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RIM CEO terminates BBC Click interview

news.bbc.co.uk

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Re: RIM CEO terminates BBC Click interview

#61

Post by danudey »

bruceboughton wrote: post #33
blinkingled wrote: post #15

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…

Oddly, Blackberry is insanely cool amoung the teen crowd in the UK (well, London anyway). Not sure why, since they have no need for business class email. BBM seems to be the main driver, even though there are plenty of altenatives on other platforms.

> even though there are plenty of altenatives on other platforms.

I would argue that this is a problem, not a solution. Plenty of alternatives, all incompatible, none of which are bundled with any phone, and none of which work (or work well) on Blackberry.

Re: RIM CEO terminates BBC Click interview

#62

Post by joshaidan »

blinkingled wrote: post #32
melvinram wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue that the interviewer was asking about has nothing to do with smartphones. It's about governments wanting more access to Blackberry's records (from what I understand.) Yes, they haven't had a good response to iOS or Android but that's completely irrelevant to the article at hand.

It's not completely irrelevant. Having "security issues" is bad news for market share. The question wasn't asked in an isolated context - it was in the context of "bad news for market share". That's exactly why Lazaridis got emotional about it.

Mike's point was there are no security issues with the Blackberry. The issue is that there's too much security than what some governments can tolerate. The question puts the CEO right into a paradox that nobody can possibly answer, so it was fair for him to end the interview (or maybe he could say, a lot of this is under negotiation so he can discuss it).

He can't be critical of the governments demands because they are in negotiations with them. He can't say they will weaken security, because that's not what enterprises want.

Either way, you have to be proud of a company for taking a stand and developing secure products that could help protect civilians from terrible governments.

Re: RIM CEO terminates BBC Click interview

#63

Post by pedalpete »

jeroen wrote: post #9
pedalpete wrote: post #3

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…

Your reference is 9 months old. This is part of why it is unfair. If it was a current issue, that would make sense to bring up in the discussion. But the problem was resolved to the satisfaction of those governments, meaning that the average customer should not be concerned.

Re: RIM CEO terminates BBC Click interview

#64

Post by yuhong »

Jun8 wrote: post #14

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…

>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!

Not in this day and age. IMO candor and honesty is much better nowadays.

Re: RIM CEO terminates BBC Click interview

#65

Post by pedalpete »

JonnieCache wrote: post #37
bruceboughton wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oddly, Blackberry is insanely cool amoung the teen crowd in the UK (well, London anyway). Not sure why, since they have no need for business class email. BBM seems to be the main driver, even though there are plenty of altenatives on other platforms.

>Blackberry is insanely cool amoung the teen crowd in the UK It's definitely a London thing. They became hugely popular in the summer of 2009, rapidly making their way into the constantly shifting memepool that is the grime scene. Witness "Maxwell D - Blackberry Hype": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qtShEs5LQs Believe it or not this isn't paid product placement. Hence he lists RIM's competitors in the intro. They pr…

It is definitely not just a London thing. I was on a flight from Seattle to Los Angeles and the guy next (mid-20s) to me was using an old iPhone to play games. His phone was a blackberry. I found it really strange, but he told me that all of his friends were using BBM and he felt like he was left out, so he went back to BlackBerry.

In Canada the Blackberry outsells Android in the teen crowd according to a report in the Globe and Mail a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, I can't find the article now.

Re: RIM CEO terminates BBC Click interview

#66

Post by architectzero »

cube13 wrote: post #26
nkassis wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not too sure what the difference is here. One of the reasons that Blackberries are so common in the business and government sectors is because of the security(and privacy) that they provide. The two are basically the same thing. The Indian government was asking for a backdoor into the system. That's more of a security issue than privacy.

It's a security issue if the Indian government, or anyone else for that matter, found a way to create a backdoor into RIM's system without RIM's knowledge and consent.

As that isn't the case, then it's a privacy issue because the Indian government demanded RIM put in a backdoor for reasons or surveillance of its population.

Does this privacy issue potentially lead to a security issue? Yes, but not for RIM, but rather for it's users that depend on the privacy of RIM's service over which they may transmit sensitive information.

Re: RIM CEO terminates BBC Click interview

#67

Post by zaidf »

blinkingled wrote: post #15

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…

As I found out on my recent trip, Blackberry is wildly popular in India. iPhone, not as much.

On my trip before, there was no Blackberry in the market. Zero.

Re: RIM CEO terminates BBC Click interview

#68

Post by jeroen »

pedalpete wrote: post #63
jeroen wrote: post #9

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…

Your reference is 9 months old. This is part of why it is unfair. If it was a current issue, that would make sense to bring up in the discussion. But the problem was resolved to the satisfaction of those governments, meaning that the average customer should not be concerned.

This one is only a month old and suggests that the issue is far from resolved:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/igeneration/nokia-complies-in-indi...

"A deadline of March 31st has been given to the BlackBerry manufacturer, Research in Motion, to hand over encryption keys which would allow the Indian government to intercept corporate emails and other data used on the secure handsets."

"The corporate BlackBerry system works in such a secure manner, that even the BlackBerry manufacturer cannot intercept messages on its systems, leading to Research in Motion being unable to offer what the Indian government wants."

Was this resolved? I can't find anything newer than the above. Maybe the BBC-interviewer couldn't either and wanted to know what's happening.

Re: RIM CEO terminates BBC Click interview

#69

Post by McP »

blauwbilgorgel wrote: post #59

I found the final words of the interview the most striking: >>This is not fair... What are you doing?... This is a national security issue. A national security issue for who? The US? Can't journalists ask questions about national security issues anymore? I can see why the US would be weary to have business people/officials traveling to a country where all their conversations can be monitored. But is this a CEO confir…

I assumed he meant it was a security issue within the nations the interviewer was asking about, not the US.

Re: RIM CEO terminates BBC Click interview

#70

Post by raarky »

bruceboughton wrote: post #33
blinkingled wrote: post #15

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…

Oddly, Blackberry is insanely cool amoung the teen crowd in the UK (well, London anyway). Not sure why, since they have no need for business class email. BBM seems to be the main driver, even though there are plenty of altenatives on other platforms.

cheap phones and plans which are good for messaging each other.
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