Turmoil at RIM: a new CEO, BlackBerry 10 delays, and buyout rumors
It has been a tough year for RIM. The BlackBerry PlayBook has not seen much success, its co-CEO structure buckled under intense pressure as the company appointed Thorsten Heins as the new CEO, and its next-generation operating system has been delayed and renamed. We've rounded up all the dark tidings in one spot.
Former Blackberry co-CEO sells off entire stake in the company he helped build
A document filed by BlackBerry today reveals that Jim Balsillie, who formerly served as co-CEO along with Mike Lazaridis, has sold off his entire stake in the company. As recently as last year, Balsillie held 28.6 million shares, a number that has rapidly plummeted to zero according to a regulatory filing. Balsillie and Lazaridis oversaw BlackBerry's meteoric rise in the mobile phone arena, but also occupied the top ranks during the company's stunning downfall.
For his part, Lazaridis has...
RIM's first patent settlement payment to Nokia is $65 million
Last week Nokia announced that RIM would pay it a one-off fee and make subsequent payments as part of a patent licensing agreement. It's now emerged, thanks to an SEC filing spotted by AllThingsD, that the one-off payment was a lump sum of €50 million, or around $65 million. The fee has been recorded in RIM's financial books for the third quarter of fiscal 2013. We still don't know how much the future instalments from RIM to Nokia will be, but it appears the Canadian company is paying a...
RIM agrees to pay Nokia for patent licenses
RIM has agreed to a patent licensing agreement with Nokia that includes a one-off fee and on-going payments "all from RIM to Nokia." As part of the agreement, the two companies will drop all current patent litigation. "We are very pleased to have resolved our patent licensing issues with RIM," says Nokia, "this agreement demonstrates Nokia’s industry leading patent portfolio and enables us to focus on further licensing opportunities in the mobile communications market." The precise...
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency ends BlackBerry contract, will issue iPhones instead
The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) has ended its agreement with RIM to provide staffers with BlackBerry smartphones and will instead offer its employees iPhones. Reuters notes that this move affects about 17,600 employees and will cost the agency about $2.1 million. The ICE has used RIM's products for eight years, but it claims that at this point, BlackBerry smartphones "can no longer meet the mobile technology needs of the agency." The group did look at Google's Android...
RIM revs up: a new QWERTY phone, new software, and new ambitions
In a meeting Tuesday in New York, Research In Motion CEO Thorsten Heins along with other executives discussed —and demoed — the future of the company.
It was a candid opportunity to hear Heins' plans for the future, discuss the challenges of the last few years, and see a first hand demo of the next iteration of BlackBerry phones. While the executives certainly have plenty of worries to focus on — like the fact that RIM stock prices have lost nearly 70 percent of their value in the last...
IBM reportedly interested in buying RIM's enterprise services unit
As the long wait for BlackBerry 10 devices continues, rumors continue to swirl that RIM may engage in some radical restructuring at some point — including selling off parts of its business. The latest comes from Bloomberg, reporting that its sources indicate that IBM has "made an informal approach" to acquire RIM's Enterprise Services unit. Apparently, the board rebuffed IBM's interest because it still wants to wait and see what will happen with BB10. That's the same attitude the board...
BlackBerry
BlackBerry exodus continues as prominent UI designer leaves RIM
Hampus Jakobsson, who founded currently RIM-owned UI developer group The Astonishing Tribe (TAT), just announced that he has left RIM to pursue other projects. Jakobsson made the announcement in a tweet from TAT's account, saying he was "handing it over to others in RIM."
Mobile
High and low: what RIM's failure is doing to the people of Waterloo
Redmond. Cupertino. Mountain View. In the tech world, these cities are indelibly stamped with their respective company names: Microsoft, Apple, Google. The places have become synonymous with their firms: we await the “news from Redmond” when Microsoft debuts a new operating system, or whisper about Cupertino’s penchant for secrecy.
Though less well-known, Waterloo, Ontario, is another city stamped by the accomplishments of a tech giant. Research in Motion began there in 1984, and with...
Policy & Law
RIM reportedly ordered to pay $147.2 million in enterprise server patent suit
A lawsuit over RIM's wireless device management system could leave it paying $147.2 million or more in damages. Mformation Technologies, which sued RIM over patent infringement in 2008, told Reuters that a California jury has directed the phone maker to pay an $8 royalty for every device that connects to a RIM enterprise server, and that the verdict does not cover future or international damages. RIM, meanwhile, has said that it has pending motions that could overturn the verdict; it's...
