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First Nokia, Now RIM: The Mighty Are Falling

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Re: First Nokia, Now RIM: The Mighty Are Falling

#21

Post by sedev »

Luyt wrote: post #5

esr also keeps a close eye on the developments in the mobile phone market. His latest blog post on this is at http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=3493 , a short quote: "Nokia’s strategy, insofar as it’s actually had one since the tie-up with Microsoft, has been to hang in there on volume sales of dumbphones until it could deliver world-beating WP7 handsets. The major risk here, other than the wild unlikelihood of WP7 ever beco…

While "keeps a close eye on" is certainly an accurate description of what he does, "makes accurate and/or well-founded predictions" is not, and that's more important. Someone who wanted to be well-informed about mobile would do far better by reading Horace Dediu, for example.

Re: First Nokia, Now RIM: The Mighty Are Falling

#22

Post by mbesto »

cpeterso wrote: post #18
phuff wrote: post #8

I am not fully versed in the notion of innovative disruption, but it seems pretty obvious that a Clay Christensen-esque Innovator's Dilemma disruption is what's going on here: somebody had a decent product, is first to market, but doesn't have a clear enough vision to see how to stay on top and stay innovative and gets blindsided by unexpected (read Apple + Android) competitors. I wonder how closely the non-cliff not…

I think RIM and Nokia both had "Cash Cow Disease". The Blackberry and Symbian had been successes for so long that short-term profits/losses and internal politics prevent the companies from investing in new (and seemingly "inferior") technologies that would cannabilize their own successful products. For example, Nokia had touchscreen phones that didn't sell well, so they thought the touchscreen iPhone was a "toy".

RIM in particular continues to have strong financial numbers. But the outlook is bad as the trends are showing decline rather than growth.

The innovator's dilemma really takes a toll on company's who main source of revenue is being disrupted and at the same time have to report to shareholders.

Re: First Nokia, Now RIM: The Mighty Are Falling

#23

Post by dfc »

programminggeek wrote: post #6

I don't think I've ever seen a company cut employees en masse like this truly help a company come from behind to regain their former status. It sends so many wrong messages. If those 10% of your company aren't worthwhile, why were they hired and employed in the first place? If management can afford to cut staff by 10%, the C and VP level management should be fired. Start by cutting at the top, not at the bottom. Cutt…

IBM in the 80s? Maybe they did not regain their status as "the computer company," but they certainly carried out quite a turn around.

Re: First Nokia, Now RIM: The Mighty Are Falling

#24

Post by hello_moto »

VladRussian wrote: post #11
programminggeek wrote: post #6

I don't think I've ever seen a company cut employees en masse like this truly help a company come from behind to regain their former status. It sends so many wrong messages. If those 10% of your company aren't worthwhile, why were they hired and employed in the first place? If management can afford to cut staff by 10%, the C and VP level management should be fired. Start by cutting at the top, not at the bottom. Cutt…

nothing will help these companies. It is time for them to go. Look at the bright side though - 2000 of mobile developers is relieved from working on dead-end products and ready to be injected into red-hot mobile hiring market to work on the successful mobile products. Its win-win for everybody - the developers, their new companies, consumers.

What makes you think that all 2000 are engineers? RIM consists of many departments (IT, Sales, Marketing, R&D). They also have stuff like SAP for their ERP systems. That thing needs a team of developers that don't necessary develop "mobile" software.

From my knowledge, there are competing software/apps within the internal RIM ecosystems itself so these people that got laid off could potentially be the result of internal wars.

For example: software A that was built using the old RIM ecosystems (from the OS, the API, the toolkit, etc) and old mobile paradigms/concepts competes against software B that was built based on the latest web 2.0 + mobile crazed. Perhaps it's time for software A to die. Some companies might just shift these engineers to software B's team while other decided to shut down the whole team (sometime it's not easy to integrate new team members, especially if software B was a result of acquisition).

Re: First Nokia, Now RIM: The Mighty Are Falling

#26

Post by cfgvjkljhgfb »

hello_moto wrote: post #20
ruslan wrote: post #17

QNX ? What for ? I think RIM should learn from Nokia's mistake and switch to Android soon as possible. This is the only way to survive for them.

Wow, CEO of the year for you sir. If things would be as easy as that, flip to Android and compete with the rest... to the bottom. How would you differentiate yourself vs HTC, Motorola, etc? What if the Chinese android handsets comes up with cheap mobile phones similar to BB hardware interface (the golden keyboard, you know that BB users love BB because of the keyboard). Switching to Android makes RIM an average compa…

So by the same logic, Porsche and Ferrari should stop making gasoline powered cars with 4wheels in a race to the bottom with kia/hyundai - and switch to 6 wheel cars powered by waterwheels?

Re: First Nokia, Now RIM: The Mighty Are Falling

#27

Post by Perceval »

programminggeek wrote: post #6

I don't think I've ever seen a company cut employees en masse like this truly help a company come from behind to regain their former status. It sends so many wrong messages. If those 10% of your company aren't worthwhile, why were they hired and employed in the first place? If management can afford to cut staff by 10%, the C and VP level management should be fired. Start by cutting at the top, not at the bottom. Cutt…

That was Jack Welch's famous method at GE: fire the bottom 10% of management every year. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Welch#Tenure_as_CEO_of_GE

Re: First Nokia, Now RIM: The Mighty Are Falling

#28

Post by InclinedPlane »

hello_moto wrote: post #20
ruslan wrote: post #17

QNX ? What for ? I think RIM should learn from Nokia's mistake and switch to Android soon as possible. This is the only way to survive for them.

Wow, CEO of the year for you sir. If things would be as easy as that, flip to Android and compete with the rest... to the bottom. How would you differentiate yourself vs HTC, Motorola, etc? What if the Chinese android handsets comes up with cheap mobile phones similar to BB hardware interface (the golden keyboard, you know that BB users love BB because of the keyboard). Switching to Android makes RIM an average compa…

It's a perfectly viable strategy. Combine your peanut butter (hardware design, workflow, bb messaging, etc) with proven chocolate (android smartphone technology) and try to make something that preserves the unique qualities your company is known for while keeping pace with the competition on other features (high quality mibile browsers, games, etc.)

I know several people who still use blackberries because they are fundamentally superior for certain business needs. But that's just an extreme corner of the market, ultimately people will make due with other options that are "good enough" in order to take advantage of other benefits.

As far as the lowest common denominator problem, if you think htc, samsung, and motorola are in a race to the bottom then maybe you haven't been paying attention.

Re: First Nokia, Now RIM: The Mighty Are Falling

#30

Post by kenjackson »

izend wrote: post #10
programminggeek wrote: post #6

I don't think I've ever seen a company cut employees en masse like this truly help a company come from behind to regain their former status. It sends so many wrong messages. If those 10% of your company aren't worthwhile, why were they hired and employed in the first place? If management can afford to cut staff by 10%, the C and VP level management should be fired. Start by cutting at the top, not at the bottom. Cutt…

"I don't think I've ever seen a company cut employees en masse like this truly help a company come from behind to regain their former status." Apple?

http://articles.sfgate.com/1997-03-15/business/17744320_1_ap...

Apple laid off 4000 in 1997. I've heard things went pretty well afterwards.

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