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More letters to RIM; employees rally alongside anonymous exec

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Re: More letters to RIM; employees rally alongside anonymous exec

#11

Post by masklinn »

Shenglong wrote: post #6

The funny (and sad) thing is, RIM is currently limited in its options. If it responds again to these new letters, they'll just have more letters flying out. It was a huge mistake to respond to the first letter, no matter what they could have said. Interestingly, I would hope the RIM employees who've written this letter (and the guy who wrote the first letter) would've started shorting stock. If RIM responds again, I'…

> It was a huge mistake to respond to the first letter, no matter what they could have said.

And even more so because their response utterly blew.

Re: More letters to RIM; employees rally alongside anonymous exec

#12

Post by SoftwareMaven »

parfe wrote: post #5

Does Angry Birds run on the Playbook? I bought a Gtablet (display sucks, but otherwise a powerful device). First thing anyone does when they try it out is to look for Angry Birds. I'm getting the feeling the Playbook's selling point is "We don't need a youtube app, you can just browse YouTube inline!"

I don't watch YouTube much, but that feature of inline YouTube is surprisingly valuable. I switched to a different browser on my iPad (iCab Mobile) that supports it and the experience is markedly better.

However, listening to a singer repeat "Flash" over and over does absolutely nothing to make me want a Playbook. I run into flash problems one a week at most; I'll glady trade it for battery life, performance, and stability.

Re: More letters to RIM; employees rally alongside anonymous exec

#13

Post by ltamake »

This internal drama is blowing my mind.

Here's what's wrong, RIM: you're not presenting your products right. Your business audience doesn't care that the PlayBook has true multitasking, nor do they care that there's Flash on-board. They want a device to manage their emails and make running their business easier.

And the BlackBerry is really sad to see in my eyes. You buy this nice software company and their HTML5 browser, and then put it in a crappy phone that has half the specs of the competition? You have so much potential, I can see it and feel it... but you're not utilising your resources properly. Study the iPhone and Android and see why they're popular.

BGR's original leaked letter mentioned that RIM was advertising its products wrong. I agree completely. Whenever I see a RIM ad, I just shake my head. They really aren't advertising the right things. They're putting good things like BBM aside.

I don't have a RIM device, but almost all of my co-workers do. I like my iPhone, and I'm not trying to sound like an idiotic fanboy, but RIM: I used to respect you a lot. You ran your business very well, and your devices could have been considered revolutionary. Get your shit together.

Re: More letters to RIM; employees rally alongside anonymous exec

#14

Post by SoftwareMaven »

Side thought: I've watched a lot of companies become horrible places to work because of process strangulation. The problem is a small, vocal group saying how much better life would be with one more piece of information...

The way I combat that is by documenting what is working right and determining what I don't want to change. Your process requirements then become "Learn/Enable/Etc this" and "Leave that unaffected".

It becomes surprisingly good at checking rampant process growth because you have an anchor.

Re: More letters to RIM; employees rally alongside anonymous exec

#15

Post by Uchikoma »

RIM makes excellent business phones. My BB is tougher than most and the keyboard is excellent. Exchange integration works. As a private iPhone user I want apps. As a corporate BB user I just want something that is tough and works.

They should not try to be a better Apple than Apple.

Focus on their market.

Re: More letters to RIM; employees rally alongside anonymous exec

#16

Post by chrisb »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #12
parfe wrote: post #5

Does Angry Birds run on the Playbook? I bought a Gtablet (display sucks, but otherwise a powerful device). First thing anyone does when they try it out is to look for Angry Birds. I'm getting the feeling the Playbook's selling point is "We don't need a youtube app, you can just browse YouTube inline!"

I don't watch YouTube much, but that feature of inline YouTube is surprisingly valuable. I switched to a different browser on my iPad (iCab Mobile) that supports it and the experience is markedly better. However, listening to a singer repeat "Flash" over and over does absolutely nothing to make me want a Playbook. I run into flash problems one a week at most; I'll glady trade it for battery life, performance, and sta…

"A singer"?

That's not just "a singer".

It's Freddie Mercury himself.

Re: More letters to RIM; employees rally alongside anonymous exec

#17

Post by Maro »

omouse wrote: post #9

A more democratic company structure would probably help with these issues. It seems that a dictatorial structure allows the top execs to ignore all the underlings, to ignore the little people who actually do much of the work.

That's a terrible idea. A company is not a democracy. The only solution is to have good leaders.

Re: More letters to RIM; employees rally alongside anonymous exec

#18

Post by bane »

digamber_kamat wrote: post #7
corin_ wrote: post #3

One thing that struck me as interesting is in the second letter, section 6: There is so much secrecy in the company, no one knows anything about new things until we see it on the news. That means we’re not able to tell our friends and family anything about new things, and that reflects badly on RIM. Is the reason it works for Apple so well and not for RIM because people anticipate Apple products more (i.e. the produc…

Actually I feel all the opposite. RIM talks too much about its upcoming products that people dont feel like buying whats on offer right now.

The interesting part is that nobody really is interested in buying the upcoming things they're talking about either. If their goal is to feel the market out by revealing upcoming projects, then it's not really working for them.

Re: More letters to RIM; employees rally alongside anonymous exec

#19

Post by staktrace »

Maro wrote: post #17
omouse wrote: post #9

A more democratic company structure would probably help with these issues. It seems that a dictatorial structure allows the top execs to ignore all the underlings, to ignore the little people who actually do much of the work.

That's a terrible idea. A company is not a democracy. The only solution is to have good leaders.

Agreed. Generally speaking companies should be meritocracies, allowing the good leaders to rise up. The people at the bottom may do all the work, but probably can't make overall strategic decisions nearly as well.

Re: More letters to RIM; employees rally alongside anonymous exec

#20

Post by scubzero »

Maro wrote: post #17
omouse wrote: post #9

A more democratic company structure would probably help with these issues. It seems that a dictatorial structure allows the top execs to ignore all the underlings, to ignore the little people who actually do much of the work.

That's a terrible idea. A company is not a democracy. The only solution is to have good leaders.

a public company is a democracy of that requires you buy a vote(s).

Good leaders realize that they must to some degree listen to their underlings, they shouldnt be beholden to underlings, but they should always listen and know when act on what they hear and when not to.

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