BlackBerry
Developer interest in BB10 falls 17 percent, lags behind iOS, Android, and Windows Phone
A survey has found that developer enthusiasm for RIM's new OS, BB10, has plummeted from 4.6 points out of 10 just three months ago down to 3.8 — a 17 percent decrease. According to the survey, which looked at developers' long-term outlook for mobile development platforms, the community feels similarly enthusiastic about BB10 and Adobe Flash / Air. RIM's current OS, BlackBerry 7, was less popular than Adobe Flash and only slightly more favorable than Samsung's Bada platform and the...
Mobile
RIM CEO Thorsten Heins interview: 'we have roughly 80 million users today — Nokia doesn't have that'
I just had a chance to sit down with Research In Motion's recently appointed CEO Thorsten Heins to discuss the current and future states of the company he's now tasked with rebuilding. While there wasn't much new ground to cover given all of the recent news surrounding RIM, he did have some interesting things to say about his business, BlackBerry 10, the competitive landscape, and what happens next for the struggling phonemaker.
"We want to support [current customers] very strongly."
For...
Mobile
BlackBerry 7 will continue until 'full portfolio' of BlackBerry 10 phones is available
At the company's annual shareholders' conference today, RIM CEO Thorsten Heins noted the company's strength in emerging markets with its entry-level BlackBerry 7 devices — the Curve line, for instance — which is a message he has delivered in the last two earnings calls as well. BlackBerry 10 will begin at the high end, though, with just a single full touch and QWERTY model launching around the same time in the calendar first quarter of 2013, so Heins says that the BlackBerry 7 line will...
Mobile
Thorsten Heins on delaying BlackBerry 10: 'I could still see some of the seams'
Since RIM's dismal earnings report and its delay of BlackBerry 10, CEO Thorsten Heins has sometimes come off as being in deep denial about the company's future. In an interview with The Globe and Mail, however, he's explained why RIM's next-generation operating system won't launch this year in relatively frank terms. Heins said that though "the core technology of BlackBerry 10 is ready to go... The goal of BlackBerry 10 is to bring some of the best technologies in the world together in a...
BlackBerry
RIM US head: BlackBerry 10 is 'an entirely new way of interacting with the world around us'
As you may already know thanks to RIM CEO Thorsten Heins' op-ed piece in The Globe and Mail, the company is on something of a PR blitz. Following its latest earnings disappointment, and the news that the BlackBerry 10 platform and devices have been delayed until 2013, it seems the Waterlooians are on a mission to change increasingly dour public opinions about their business.
We had a chance to speak with Richard Piasentin (RIM's Managing Director for the US) about where the company is headed...
BlackBerry
RIM CEO Thorsten Heins says there is 'nothing wrong' with the company
Despite internal turmoil, massive fiscal losses, and plummeting marketshare, RIM's CEO Thorsten Heins believes there is "nothing wrong with the company as it exists right now." Heins pulled double duty as the public face of the BlackBerry maker on Tuesday, appearing on a Canadian radio morning show and penning an opinion piece in the Globe and Mail newspaper. Pushing against a recent wave of negative news — led by BlackBerry 10's delay into 2013 — Heins emphasized that good things are on...
BlackBerry
RIM's downward spiral visualized
Everyone knows RIM is in trouble: we've even written a rather sizable piece describing how it came to pass. But what do these declines in phone shipments, revenue, and operating margins look like compared to other phone companies? Analyst Horace Dediu has put together a series of charts showing how RIM stacks up, and it doesn't look good. The company had been steadily selling phones up until late 2010 or early 2011, until its shipments began dropping steeply and its operating margins dropped...
BlackBerry
RIM reiterates BlackBerry 10 hardware plan: fewer devices, QWERTY and full touch models around the same time
On its rather somber fiscal Q1 2013 earnings call today, RIM CEO Thorsten Heins talked briefly about the plan for BlackBerry 10 hardware (which has now slipped to the first calendar quarter of 2013), noting again that there's no plan to abandon what he calls the "iconic" QWERTY form factor that helped propel the company to success in the last decade. He expects both QWERTY and full touch BlackBerry 10 models to launch in "close proximity" to one another, and it sounds like there might just be...
