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Poll: How long will it take RIM to turnaround?
Today was day one for Thorsten Heins as RIM’s new President and CEO. We’re gunning for the Canadian company and congratulate Heins on his new role – not the easiest job to take on and surely he has a tremendous amount of brand building to do. Heins started off the morning by outlining his strategy for the company – feels like there will be a great deal of “process discipline” over the next few months. Vague, yes. However, there are a few certainties: Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie are out of the day-to-day operations, but not removed; BlackBerry PlayBook is now “a new mobile computing platform” and OS 2.0 will be available in February; BlackBerry 10 devices will be launched later this year and will also be able to run Android apps; No plans to sell the company, but could be interested in licensing BB10. Finally, RIM has plans to hire a new CMO and increase their North American market share. With all this said the stock market reacted by a drop of 8.47% to hit $15.56. This was probably not the news the RIM execs and the board was hoping for.
Heins also said that “If we continue doing what we are doing, I see no problems of us being in the top 3 players worldwide in the next years in wireless”. RIM currently has 75 million subscribers, over 50 million BBM subscribers and $1.5 billion in cash… but much change is needed. Fresh new devices – smartphones and tablets – with a fresh plan of attack to acquire a massive amount of customers (consumer and business). We’ve put a quick poll together: How long will it take RIM to turnaround?
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52 comments for “Poll: How long will it take RIM to turnaround?”
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QNX/BB10 + android app market and I think they’ll be fine.
However, they’ve been too tight lipped on that front and they’re honestly becoming forgettable.
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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why is not
“6 months after Lazaridis and Balsillie leave the board”
in the poll??
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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How about a Poll about how many checks Lazaridies and Ballsillie got while they were on a $1 per year salary??
The point that nobody called was that they were CEOs AND Board members, as CEOs they were on a $1 per year salary….what about as Board members??
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If he’s dropping lines like “If we continue doing what we are doing…” in his first public statement, it’s going to take infinity years to turn that ship around.
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The funny thing is most Canadians WOULD LIKE to be Blackberry Fans;
It’s simply not good enough anymore!
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It’s NOT over!
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You are right; Its going Under!
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Its a tragedy when a company can be labeled doomed within a span of a year. 10 years of booming success to be dismissed so easily.
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It *is* sad, but I don’t think there’s any argument to be made that they’re not on a trajectory towards doom. And no sign of change in direction.
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Unless they have an ace up their sleeve, they’ll never regain what they’ve lost.
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I’m not expecting a turn around as much as a stabilization. They can hold their own if they can innovate, but the competitive pressures are too much for them to regain their further glory. Apple has a firm foothold, Android isn’t done growing, and Windows is just getting started. Its going to be a tough battle.
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I heard any interview with the new CEO on CBC this morning. He was in total denial. As far as he was concerned everything was hunky dory.
So, I don’t see any turn around in sight.
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Do or die key… show that you still know how to do software.
1. Roll out OS2 to playbook 1-2 weeks EARLY *and* have it be kickbutt awesome featurewise + stable. Screw this up and watch another $3-5 fall off the stock.
2. Push out 7.1.x on the flagship devices. Keep the incremental releases coming but publish the release notes on EVERY incremental release.
3. Fix the app ecosystem with devs.
4. Make your core Blackberry apps something you can be proud of and that reinforce your brand. BBerry Traffic app is a joke compared to android navigation. Blackberry maps sucks (just dump this). Blackberry Podcasts, etc… If you are going to do a core app, don’t have it look like a sad joke.
3. Fix the app ecosystem with devs (bears repeating). Make blackberry something people can profitably build cool apps on.
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Nothing has changed at RIM other than the public face. And that public face even announced “if we continue doing what we are doing…” That’s a ship that hasn’t turned at all.
It’s so painfully obvious that they need to put the Playbook OS on a phone. and have that playbook OS have BES and BBM support. For them to not have that after all this time really makes me wonder what all their engineers are doing.
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I think they’ll turn around, but they will not be nearly as big as they once were. They’ll do well in developing countries, parts of Canada and the business sector, but in the U.S. and Europe? NO
BB10 + Android + a high-end Smartphone would help them big time though.
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Wow! Have you been brainwashed, or are you just oblivious. Just today another report came out showing BlackBerry to be number one in England. We have already heard many recent reports stating BlackBerry is number 1 in Canada. Neither of these are ‘developing nations’. Can you say G8?
The only market where BlackBerry is really suffering is the United States!
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It’s over. It’s been over for two years.
