RIM Co-CEOs Step Down

**frail** · 01-22-2012, 08:30 PM

WATERLOO, Ontario—After 20 years together at the helm of Research In Motion Ltd., Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, the company's co-chief executives, said they planned to turn over the top job early Monday to a little-known company insider as part of a board and management shuffle.

More at: WSJ

**Cauchon** · 01-22-2012, 08:40 PM

All I have to say is finally. The company needs a change and that starts with the top.

**nickdaman** · 01-22-2012, 09:08 PM

I agree as well for sure its about time to get some fresh ideas in there and as I see it can you do any worse? But we'll see.. I love my blackberry bold 9900 but I wouldn't want to step into that job =)

**howard** · 01-22-2012, 09:34 PM

With them stepping down I wonder if this is the end for RIM as we know it. I'm hoping they can pull through but at this point it probably makes more sense for them to slice the company up to see if they can sell it.

Who would be interested in buying RIM? Facebook? Samsung? Microsoft? HTC? Apple? HP? (j/k)

Personally I'm interested in what will happen to the hardware side of things. Does it make any sense to buy a handset maker that's kind of stuck in between generations? Let's not forget that they're running behind schedule on the software side.

Whoever buys RIM will have to invest a lot of money in them to get newer hardware and software out sooner. Just look at what happened with Palm and HP. HP couldn't release new hardware in a timely manner things got ugly. The problem with RIM is that they're going to cost a lot more than Palm did.

There's also the matter of whether going forward, the market has room for Blackberry OS. Android and iOS are firmly entrenched. Microsoft, while not a big player doesn't reply solely on Windows Phone for profits so everyone kind of assumes that they'll figure out how to crack this egg sooner or later. So is there room for RIM?

This brings me to my second question, we'll ever see Blackberry OS 10? Presumably BBOS 10 will be similar to the Playbook's OS. I have a Playbook and think the OS is very, very nice. If there were no such thing as apps and that the hardware was similar I'd prefer my Playbook to Android tablets. The problem is there are apps and Android tablets are advancing at a break-neck pace. Apps are an important feature to have and Blackberry OS 10 would essentially have a 2 or 3 year late start. It's true that BBOS 10 will probably be able to run Android apps but if that's the case why would anyone bother with a Blackberry when they can get the 'real thing' with an Android tablet?

I wish RIM the best but to say it's going to be an uphill battle is an understatement.

**Cauchon** · 01-22-2012, 10:42 PM

There is a new video on YouTube from BlackBerry

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=QUFwhpcrCTw

**HC - NO "i"** · 01-22-2012, 10:49 PM

Folks,

Finally! But I hope it is not too late for RIM. More impotantly, I hope Heins himself is not part of the RIM's problem and can really think out of the box with decisive execution... FAST!!!

**DennyCrane** · 01-23-2012, 12:04 AM

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry Bold 9900: Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9900; en) AppleWebKit/534.11+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.1.0.190 Mobile Safari/534.11+)

Let's hope Thorsten's commitment to execute projects on time is true. I have faith in RIM, and I think it's premature to start taking about selling the company already. Maybe I'm naïve...

**dlim1988** · 01-23-2012, 12:06 AM

I think this is great news for RIM! A shakeup in the highest level of management will hopefully breathe some new life into this company. It's been too long staying with current management, and RIM needs some new life and direction. Let's turn this boat around RIM!!

**chloride228** · 01-23-2012, 12:12 AM

I hope RIM doesn't morph into the next Nortel.

I once thought Nortel Networks was the greatest networking company in the world.

**dlim1988** · 01-23-2012, 01:04 AM

Originally Posted by chloride228

I hope RIM doesn't morph into the next Nortel.

I once thought Nortel Networks was the greatest networking company in the world.

Haha me too! I think this is a different situation here though. As ancient as people think Blackberry is, I think it has some very unique characteristics that will keep it alive. The corporate usage, security, and reliability of blackberry is hard to compare. No phone I know of can easily operate on a secure platform that is able to be easily encrypted and not be hacked. No other phone provides the email efficiency of a Blackberry, imo.

**cellphonejunky** · 01-23-2012, 01:38 AM

Hellelujah!!!! In with the new out with the old. But both outgoin ceo's hold an incerdible amount of shares tho, so it kinda makes you think what kind of politics will surface because of this! Change of captain DOESN'T mean a change of vision, so I hope new dude makes some sweeping changes to the blackberry device to keep up with the times! If I don't see a LTE bb by July or sooner..............hello Lte android!

**Frustration** · 01-23-2012, 03:12 AM

There was a lot of talk about a Microsoft buyout, but now with their partnership with Nokia it doesn't seem like that will happen.

Seems like they'll be around for a bit but will eventually fall into obscurity in the mainstream. Sucks... always sad to see some homegrown talent fail.

**kav2001c** · 01-23-2012, 08:33 AM

So many people thinking RIM needs to reinvent themselves (why?)

It's strange a company like HTC keeps rolling out 15 versions of the same device in the latest remix version but people want RIM to introduce something revolutionary. Seriously what is left? What do you want them to introduce?

**Heavy Fluid** · 01-23-2012, 09:12 AM

Originally Posted by kav2001c

So many people thinking RIM needs to reinvent themselves (why?)

It's strange a company like HTC keeps rolling out 15 versions of the same device in the latest remix version but people want RIM to introduce something revolutionary. Seriously what is left? What do you want them to introduce?

I was thinking the exact same thing.

**HC - NO "i"** · 01-23-2012, 09:21 AM

Originally Posted by cellphonejunky

Hellelujah!!!! In with the new out with the old. But both outgoin ceo's hold an incerdible amount of shares tho, so it kinda makes you think what kind of politics will surface because of this! Change of captain DOESN'T mean a change of vision, so I hope new dude makes some sweeping changes to the blackberry device to keep up with the times! If I don't see a LTE bb by July or sooner..............hello Lte android!

cellphonejunky,

Unfortunately, Heins is NEITHER "new" NOR going to make "drastic change" to steer the ship into the smoother waters! The only thing left for RIM is its financial condition - relatively little debt, still generating revenue. Just that they need some organic growth, expansion in the foreign markets cannot offset the domestic loss to other platforms (namely Google Android and Apple iOS). I just do not see how creative RIM can be when holding on to the government, corp clients as bread and butter.