News - RIM CEOs quit as BlackBerry maker struggles

[HEXUS]

Pressure from shareholders proves to be too much as RIM chiefs step down.

Read more.

[TheAnimus]

Does that mean there is a new head rim job available?

[crossy]

Hmm, not sure whether to see this as the CEO's taking responsibility for poor performance; getting out of the way to facilitate a takeover; or rats trying to distance themselves from a sinking ship...

Funnily enough a teenage relative of mine's looking for a new phone. Since they do a LOT of texting I suggested a 'berry and was strongly rebuffed - relative saying that they'd heard that (a) BB's aren't the most reliable; and (b) they all suffer from WindowsXP syndrome - getting slower and slower as your time with the unit goes on (garbage collection amiss?). Anyone know if this is true, or just urban legend spread by the folks with iPhone's and Android?

Does that mean there is a new head rim job available?

Coffee spray time!

[Biscuit]

Funnily enough a teenage relative of mine's looking for a new phone. Since they do a LOT of texting I suggested a 'berry and was strongly rebuffed - relative saying that they'd heard that (a) BB's aren't the most reliable; and (b) they all suffer from WindowsXP syndrome - getting slower and slower as your time with the unit goes on (garbage collection amiss?). Anyone know if this is true, or just urban legend spread by the folks with iPhone's and Android?

I hope its not true because mine (workphone not personal phone) has been slow from the moment i took it out of the package, if it gets any slower i might go mental.

[aidanjt]

Blackberry was screwed the moment they capitulated to Indian demands to install a back door into their messaging systems, secure communications was one of its key features, and they just screwed that up.

[spoon_]

BBs are dead, they only really hold on to corporate space - not for long though! BES is awful and should be burred together with RIM and BBs =]

[dave87]

RIM may be struggling, but the key question is why?

Is it because of the handsets?

They seem to have improved over the years - the new handsets I've used I've found simple enough to use and as feature rich as they need to be. They don't give the versatility that an Android handset has, they don't have the designer label that Apple have, and they aren't Windows Mobile, but surely that means they are simply in a different market segment? For some people having a phone that just works and isn't £50 a month a la iPhone is what they want. On the flip side, business IT moves marginally quicker in the private sector than the public, but is there a credible replacement from an IT administrators position to the reliability offered by a Blackberry?

Is it the software?

Well that hasn't really changed, so perhaps it is an issue. That said, for big organisations that is a strength not a weakness - if it works, don't for goodness sake fix it in case it causes another issue. It also means that when phones are replaced that the staff using them don't need retraining, they can simply pick up the phone and get working - so productivity is maintained.

As to the back-end software - it does the job doesn't it? Once you've set it up, then that is it done. Either that, or you outsource it - as long as the cost is kept low, Businesses will still use it.

Is it because of the competition?

Well, most likely. Android, Windows Mobile and iOS are all credible alternatives (and in some cases better) for the private individual. That said, is there a credible enterprise alternative to Blackberry? I know Apple have been trying to capture the market for a while - big law firms have been trialing iPads etc, but they all still have Blackberrys to my knowledge...


Or is it because its not cool anymore?

Lets face it, kids got Blackberrys because of BBM and because they were cool. No other reason I can think of when other phones existed. I've never had a Blackberry as my own phone, but I have recommended them based on their simplicity and reliability - and that has, so far, been the case for everyone I know who has one. For kids simplicity isn't an issue they will inevitably pick up new technology pretty quickly, and reliability doesn't seem the most pressing of issues if the phone goes out of fashion in 12 months and they are onto the next handset?


So, what is their most profitable revenue stream?

Is it the enterprise customer? Possibly, the margin on big projects must be reasonable, otherwise they wouldn't offer the service. The private individual, they must make something out of it, but it is possibly more about market penetration and the benefits that brings (if your employee already knows how to use a Blackberry because they already have one, then it is a lower training cost for staff) and ubiquity?

Or is it perhaps their Business model doesn't work?

The centralised nature of the Blackberry system has advantages for information security - or it did until concessions were made with national governments about access to such information - but is also Blackberry's biggest weakness. The failure of the central switch and the consequential network issues it faced last year did far more damage in a very short time frame than any of their competitors. Not only was it badly managed on the PR front, with top execs not knowing the answer and being unable to give a definitive timescale for resolution, but it made Blackberry's centralisation a very public weakness. That gives rise to a question of whether the added security of that centralisation is worth the added risk of potential downtime. That wasn't even a vague consideration before - Blackberry had a consistent uptime record which vanished overnight.

I think it is the last point which is perhaps the most damning - can the centralised business model that gave Blackberry its success continue? Well, that depends on many things, not least what the new CEO intends to do in terms of product development, markets they focus on and ultimately what the market wants...

[Silvia20]

You definitely have a great post over here!

[iamlorro]

Slightly shortened Quote-

RIM may be struggling, but the key question is why?
Is it because of the handsets?
Is it the software?
because of the competition?
because its not cool anymore?

All of the above.

A teenager who occasionally admits to knowing me wanted a blackberry for BBM. Then she saw all the stuff I could do with my phone, and she pestered her dad for a similar phone, and unlimited texts.

[crossy]

Is it because of the competition?
Well, most likely. Android, Windows Mobile and iOS are all credible alternatives (and in some cases better) for the private individual. That said, is there a credible enterprise alternative to Blackberry? I know Apple have been trying to capture the market for a while - big law firms have been trialing iPads etc, but they all still have Blackberrys to my knowledge...

Or is it because its not cool anymore?
Lets face it, kids got Blackberrys because of BBM and because they were cool. No other reason I can think of when other phones existed. I've never had a Blackberry as my own phone, but I have recommended them based on their simplicity and reliability - and that has, so far, been the case for everyone I know who has one. For kids simplicity isn't an issue they will inevitably pick up new technology pretty quickly, and reliability doesn't seem the most pressing of issues if the phone goes out of fashion in 12 months and they are onto the next handset?

Great post!

Speaking to my in-house teen "expert" and she was of the opinion that BB's big plus was BBM, and incidentally that they were best for texting - which is de rigueur for the high school set. However, they're losing market share at the moment because (a) iOS and Android have better apps; (b) poor reliability - software's the biggest worry, but "group knowledge" has thrown up problems with poor build quality too.

In the corporate environment I would have thought iPhone would have done well - especially if there was an approved way to get company-specific apps on there - Apple's closed model works well = more predictability and easier to support as a result. Conversely Android would do badly because it's just too configurable. No, now that HP's killed off webOS phones, I suspect the best choice for the corporates will be Windows Phone - especially now that Nokia (who know how to do "corporate" better than most) is on board. After all, you'd assume that Microsoft would be able to design a phone OS that would slot in easily and completely into the corporate Exchange backend, and in addition would have all those features for applying corporate settings (e.g. no Angry Birds apps!).