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I would estimate that half of the people that said its over for them only say that because currently they prefer their Android or iPhone. I prefer my Android, but that doesn’t mean its over for BBerrys. And you Apple fans, is RIM in a situation that’s really any worse than Apple was in its lowest point? http://www.businessweek.com/1996/06/b34611.htm
Business week in 1996 Apple world market share at 7.1%
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“If we continue doing what we are doing, I see no problems of us being in the top 3 players worldwide in the next years in wireless”
It’s that exact attitude which will have killed RIM in the end. I’m sure if you asked Steve Jobs the same question, the answer would have been: “We’re confident that we’ve not even done half of what we can do with this platform. We’re in the top position, but we’ll never let anyone catch up.”
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RIP
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RIM is done for, I expect someone to buy them by before 2012 is out. This is was a step in the right direction with the wrong person. The corporate culture needs refreshing and I doubt that Thorsten is that refresh.
Microkia and Samsung will come knocking again
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I’m trying to stay optimistic. I said 1-2 years. If they can’t turn it around in that time, I think they’re done. Best of luck RIM.
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They won’t.
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The biggest revelation of the year and for RIM is that Investors can “see” that there is no real change in CULTURE at RIM.
Lazaridies appointed the new CEO and he said that ” there are no drastic changes to make” Are you kidding me?? I n addition to that LAzaridies declared that he will be “monitoring closely the new CEO” as in I’ll be pulling the strings from the board.
Investors saw that and voted with their wallets!
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Think about it:
If you quit your board position and keep being CEO; The board can kick you out.
If you keep the board position and quit being CEO,you can APPOINT the new CEO AND keep the board position, plus why work “so hard” as CEOs if they were only making $1 per year!
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bb need to do like nissan did . new device every month , if they don’t do that they are out
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A Googol years, final answer.
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Too little too late.
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RIM has a growing customer base and growing revenues. US market share isn’t meaningless, but it’s a terrible metric to judge a company by. Heins plans to continue making money as RIM always has, so how is the game over? How was it over 2 years ago when they made LESS money than they do now? Some of you people are crazy.
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These two doorknobs ex-co-CEOs should be out of the door, the end of the story.
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RIM will not be bought out, because their product does not do anything differently than what can be done on iOS, Android, or wp. Apple, Google, and Microsoft all have more money and greater capacity than rim to succeed.
QNX will fail. The devices will be too expensive for the third world. In the first world, they won’t offer anything better than the iPhone 5 or the latest Androids or windows phones coming out soon.
The only way rim may survive is if they get a QNX phone with LTE, a hi capacity battery, and a 4″ retina display out before the iPhone 5.
I doubt that will happen.
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RIM _WILL_ be bought out for their Patents, and then sold off in pieces.
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RIM will not be bought out, because their product does not do anything differently than what can be done on iOS, Android, or wp. Apple, Google, and Microsoft all have more money and greater capacity than rim to succeed!
QNX will fail. The devices will be too expensive for the third world. In the first world, they won’t offer anything better than the iPhone 5 or the latest Androids or windows phones coming out soon.
The only way rim may survive is if they get a QNX phone with LTE, a hi capacity battery, and a 4″ retina display out before the iPhone 5.
I doubt that will happen.
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There’s a market for a phone with good email/calendar, which the iPhone does not have.
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I think the question is how long will it take RIM to go down?
I’d give it a couple of years.
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Depends what is meant by “turn around,” but I voted for 1-2 years. I think it will be somewhere in that span that the US (the only place to really fully abandon them) will be back to considering them as a legitimate option when considering a smartphone. Even then, I suspect they’ll be a solid fourth place because I think Windows Phone will steadily rise, but a respected fourth place instead of a laughingstock.
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The problem with RIM isn’t their ideas or plans. The problem with RIM is the ability to execute and look ahead of the curve.
RIM needs a reason for people to keep using their products. As Android and iOS devices become better at enterprise environments, it starts luring their customers who are in their core market (which is the enterprise) since Android and iOS does the consumer stuff really well as is.
RIM needs to convince to the average consumer why they’re better, they need to not only play their strengths in security and one that provides a really compelling messaging service. They need to show of the multimedia and web prowess which they lack.
I say RIM should be able to turn things around in 6 – 12 months. They really need BB10 on the ground as soon as possible.
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They will actually have full access to the android market? With proper hardware (aka not internals from two years ago like their current phones have) they might actually be on to something. Ideally I would want the android OS with a blackberry keyboard, but this could be close enough.
That said, with the momentum that ios and droids have right now and the trashed reputation that blackberry has developed I still think it might be too late for them.
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Yesterday after the news came out i suggested that people buy their stock because when the company was sold they would make a lot of money and my comment was blocked , 24 hours later a poll on this site says 49 percent of the readers say the company is finished. It would be nice if the people that blocked my comment apologise for refusing to be open minded to the reality of this company. The sheep like actions of these people are an insult to the rational readers of this site.