Apps & Software
BlackBerry 10 delayed, devices to launch globally in Q1 2013
As part of its financial earnings report for Q1 2013, RIM has revealed that BlackBerry 10 has been delayed: the company will now globally launch BlackBerry 10 devices in the first quarter of 2013. RIM officially revealed the new OS back in May at BlackBerry World, and CEO Thorsten Heins said that the project had been underway for a year and a half — but it looks like RIM will need even more time to deliver, with Heins saying today on the company's earnings call that the 2012 schedule is "no...
BlackBerry
RIM reports fiscal Q1 2013 earnings: cutting 5,000 jobs this fiscal year, $518m net loss
The press release for RIM's fiscal first quarter 2013 earnings has just hit the wires, and as expected, the news isn't good: the Waterloo, Ontario company will be shedding 5,000 jobs after reporting a GAAP loss of $518 million on revenue of $2.8 billion, which is down 33 percent from the quarter prior. Cash and equivalents on hand actually increased to $2.2 billion, but that's little consolation — 5,000 employees will be losing their jobs as part of the company's restructuring process, and...
BlackBerry
RIM may sell handset business, according to The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times reports today that RIM is considering a plan to split its handset division and messaging network into two separate companies, and will sell off the struggling BlackBerry hardware business. The British paper doesn't cite any sources in the report, but it says that Facebook and Amazon are both "potential buyers." As part of this plan, RIM could keep its enterprise-friendly messaging and data network (including BBM, BIS, and BES) in-house and license them out — a move c...
RIM wins court case over rights to BBM name
It's not like RIM is short of problems to deal with, but a fairly longstanding thorn in its side has been removed today. It's finally won a legal case brought by analytics company BBM Canada, formerly known as the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement, over the right to use the BBM initialism with its BlackBerry Messenger service. The Globe and Mail reports that despite BBM Canada owning the trademark, the court found in favor of RIM because the two companies aren't in the same industry.
The...
BlackBerry
RIM halts stock trading, will 'likely have an operating loss' in Q1
RIM halted its stock this afternoon about 15 minutes after the markets closed as it released a "business update" giving a preview of its Q1 earnings, which will be announced in full on June 28th. RIM's move prevents anyone from buying or selling its stock in after-hours trading, and allows the market to digest the company's news today without making the share value go out of control.
As part of RIM's current financial turmoil the company has stopped providing quarterly earnings guidance, but...
RIM to lay off at least 12 percent of workforce in restructuring effort, says Globe and Mail
According to The Globe and Mail, RIM is getting ready to axe at least 2,000 employees in "the next couple of weeks." The move would see the struggling company's workforce drop to about 14,500, and it comes after it has seen multiple high-level executives leave — including former co-CEO Jim Balsille. RIM also made a similar move in the summer of last year, when it laid off 2,000 employees alongside a shuffle of its executives. The Globe and Mail cites "several people close to the company"...
BlackBerry
Sonos hires former RIM sales chief Patrick Spence, says Reuters
RIM's former executive vice president of global sales, Patrick Spence, resigned from the company earlier this week and is reportedly heading to Sonos. Reuters claims that Spence has been hired as Sonos' chief commercial officer, citing a source with knowledge of his plans. RIM originally revealed that Spence was planning to take "a leadership position in a different industry," although the firm refused to comment further.
RIM CEO Thorsten Heins will take over Spence's responsibilities and...
BlackBerry
RIM EVP of global sales Patrick Spence resigns
In yet another leadership shakeup, RIM's executive vice president of global sales, Patrick Spence, has resigned, the Wall Street Journal reports. According to a statement issued by company representatives, Spence will be "taking a leadership position in a different industry," though no further insight was provided. In the interim, RIM's CEO Thorsten Heins will absorb the role's responsibilities and pass them on to the company's new COO, Kristian Tear, when he starts later this year. Over the...
BlackBerry
RIM appoints Kristian Tear as new COO, Frank Boulben as new CMO
The transition to new leadership at RIM continues — the company has just announced new chief operating officer Kristian Tear (pictured above) and new chief marketing officer Frank Boulben. Tear comes to RIM from Sony Mobile, where he most recently worked as executive VP, while Boulben is a former executive VP at LightSquared. Tear fills a void left when former COO Thorstein Heins took the reins as RIM's new CEO back in January. One of the first things Heins said when he took over was that...
