RIM reports Q4 miss; Balsillie resigns as director, CTO out

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."

I find it incredible that RIM or their customers did do all of these things. In fact, a lot of the major phone companies did this, even Nokia and Microsoft.

The time for small course corrections has long since passed.

The main option for them is to become smaller, and to do one thing well. Their perceived strengths are mobile messaging (BBM) and "security". If they became a software only company then they would be at the mercy of their (fickle) partners to get it deployed. When they are playing the hardware game then there is ferocious competition and you have to do a full software stack (proprietary or adapting Android/WinMo).

In their position I would do exactly one hardware device that is a best of breed, adapt Android for it and have a layer of BBM/security on top. I'd try to get the BBM/security licensed by as many manufacturers as possible and use the own hardware as a showcase. Eventually the hope would be to get out of the hardware business - it exists purely to ensure there is at least one way to market.

There is so much to be done on the communication side with lots of half assed solutions. On the security side consider running an IT department or being a consumer and a device is stolen. Now list what sensitive information was on the device.

In an attempt to alleviate the craptuclar collection of software, RIM gave out free Playbooks to Android Developers.

Having now played with one I don't think it's that bad of a device, and I certainly trust it more than an iPad or Android tablet.

However RIM is missing key software that they should have provided.

1) The PDF reader works, but it's functionality is as bad as the Adobe Reader on Android.

2) The browser experience has thus far been not so bad. Things work for me on the Playbook that crash on Android browsers. A desktop mode for the browser (like Dolphins, but without the crashing) is necessary.

3) A remote desktop client?

4) A VNC client?

5) Busybox!

6) Putty!

7) Python and/or Ruby

They have $4.2 billion in revenue per quarter, that's huge, and they still have a lot of users. They could easily scale back their ambitions and become very profitable, abandon the playbook, reduce their workforce, move focus to East Asia, and keep milking every cent out of the old-fashioned phones they kept pumping out long after Apple ate their lunch.

This is the most important topic in this discussion and maybe the most topic for any startup or company in general. How do prevent your business from becoming obsolete? Is that even possible in the long run for IT firms? How about staying hungry or at least not becoming arrogant like RIM?