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blackberry is known to make quality phones. i admit the software did suck but slowly improving, once os10 comes out with a new line up they will do well. i prefer blackberry over anything else, they will make there come back
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Rim needs to launch smart phones that don’t look like BB and with larger touch screens. Go with the flow or fade away.
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BBM its not necessary anymore with apps like Skype(free international messaging over wifi) and Whatsap (Multiplatform messaging)
Screens have to be bigger for BB device Period.
physical keyboards are history, since they don’t allow you to have a bigger screen and if one key is broken the whole phone is broken.
So all the advantages of RIM are goen and sales reflect that.
Who would buy an OS7 now AT FULL PRICE, knowing that the phones are going to be at clearance prices in 3 months; plus think on the reselling value.
You can get an optimus one for $100 and sell it for $60 one yr later or you can get a $400 BB and sell it for $100 one yr later.
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RIM is doomed? The company which has consistently gained users year after year is doomed? They haven’t lost users, they are gaining less users than they were previously.
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You obviously don’t work in the mobile industry where it is very common to see berry users pissed off about the poor performance of the OS switching to iPhone and Android every single day of the week.
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Some of reasons to buy Blackberry instead of others:
There are always many produces on the market to chose, but it always better to support local companies.
Apple, Google, Microsoft do not need BlackBerry. They just need RIM’s patents. So if RIM will be killed in the same way as it was done with Nortel, cities like Waterloo, Kitchener, Cambridge will die as well. Lots of people works for RIM. All small businesses (restaurants, fitness, landscaping) are alive because of RIM. Could you imagine that all those people would not be able to pay mortgage? Are you ready to lose your money invested in your house?
RIM the only Hi-Tech company left in Canada. Hi-Tech will never come back to Canada because new company will have to pay for patents, builds offices on very expensive land and so on.
RIM was voted as the country’s most attractive employer in 2011. Where your children will be working after university? AMD bought ATI, Celestica moved plants to China, GM closed plants in Canada, Cisco killed Nortel and Bell moved service desk to India.
You still can pay your money for Apple, Google or Microsoft phones, but you need to know that your many can be used to start financial crisis in Canada.
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KNP, those are very valid points, but we will all then just become public sector employees. It worked for Greece didn’t it?
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asking for sympathy dont do anything. competition is cut throat, and we all work hard for our money. this isnt a chartiy function. bottom line is, consumer want to maximize what we receive regardless its service or products for our money and that is fair.
if RIM dont wake up for a second and continue to think that BBM is a secret weapon for RIM, then i give me 6-12 months. they got one more shot, if they fail to impress consumer and gain ground, they will be the next Nortel.
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Apple, Microsoft, Google at all don’t need Blackberry, or RIM’s patents for the most part, either. I would think that RIM’s patent portfolio mostly applies to things Like BES, BIS, and BBM, so their applicability to other areas may be limited. It may be that by buying out/buying the assets of RIM (in the case of a RIM bankruptcy) will get you access to the >6,000 Nortel patents that RIM now has access to, but maybe not, depending on how the agreement with Apple, Micrsoft and the others in the consortium was written.
RIM going bankrupt is no different from Nortel going bankrupt, or ATI being bought out and moved. Life goes on. There is nothing special about a RIM bankruptcy that hasn’t been seen before.
I do like to support local businesses, but only if they are viable. I don’t want to support businesses with tax dollar; if I have to do that, the business is not viable, and deserves to disappear. If RIM gets to that point, then they should be left to die. Nortel was, other companies have been as well.
Cisco did not kill off Nortel, Nortel killed itself off. Nortel didn’t even compete with Cisco in most of its lines of business; the only area they actually competed in was Enterprise networking. The other Nortel business lines (Carrier, Wireless, Fiber Optic) Cisco has never even approached, much less competed in.
Kostas
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RIM’s problem is they leave their marketing to word-of-mouth. Customers that come into my store for a Blackberry have no idea what quality the camera is, or which OS it’s running, or what the phone can and can’t do. All they know is it’ll do BBM. That’s it. So basically anyone who doesn’t care about BBM isn’t going to be looking at a Blackberry. I’m simply dumbfounded at the lack of consumer knowledge out there. RIM needs to break out of it’s little comfy BBM niche and put some technology into their phones. Android fans aren’t going to look at a phone with a 1Ghz processor and a 3Mp camera. iPhone fans aren’t going to be looking at anything but an iPhone (cause they’re brainwashed)… So where is RIM going to get their market share from? Kids who are new to cell phones? Young people who will break their Blackberry in under a week and say the phone sucks?… RIM needs to return to innovation or they’ll die a very slow and painful death. Simply having BBM isn’t good enough anymore.
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