Mobile
RIM stock price falls to eight-year low following BlackBerry 10 reveal
Two days ago, RIM CEO Thorsten Heins unveiled the new BlackBerry 10 platform, but investors don't seem impressed: today, the BlackBerry manufacturer's stock hit an eight-year low of $11.91 on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Stock reached a high of $14.46 in anticipation of the BB10 reveal, but after Heins pulled out the BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha handset and finished presenting his plans, the stock price has dropped like a staircase each day since.
It's not uncommon for stock prices to sink even...
BlackBerry
Reuters: RIM hiring law firm to lead restructuring, asset sales being considered
We'd heard earlier this week that RIM was hiring a pair of banks to lead efforts to license the BlackBerry OS platform, but things may be a bit more dire than that. Reuters reports that the company has retained the services of law firm Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP to lead a broad restructuring effort — and the sale of RIM assets and the licensing of its patents are on the table. According to the report, the company is considering both options alongside possible joint ventures and the...
Bloomberg: RIM 'prefers' to license BlackBerry OS, doesn't want to be bought
Bloomberg is reporting that RIM would "prefer" to license its BlackBerry OS platform to help fix its balance sheet, and that it's hiring a pair of banks — one Canadian, one international — to advise it on how to go about doing that. The rumor comes as no surprise: recently-installed CEO Thorsten Heins made it clear on RIM's last earnings call that the company was exploring all available options to get back on solid financial ground, and the concept of licensing its next-generation...
Jim Balsillie quit RIM over veto of radical reinvention, BBM expansion, says Reuters
One half of RIM's former co-CEO pairing, Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, is today reported to have actively pursued a strategy of "radical" change for RIM in the days and months preceding his resignation as CEO. According to Reuters, RIM was engaged in negotiations with carriers around the globe — Balsillie is believed to have personally conducted talks with AT&T, Verizon, Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom, and others — about potentially allowing them use of its proprietary network for the...
RIM loses two more executives following poor Q4 results
The shakeup at RIM continued this week with the departure of two more executives following a poor Q4 earnings call. Reuters and Bloomberg report that senior vice president Alan Brenner and BlackBerry Messenger VP Alistair Mitchell are leaving the company. The exit of both executives is only the latest in a long line since Thorsten Heins took over as CEO for Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis in January. Balsillie retired from the company just over a week ago, and two other batches of senior...
RIM loses more senior executives since last week's earnings call: WSJ
The Wall Street Journal is reporting this evening that additional executives at the VP and senior VP level have departed BlackBerry maker RIM in the days since last week's grim earnings call led by new CEO Thorsten Heins. WSJ's sources — "people close to the company" — apparently weren't able to say whether the executives quit or were let go, but both scenarios are plausible: all indications are that Heins is taking on the role of hatchet man as he throws ballast overboard in a desperate...
RIM is not abandoning the consumer market (update: RIM confirms)
In the hours since RIM's fiscal Q4 2012 earnings call with newly-minted CEO Thorsten Heins yesterday, there's been a lot of talk about the company's "focus on the enterprise" — and we've seen a number of headlines flatly saying that RIM is abandoning the consumer market.
This simply isn't the case.
What Heins did say on a number of occasions throughout the call is that enterprise is RIM's core strength — and this is certainly true. In fact, it's always been true. Even as distracted as...
RIM reports fiscal fourth quarter results: $125m loss on $4.2b revenue
RIM has just announced its earnings for its fiscal fourth quarter of 2012, and as expected, they're not good: the company lost $125 million before adjustments on revenue of $4.2 billion. That revenue is down 19 percent from the third quarter. Its BlackBerry smartphone shipments aren't doing so well either: in Q4, RIM shipped 11.1 million, down 21 percent from Q3. Due to its weak sales and focus on building a BlackBerry 7 subscriber base in the next year, RIM also says it won't be giving...
Jim Balsillie resigns from RIM's board as poor earnings loom
Jim Balsillie has departed RIM just months after stepping down as co-CEO. "As I complete my retirement from RIM, I'm grateful for this remarkable experience and for the opportunity to have worked with outstanding professionals who helped turn a Canadian idea into a global success," he said, though it's difficult to imagine he'd planned on "retiring" so quickly after being realigned within the company.
Other departures today are said to include David Yach and Jim Rowan, CTO of software and...
RIM reportedly lays off multiple high-level executives under new CEO's direction
We were expecting some bad news to come out of RIM's earnings call today, and it looks like the removal of several high-ranking employees may be on the docket. The Globe and Mail reports that several "high level people" within the company were let go today, including multiple vice-presidents and senior vice-presidents. Both the sales and marketing departments are said to have been hit, as new CEO Thorsten Heins flexes his muscle in an effort to put the company on a positive track. We'll have...
