RIM will become another case study MBA students read about when discussing the Innovator's Dilemma.
RIM reports Q4 miss; Balsillie resigns as director, CTO out
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Re: RIM reports Q4 miss; Balsillie resigns as director, CTO out
#32It looks like the new RIM CEO has opened his first envelope.
Re: RIM reports Q4 miss; Balsillie resigns as director, CTO out
#33Well blackbberry you were a tech company who refuse to innovate really I only see on of two possibilities become a android OEM or fail and get Google, Apple, or some other company to buy your name and patents. It's sad because they had plenty of time, but scoffed at ever lose the smartphone wars with such a significant lead.
I don't see how becoming an Android OEM can't be a win-win situation. Blackberry keep their brand and don't have an OS to maintain (maybe just a handful of Blackberry Android applications instead).
I'm sure embracing Android would be a win for RIM, but would it be too little, too late?
Re: RIM reports Q4 miss; Balsillie resigns as director, CTO out
#34Witness failure: many people even 2 years ago said the co-CEO's need to either clean up shop or walk out... now that RIM's market is entirely ceded to Android/iOS... NOW they start shaking things up? Chances are, RIM will never be great again - they lost their edge, then sat on their hands for years living off yesterday's big hits. Question is, do they have anything that a acquiring company might find worth purchasin…
I'd argue their hardware is still better designed than that of most Android vendors, especially for text input speed and accuracy. Where RIM went wrong was underestimating the importance of software and the surrounding ecosystem. Their App store was dreadful. Incidentally, this is perhaps where Nokia did the smart thing by recognising similar weaknesses in their software strategy, and teamed up with Microsoft. Imagin…
> Where RIM went wrong was underestimating the importance of software and the surrounding ecosystem.
RIM is quickly discovering that it is not a software company -- and never has been. They are also discovering that software is hard and is the future of mobile.
I say this as someone who was happily employed there a little as three weeks ago (I left to join a startup -- and yes, I absolutely loved my job at RIM). They have some good people but the majority of upper management is lost without a map.
They opted to create another mobile OS/ecosystem. The talent is certainly there, but the time is quickly running out. Apple has been working on iOS for years. Microsoft has been in the OS business for decades. Android is based on Java which has countless man-years behind the tools. RIM is working from QNX which is nice, but is not a full-blown OS/toolchain. There's a lot of work to do there; they've really only been at it for less than a year.
And let's face it: BBOS was something only its mother could love.
Re: RIM reports Q4 miss; Balsillie resigns as director, CTO out
#35In 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…
Saying the PDF reader on Playbook works is like saying a bucket of cold water works for having a shower.
I actually enjoy reading on a Playbook more than an iPad or a Kindle. But the PDF reader is abysmal software.
Re: RIM reports Q4 miss; Balsillie resigns as director, CTO out
#36For RIM to come back, just having a new OS (BB 10) and shiny hardware is not going to be enough. As an aside, Nokia, a company with similar brand recognition - albeit in a different market segment - is trying to claw back into the game is using Windows Phone 7 and Lumia 800, 900 series of phones. If I see this correctly, Nokia isn't betting on just the new hardware and Microsoft's OS (and financial muscle); they are…
Have you used the Silk browser? It performs like a pig. Turning off "Silk" is the only way to use it. Even then, it is substandard, in my opinion. If I have my Kindle Fire in my hands and need to look something up online I will usually put it down and reach for my iPhone on the nightstand. It is better than nothing on a device I use primarily for reading books, but I would steer clear of any phone running it.
Re: RIM reports Q4 miss; Balsillie resigns as director, CTO out
#37Their crown jewels are its BBM framework. They should simply make a paid BBM app for iphone, android,winmo,etc. I think they will find a substantial userbase of people who would love to pay a monthly subscription to be able to.use BBM on a non-blackberry device.
Re: RIM reports Q4 miss; Balsillie resigns as director, CTO out
#38Serious question: What viable options do they have besides being acquired?
I see tons of BlackBerries in Mexico, when three years ago there were none. They have become an affordable phone here that works just fine for Facebook, email and chatting. In a certain sense they are the old reliable Nokias of yesteryear. I don't pretend to play analyst, but I think there's a huge market in producing affordable and sturdy smartphones for third world countries. To many it's their only way to get onli…
I absolutely agree that there's a huge market for smartphones in the third world, but I don't see how RIM can successfully take on Huawei, ZTE and the lesser-known, even lower-cost OEMs that are already there.
Re: RIM reports Q4 miss; Balsillie resigns as director, CTO out
#39For RIM to come back, just having a new OS (BB 10) and shiny hardware is not going to be enough. As an aside, Nokia, a company with similar brand recognition - albeit in a different market segment - is trying to claw back into the game is using Windows Phone 7 and Lumia 800, 900 series of phones. If I see this correctly, Nokia isn't betting on just the new hardware and Microsoft's OS (and financial muscle); they are…
Have you used the Silk browser? It performs like a pig. Turning off "Silk" is the only way to use it. Even then, it is substandard, in my opinion. If I have my Kindle Fire in my hands and need to look something up online I will usually put it down and reach for my iPhone on the nightstand. It is better than nothing on a device I use primarily for reading books, but I would steer clear of any phone running it.
I should have clarified; yes indeed, Silk does perform like a pig currently, but I like the idea behind it, and I believe that Amazon has the engineering chops to pull it off.
Immediate access to the mobile phone market along with a huge amount of data that can go Amazon's way if they fix Silk, might make a partnership seem mutually beneficial. (Also, since the mobile phone market is still carrier dependent, Amazon will have a harder time penetrating that market segment on its own)
Re: RIM reports Q4 miss; Balsillie resigns as director, CTO out
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
It doesn't matter. Everything dies. You get hugely successful, defining a new product. You build a very effective business to capitalize on your product. The state you were operating in when you designed/built your product is by necessity baked into your business. Life, for a time, becomes Very Good. But the world state changes. This is inevitable. You don't care — there's enough money in what you do so that changing…
> It doesn't matter. Everything dies.
"Why do all companies die, wheras almost all cities survive? You can drop an atom bomb on a city and it will survive".
http://www.ted.com/talks/geoffrey_west_the_surprising_math_o...