the public, the developers and anyone else in earshot that all was well
when clearly it wasn't.

I don't know if it was fear of getting trashed in the press or the threat of users leaving en masse
that lead to the less than honest representations of where things stood but THAT does actually
lay directly at Mr Heins' feet.It's not like he's new to RIM and he sure as h3ll didn't rise in
rank yesterday.

I agree with what you're saying in theory but I do think there is a chance that during his restructure he developed a better understanding of how deep the problems were from a development position. He had to stay with the date he had in the winter before he knew it wouldn't work. So he adjusted the date once his streamlining exposed the depths of the redundancy and stagnation.

Everything is micro analyzed at this point so even an understandable delay under a complete restructure is an excuse to say nothing has changed. I see change though in both energy and philosophy. I'll give him this mulligan.

[Majestic Lion]

The question I'm forced to ponder is "just how screwy were things when Heins took charge that this stuff is still going on now?" In fairness though, that's not the whole of it.

The claim that he "wants things to be perfect" stood out to me. While I can appreciate the famed German zeal for perfection and attention to detail, this isn't BMW. There hasn't ever been a perfect mobile platform at launch. Never. You put out a solid platform and give yourself a good foundation to build on for a few years. So that reason seems a bit out of place in the smartphone world.

We'll see what develops.

[sportline]

as an old guard he got the potential of driving rim faster.
but
1)apparently he inspires no confidence from investor/shareholders...most probably past experience/portofolio is not good enough.
2) rim is just too bad a shape - turf war, slow, too entrenched/localised (all in waterloo). i wouldn't set my headoffice in a place called water loo

[bk1022]

Don't buy anything Thorsten says. He's not an outsider, he knew what was going on, or should have. Instead of hosting BS jam sessions, he personally should have been negotiating with carriers some sort of rebate/exchange program to get OS7 phones into people's hands now with the aim to flip them into BB10 phones later for low cost. They can sell refurbished OS7 phones in Asia.

RIM is still acting like its amateur hour. Maybe Thorsten should go visit the Edmonton School Board and chat about late assignments.

[kfh227]

I look at everything he is doing.

BIG: He is moving to Lean manufacturing. That is huge compared to the old way of doing business.

And he is keeping his eyes on BB10. I'm sure there is to pay inside RIMM for forcing him to make this delay.

[sleepngbear]

Don't buy anything Thorsten says. He's not an outsider, he knew what was going on, or should have. Instead of hosting BS jam sessions, he personally should have been negotiating with carriers some sort of rebate/exchange program to get OS7 phones into people's hands now with the aim to flip them into BB10 phones later for low cost. They can sell refurbished OS7 phones in Asia.

RIM is still acting like its amateur hour. Maybe Thorsten should go visit the Edmonton School Board and chat about late assignments.

And maybe you should go attend a business class or two and understand something about what his job is before yammering on and on about how poorly he's doing it.

[sleepngbear]

This begs the question, what would the poll results look like had the choices not been
altered from your original version?



Yes Bear, you certainly can. While he was not in charge while this decline started he is in charge
now. In the time he has been in charge he has known about the issues with this device and still
represented to the press, the public, the developers and anyone else in earshot that all was well
when clearly it wasn't.

I don't know if it was fear of getting trashed in the press or the threat of users leaving en masse
that lead to the less than honest representations of where things stood but THAT does actually
lay directly at Mr Heins' feet.It's not like he's new to RIM and he sure as h3ll didn't rise in
rank yesterday.

Then the question becomes when exactly is the right time to share the bad news. As it is, you're talking about the difference of maybe a month between when he probably knew without a doubt what the situation was and when he made an official statement about it. In the big picture, what difference would that have really made? He gave a profit warning a month ago, and the stock got pummeled. At that time, he may not have had a complete picture of where the BB10 progress stood, and to make a possibly inaccurate statement at that time would have hurt his credibility even more. Besides the fact that no one has the slightest clue what kind of dealings are going on regarding any of those 'strategic options' in the midst of all this other mayhem. Face it, the guy is in a no-win situation at the moment.

[EchoTango]

He's just proved he's the wrong guy.

He's had six months to start to shift the company into high gear. He has clearly failed to do that. What's really crazy is that they know.....they know what's going to happen if they delay BB10 to 2013.

It's game over, RIM is finished. They need to find a buyer and get some value out of the company while there's still some left.

Sad very sad.

[bk1022]

And maybe you should go attend a business class or two and understand something about what his job is before yammering on and on about how poorly he's doing it.

The beauty about the free market is that snarky comments like yours don't need to be debated. The market simply disagrees with you, and I don't really care that you feel otherwise. RIM has continued to underperform since Thor's taking over and the market has rewarded him with a $7 stock price. Go read about "efficient markets" if you don't understand what the stock price is telling you.

If this continues, by the end of the year, RIM will be broken up and sold piecemeal, Thorsten will be fired, along with yet more employees, and the BlackBerry brand will fade from memory like Northern Telecom.

[cgk]

I think Heins has done an OK job but he was simply too late to make a difference.

[bk1022]

Thorsten failed to release material information about RIM in a timely fashion. BB10 phones are now extremely important. It is against security regulations to deceitfully pretend everything is on schedule if your business might be imploding.

The only thing Thorsten has done so far is fire a bunch of people. He hasn't even technically economized the supply chain because I don't even know that they are actually building any devices right now, and they may never.

The other great accomplishment is that Thor has very adeptly positioned RIM to be taken over for IP and disassembled, never to be heard from again.

[Underdogz]

Perhaps Mr Heins should have taken the approach of some bosses I've worked for.

Basically told the "Team" BB10 must be ready and launched October 10, you fail to meet this goal you're fired.

That said, I can only imagine what it would be like working for RIM during these times. I suspect it is just a "Toxic" environment. Motivating staff maybe next to impossible.

[bk1022]

Perhaps Mr Heins should have taken the approach of some bosses I've worked for.

Basically told the "Team" BB10 must be ready and launched October 10, you fail to meet this goal you're fired.

That said, I can only imagine what it would be like working for RIM during these times. I suspect it is just a "Toxic" environment. Motivating staff maybe next to impossible.

Just looking at their current trading price, if you subtract out BES, BBM, QNX and cash, how much value is the market pricing in for BB10? People keep on saying the company should be split up, but I'd love to see an analysis as to what each piece of this split up company would be worth.