BlackBerry
All eyes are on RIM, CEO Thorsten Heins ahead of earnings call tomorrow
Analysts, investors, and the wireless industry at large are bracing for what should be an interesting fiscal Q4 2012 earnings call from RIM tomorrow, the company's first full reported quarter since CEO Thorsten Heins took over for Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis in January. Of course, Heins hasn't had time to meet his first major goal yet — getting BlackBerry 10 shipping on exciting devices — but he'll still need to guide Waterloo through what's likely to be a tough year: the Wall Street...
Mobile
Apple sold more smartphones than RIM in Canada last year
RIM's fall from grace in the smartphone market now includes losing its top spot in its home market of Canada for the first time: Bloomberg reports that last year, RIM shipped 2.08 million BlackBerrys, compared to 2.85 million iPhones from Apple, after outselling Apple five-to-one back in 2008. The company has suffered a number of other setbacks recently, including an eroding foothold in enterprise markets, severe service outages, a strange dual-CEO leadership situation, a board shake up, and p...
Apple
US alcohol and firearms regulator abandons BlackBerry for iPhone, other platforms
RIM's mobile marketshare among US federal agencies has been dealt another blow with news that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives plans to swap out its entire fleet of BlackBerrys — approximately 3,800 — in favor of competing devices. The agency's chief information officer certainly didn't mince words in an interview with Politico, saying that the ATF would "delete the BlackBerry from the mix." As was the case with similar moves by NOAA and Halliburton earlier this...
BlackBerry
Research, no motion: How the BlackBerry CEOs lost an empire
Research In Motion, whose BlackBerry phones pioneered wireless email, no longer holds the commanding heights in the smartphone market. With Android, iOS, and even Windows Phone gaining market share, the Waterloo, Ontario, company finds itself in a battle for relevancy. The past year has been especially hard on the once-innovative RIM, but it may be at a turning point. Or the beginning of the end.
Last April, Mike Lazaridis sat in a BBC studio, holding his company's future in his hands: a...
US General Services Administration shifting some employees away from BlackBerry
RIM's loss of favor among US government agencies continues as the General Services Administration, which procures goods for other agencies, has announced that it plans to move some of its 17,000 employees from BlackBerrys to iOS or Android devices. The GSA is also testing a program to allow employees to use personal smartphones or tablets on its secure servers. Because the agency is often emulated by other groups, any move away from the BlackBerry platform could augur a larger governmental...
Alleged BlackBerry 10 images leak: widgets, new icon tray, and more
RIM has already gone on record saying that BlackBerry 10 phones won't be shipping until later this year, but some leaked photos may be giving us an extended look at the company's much-hyped new OS. Crackberry has several pictures, which were reportedly culled from a presentation by one of RIM's ad agencies on how to better position the company's future campaigns. They show off a number of new UI elements, including an updated icon tray with search, camera, and call buttons, quarter-screen...
BlackBerry
US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration drops BlackBerry for iPhone
After years of being the go-to device for US government agencies, the BlackBerry has just lost a major federal customer. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has announced that it will be replacing some of its employees' BlackBerrys with iPhones and will get rid of its RIM secure email servers by June. More surprisingly, the move is actually an economic one: NOAA chief information officer Joe Klimavicz says that the decision is due to pressure to cut operating costs for the...
Mobile
BlackBerry App World stats: six million daily downloads, higher profitability than Android
Alec Saunders, RIM's VP for Developer Relations, used the BlackBerry DevCon Europe stage today to "bust a few myths" about the state of the BlackBerry app ecosystem. Firstly, he took issue with the suggestion that BlackBerry users aren't using apps, telling us that there are now over six million daily downloads from the BB App World, totalling 174m per month, for an overall tally of over two billion. On a per-human basis, that's 30 app downloads per BlackBerry user per year. The second point...
RIM chairwoman Barbara Stymiest says board shakeup isn't over
In an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, RIM’s new chairwoman Barbara Stymiest made clear that she is planning more changes to the director lineup in the future. Investors such as Jaguar Financial Corp., a merchant bank specializing in undervalued companies, have long criticized RIM — most recently for the continued presence on the board of ex-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, insisting that their replacement at the top with Stymiest and new CEO Thorsten Heins isn’t enough....
