21–30 of 76 posts
A reasonable response: "I want to assure our customers that the BlackBerry platform is, and will remain, secure, but it is necessary for RIM to follow the laws of the jurisdictions we operate in".
I strangely want to give kudos to both sides. The phrasing of 'the problems you've had in terms of security' is seriously misleading and very poorly worded. I guess I've never seen the behind the scenes legal voices jump in before, but clearly, that question is baiting (unless RIM has some security issues I'm unaware of). On the other side, cool that the BBC posts this for all to see, rather than just hiding it away…
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2010-07-29/india... "The [Ministry of Home Affairs] has asked the [Department of Telecommunication] to tell [RIM] in no uncertain terms that its emails and other data services must comply with formats that can be monitored by security and intelligence agencies." The Indian government has threatened to cut off Blackberry services if RIM doesn't comply. I don't think calling…
The interview showed glimpses of desperation, edginess and plain frustration which speak volumes about RIM's approach to handling the drastically altered smart phone market. Lazaridis kept using the words "singled out" - his reasoning behind it was because they were so successful. He was trying to convince that the carpet has not been pulled from below RIM's feet. It showed that RIM doesn't really "get" it. They thin…
Yes, they haven't had a good response to iOS or Android but that's completely irrelevant to the article at hand.
At this level, i.e. CEO, this is pure idiocy, you should have a canned response for such questions, in fact deflating such questions is part of your job , for heaven's sake! And they did have problems in India and Middle East, where governments wanted access to emails. Rather than bailing out like this, RIM can turn it into a PR victory, like Google did with China, saying (i) "see how secure our systems are, governme…
I probably wouldn't try to tout this. I'm sure it was sensitive matter maneuvering the matter when dealing with the governments and they don't want to bang on the hornet's nest. The governments could and probably would make doing business in those countries much more difficult than it has to be. You have everything to lose and very little to gain. It's like a black hat SEO gaining success in Google rankings and making Google's engineers look stupid to the world. Making Google look bad will only hurt you. Google makes the rules for their engines. The governments make the rules for their countries.
At this level, i.e. CEO, this is pure idiocy, you should have a canned response for such questions, in fact deflating such questions is part of your job , for heaven's sake! And they did have problems in India and Middle East, where governments wanted access to emails. Rather than bailing out like this, RIM can turn it into a PR victory, like Google did with China, saying (i) "see how secure our systems are, governme…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2010-07-29/india... "The [Ministry of Home Affairs] has asked the [Department of Telecommunication] to tell [RIM] in no uncertain terms that its emails and other data services must comply with formats that can be monitored by security and intelligence agencies." The Indian government has threatened to cut off Blackberry services if RIM doesn't comply. I don't think calling…
It should be called a privacy issue or something like that. I think the CEO wanted to avoid having his platform deemed insecure as in has security holes.
The Indian government was asking for a backdoor into the system. That's more of a security issue than privacy.
At this level, i.e. CEO, this is pure idiocy, you should have a canned response for such questions, in fact deflating such questions is part of your job , for heaven's sake! And they did have problems in India and Middle East, where governments wanted access to emails. Rather than bailing out like this, RIM can turn it into a PR victory, like Google did with China, saying (i) "see how secure our systems are, governme…
I think that this may be why he doesn't want to talk about the issue. Because as far as I understand it, the solution reached (at least with India) was to agree to co-locate the encryption servers in country and give the governments "live access" to them. So they didn't agree to hand over the keys but basically gave unfettered access all the same.
The interview showed glimpses of desperation, edginess and plain frustration which speak volumes about RIM's approach to handling the drastically altered smart phone market. Lazaridis kept using the words "singled out" - his reasoning behind it was because they were so successful. He was trying to convince that the carpet has not been pulled from below RIM's feet. It showed that RIM doesn't really "get" it. They thin…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's entirely possible I'm in the minority on this, but the following (theatrical, paraphrased, artistic-liberty-ized) conversation implies that there is a serious security issue with Blackberry devices: India: Give us access to your secure messaging service. RIM: Okay.
But to be fair to RIM, the conversation seems to have been more like: India: Give us access to your secure messaging service RIM: Sorry, that isn't technically possible India: Give us access to your secure messaging service RIM: Sorry, that isn't technically possible India: Give us access to your secure messaging service or we'll cut you off RIM: OK, we'll do everything we can
Sounds to me like he misunderstood the question and assumed the Beeb were implying there's a serous security issue with the Blackberry device itself, when the question was actually about the "security" concerns of certain countries in which Blackberrys are sold.
I thought the way the first question was worded was intentionally misleading. The interviewers second try was better, but at that point, I think they had already soured the interview. I also think that the issue was dealt with, and the countries who had threatened to shutdown RIM, are no longer posturing, so it is kind of like bringing up old bad news for no reason, when the company is really there to promote the Pla…