31–40 of 54 posts
In my opinion, a company can only function well if there's open and honest communication.
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 bro…
1. Keyboard
2. BBM
3. E-mail
I'm surprised RIM hasn't figured this out by now and put on their advertisements "BlackBerry XXXX whatever - types easier, instantly communicate better, and e-mail faster" (btw - whether or not these are really true is up to debate, but IMO they are the only selling points)
I see ads all of the time for BB's that talk about Facebook/Twitter. I haven't heard a single good thing about the facebook/twitter apps for BB or any BB app for that matter.
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…
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…
Don't expect RIM's fortunes to turn around any time soon. Only a catastrophic business failure is going to shake up the management structure. With RIM's financials and market position, it could be years before that event comes to pass. Even then, there's no guarantee that RIM would really make a recovery. Most likely RIM will be absorbed by a larger competitor (and the current RIM top brass removed) before anything like real business failure can occur.
It's so painful to watch this. RIM has really made some great products and services.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
With the notable exception being Google who immediately changed the direction android was going to account for the innovations Apple had developed. RIM and Microsoft laughed the iPhone off and now wonder why Google and Apple are so far ahead.
I think it's more that Google was hovering around from the start with the G1. So the improvements they made were incremental on that brand new platform but Microsoft and RIM would need a revolution to be able to catch up to the iPhone and G1 at that point in the game. The problem is that all the old players were left in the dust because they had too much momentum on their old platforms. It's like hitting the breaks w…
RIM is now a textbook case of Jerry Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy ( http://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html ) in action. Group one, the goal seekers, have been or are being forced out or converted to members of group two, the organization supporters. Those anonymous letters coming from the current and former employees? Just desperate attempts from group one employees to be heard over the crushing…
I know a RIM exec personally (and leave it at that) and he mocked my iPhone for several years, calling it "fragile" and a "toy for children". It's been only in the past month or so that he muttered something about the competition getting tough lately. It just seems RIM leadership is extremely arrogant and proud. They see the train coming right at them, but are too afraid to make the radical blue ocean product that's…
Stuff like this makes me think of the dolphins in the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
"For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much - the wheel, New York, wars and so on - whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man - for precisely the same reasons."