BlackBerry
RIM handing out free BlackBerry PlayBooks to Android app developers
The BlackBerry PlayBook launched at $499, was cut to $199, then $99 for employees, and likely has a successor on the way, so you'd think the story might be over, right? Well, it's now available for the low low price of free to Android developers who register and submit an app to BlackBerry App World by February 13th. A tweet by Alec Saunders, RIM's VP of developer relations revealed the offer, with developers simply needing to email the name of their app to developeroutreachprogram@rim.com....
If RIM wants to fix the BlackBerry brand, it's time for some demolition
Unless you've been living under a rock, you probably know that Research In Motion announced last week that it's replaced dual-CEOs Mike Lazardis and Jim Balsillie with the heretofore unknown Thorsten Heins. The news came on the heels of recent (and very public) questions about the leadership of the company, as its marketshare continues on a steep, downward path.
I've been watching and listening as plans for the next stage of RIM and the BlackBerry brand unfold, both via stated intentions...
Mobile
RIM's Mike Lazaridis calls giving up CEO role 'very hard'
In a varied interview with The Record on Friday, Mike Lazaridis recounts his nearly 30-year career at Research In Motion, leading up to his departure last week (along with co-CEO Jim Balsillie) to make way for newly-installed chief Thorsten Heins. Every indication in the past couple years has been that Lazaridis was reluctant to give up control of the company that he co-founded — he basically confirms that in the piece, saying that "Stepping aside, as a founder, after 27 years, I would be...
RIM CEO: 'I run the company,' 80-90 percent of US BlackBerrys running older OS (update)
New RIM CEO Thorsten Heins is continuing his media assault, speaking to The Wall Street Journal about his plans for changing RIM. While his earlier comments were all about continuity, lately Heins is backpedaling a bit and emphasizing some changes that will come now that Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis aren't running the company anymore. On that front, Heins says that the board is behind him "1,000 percent," but that doesn't mean he's going to follow the exact same path as his predecessors:...
RIM CEO: BlackBerry is a differentiated product, Android OEMs 'are all the same'
In an interview with CrackBerry, RIM's new CEO Thorsten Heins has clarified his recent comments about the company's strategy for the near future. One of the major quotes from Thorsten's first comments after becoming CEO was that RIM doesn't need drastic change, which many have interpreted to mean he'll keep the same course as already set by his predecessors, Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis. That was our reading of the matter, too, but Thorsten explains that what he meant was that he doesn't...
Mobile
BlackBerry PlayBook, Curve refreshes leaked, London coming in Q3
BGR has posted slides from what appears to be RIM's 2012 roadmap, and if the details are accurate, we're looking at refreshes for the PlayBook, and new Curve 9220 and 9320 models. Rumors of the PlayBook's revamp have been swirling, and the leaked roadmap shows a new model with a 1.5GHz dual core chip, HSPA+, and NFC. The new Curve models are reported to have a dedicated BBM button on the side, a 2.44-inch display with a resolution of 320 x 240, 512MB each of RAM and internal storage, and an...
BlackBerry
RIM's new CEO: who is Thorsten Heins?
As RIM announced last night, the company is hoping to stem its precipitous decline with a change of leadership, appointing former Chief Operating Officer Thorsten Gerhard Heins to the position of CEO. Heins, who joined RIM the same year Apple released the first major BlackBerry competitor, has said he is "excited" to take charge of the company. But what has Heins done so far, and how might his background shape RIM's future?
The RIM executives have never been particularly public figures, and...
Mobile
RIM is open to licensing BlackBerry 10, confirms new CEO
There wasn't a whole lot of news to come out of RIM's conference call that formally introduced Thorsten Heins, but the new CEO did reveal that the company was open to licensing the BlackBerry 10 OS to other manufacturers. Heins is open to the possibility "if it makes sense strategically and tactically," but he's not making it a focus for RIM — the company will still focus on its own products, much like "another fruit company," said Heins. With BB10 not expected to launch until the end of...
RIM CEO Thorsten Heins: 'I can't wait to see' BlackBerry 10
RIM has posted a video of its new CEO, Thorsten Heins, talking about the company, his goals, and the upcoming BlackBerry 10 platform. He discusses his desire to finish products, promising to deliver the PlayBook 2.0 OS update on time. Heins also focuses on the need to focus on the consumer with powerful marketing.
On BlackBerry 10, that "new platform," Heins says that it's "unheard of" for a company to create a new platform within one and a half years — though he also says that he...
