RIM’s CEO Swap is No Reboot
By Harry McCracken | Monday, January 23, 2012 at 12:10 am
After God-knows-how-many months of incessant wondering about how long beleaguered RIM co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie could keep their jobs, the tech blogosophere can move onto other topics. Both gents are stepping down from their day-to-day leadership roles–they’ll remain directors–to make way for Thorsten Heins, formerly the company’s COO (he was one of two of them). Barbara Stymiest, currently a member of the board, will become its new chairman.
The company has posted a video in which Heins talks about his new gig:
If Heins isn’t prepared to speak eloquently about the road ahead quite yet, that doesn’t mean that he’s clueless or that he won’t do a good job. I also understand why he might be inclined to say nice things about Lazaridis, Balsillie, and the RIM team. I’ll even cut the company slack for the spin it’s putting on the executive change, which is that it’s happening because RIM is doing so well, not because it’s in trouble.
But if you’re rooting, as I am, for RIM to leave its doldrums behind and make some really great products, there’s nothing in the new CEO’s video to inspire any confidence. He does point out a few areas where the company can improve. (One of them is marketing, which seems to me to be a matter which won’t do a thing to turn around the company, unless it’s marketing for as-yet-unreleased fabulous phones.)
Mostly, though, he seems to say that the last four years have been hunky-dory, that RIM is moving in the right direction, and that it’s a company defined by its commitment to innovation. He also marvels at the upcoming BlackBerry 10 operating system being put together in eighteen months–which is a strange thing to be marveling about given that the first BlackBerry 10 phones have been delayed until late this year, almost six years after the announcement of the iPhone.
As Heins says repeatedly in the video, he’s been at RIM for the past four years. Despite his cheery take, it’s been a bleak period for the company, mostly because it’s released so many half-baked products–the Storm, the Storm 2, the Torch, the PlayBook–and generally behaved like a company that no longer understands the industry it helped to create. He surely helped create this mess, and already, in this video, he sounds like he’s channeling Lazaridis and Balsillie’s blithe attitude towards the company’s existential challenges.
Of course, RIM has dug itself such a deep hole that even the most radical new CEO would have trouble formulating a strategy to set things right. BlackBerry 10 is a horribly overdue response to the iPhone, but Heins isn’t going to be able to switch game plans and get anything out more quickly. At this point, all he can do is to ensure that the first BlackBerry 10 handsets are as good as they can possibly be, and that the company knows what to do after they ship. And even that might not be enough to keep it relevant.
If you’re still holding out hope for a RIM turnaround, you need to concentrate your optimism on two specific areas:
* Maybe BlackBerry 10 and the phones that run it will be so spectacular that they’ll not only convince current RIM customers to stick around but also steal businesses and consumers away from the iPhone and Android;
* Perhaps Heins is a quiet revolutionary who’s going to impose meaningful change on RIM rather than continuing the Lazaridis/Balsillie approach–but he’s just not ready to talk about it yet.
What do you think the odds are that both of these possibilities are true?
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4 Comments For This Post
January 23rd, 2012 at 7:58 am
Ha ha ha. None, to be honest.
January 23rd, 2012 at 3:20 pm
A week ago people were all abuzz about RIM being sold, merged or chopped up in pieces by a Vulture Capitalist. But today, the sun is shining, and all they need to do is execute on the plan of the last 4 years! Utterly amazing!
Truth is, market share, customer satisfaction and a clear technical roadmap for Enterprises and developers (the two major stakeholders in such today), are still disasters. There is a substantial risk that the shrinking market share makes their first-class BES and BBM irrelevant, creating a vicious downward spiral.
The way out is to effectively split the company along its major product lines, and let each fight it out for survival as best it can. BlackBerry Enterprise can be a great product if it's not limited to only working on a product that few employees will touch. Ditto, BBM could snag 50¢ or $1 per month from tens or hundreds of millions of users around the world if it'd work on low-cost Nokias, Androids and even iPhones.
RIM has tried to buy time on its tardy handsets by leveraging the software, but unfortunately that merely incents other firms to replace the software services — and Microsoft and a whole host of independents are doing just that. The handset business needs to focus on a target demographic that will carry it independently of the software. Today, there are still pockets of strength and identifying them independently of the loss of BES and BBM exclusivity will allow them to focus on what they MOST need to when that crutch is kicked out. Even the Playbook can survive if it's freed from association with RIM's high-price, Wall Street perception. It might be ugly — think Packard-Bell — but there's a chance that's NOT available if the company assumes that customers will buy into the hopeless tethered model, a model that takes no responsibility for its own success.
In other words, it's about each team taking some responsibility — that also means, “hope” — for its own success. I wouldn't actually tear the company apart; there are good synergies that'd be lost. But it DOES need a refocus on how it will survive the very ugly 2012 ahead of it.
January 23rd, 2012 at 4:08 pm
Don't blame CEO, they want RIM win.
RIM has strange culture and self distruct political environment.
In RIM if a new hired person figure out major problem and introduce efficient approach, both manager and his buddy group member will proof their wrong approach works. just like someone point out driving a car is right way, pushing a car is wrong way, then both manager and his buddy group member will hate you, and proof that 3 person can also move the car by pushing it. cheating email will be sent to some vice president, saying like: see, the car moving, pushing a car is a natural part of the process, in order to deny new hired contribution of introducing skill of drive a car, they have to deny merit of driving a car.
It is very strange company culture and strange company political environment, it promote stealing and cheating skill. RIM's management may be a typical instance in MBA course.
This culture deny or steal hardworking team members' contribution/innovation, generate strange political environment, destroy RIM.
So don't blame CEO, some of their VPs and VPs' expert generate terrible culture and self destruct political environment.
January 26th, 2012 at 3:28 am
"So don't blame CEO, some of their VPs and VPs' expert generate terrible culture and self destruct political environment."
No, that's _exactly_ the sort of problem for which you blame the CEO(s). A bad corporate culture only survives because the CEO lets it. If the CEO(s) can't or won't fix the culture, it's entirely proper for the board to replace him/her/them.