Mobile
WSJ confirms BlackBerry PlayBook 'revamp' in the works
In its report detailing the corporate shakeup at RIM, the Wall Street Journal also seems to confirm that the company is hard at work on an update to its PlayBook tablet. The article doesn't specify whether this is the previously-rumored 10-inch Black Forest tablet or something else altogether, but the wording certainly suggests a hardware update. Along with the first BlackBerry 10 phone, the Journal says the new tablet is one of the company's "two biggest projects," so hopefully we'll be...
RIM: Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis step down, co-COO Thorsten Heins is the new CEO
It looks like the shake up everybody has been expecting at RIM has finally come to pass. Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis have each stepped down from their co-CEO positions amid growing turmoil in the company and fears it won't be able to rebound itself in time. They are replaced by one of RIM's two COOs, Thorsten Heins. Additionally, another board member, Barbara Stymiest, has replaced them as chairwoman of RIM's board. Lazaridis is now the vice chairman on the board and Balsillie also...
CES 2012
The long road to BlackBerry 10
Last week at CES, RIM unveiled new features and functionality in PlayBook OS 2.0, which is due for a public release in February. Although much more polished than the initial release, we found that it still lacks certain features — including core advantages like BBM — that we would expect to see on a RIM tablet.
Yet the most important feature that PlayBook OS 2.0 lacks is a wide variety of quality apps. To find out how RIM plans to fix that, we sat down with the man tasked with ensuring...
RIM reportedly hires Goldman Sachs 'to explore strategic options'
Once again, rumors of a RIM shakeup are circulating now that Fox Business is reporting that the firm may have hired Goldman Sachs "to explore strategic options." Back in December, reports emerged that Amazon was interested in acquiring the BlackBerry maker, and then the Wall Street Journal added that Microsoft and Nokia considered a joint purchase as well, but neither deal came to fruition. At this point it's uncertain what might happen to the company; it could still get acquired by a...
RIM replacing Balsillie and Lazaridis as chairmen of the board, Financial Post says
There's been no shortage of stockholder (and customer) discontent directed at RIM in the past year, and needless to say, the names of the longtime co-CEOs — Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis — occasionally come up in conversations about leadership changes. To help quell investor rumblings in mid-2011, the company announced that it was appointing an independent committee to review its leadership structure; one of the points of contention was the dual role of the co-CEOs as co-chairmen of...
WSJ: Pressure intensifying on RIM's co-CEOs
RIM is just over a month away from the expected release of an "independent committee" report on whether or not the co-CEO team of Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis is a viable structure for the future, and the pressure appears to be intensifying on the pair. A report at The Wall Street Journal cites anonymous sources who contend that RIM's board is not properly governing the company, instead deferring to Balsillie and Lazaridis in too many instances. The source says that in board meetings, Jim...
RIM faces another trademark lawsuit, this time for 'BBM'
If RIM's sudden change from BBX to BlackBerry 10 in the wake of a trademark lawsuit left your head spinning, it's time to set it right again to properly take in yet another trademark lawsuit. BBM Canada, a group that provides consumer analytics and intelligence to broadcasters and has been using the "BBM" name since 1944, is in the midst of an ongoing lawsuit with RIM over the name that began way back in August, 2010. BBM Canada's CEO Jim McLeod told The Globe and Mail that his group...
WSJ: Microsoft and Nokia also casually considered jointly buying RIM
Amazon casually considered a bid for troubled BlackBerry maker RIM this summer, and apparently it wasn't the only one. Now, the Wall Street Journal's anonymous sources report that Microsoft and Nokia "flirted with the idea" of teaming up to buy RIM, too. The Journal suggests that this wasn't anything more than a simple idea that came up at one of the regular meetings between senior executives from all three companies — perhaps it could have even been a joke — but it's still pretty crazy...
Amazon considered buying RIM this summer
According to Reuters sources, Amazon looked into a purchase of RIM this summer. Amazon hired an investment bank to review a possible merger, but never made a formal offer. The details are muddy, but apparently RIM turned down Amazon before talks could get too heated, and has turned down other offers as well, with the board preferring to use existing internal assets, like BBM, and perhaps some restructuring (and of course, new phones) to turn the company around. The fun little twist here, of...
$1.7 million in BlackBerry PlayBooks stolen from an Indiana truck stop
RIM can't catch a break. Last Thursday, a truck carrying 22 pallets of BlackBerry PlayBooks (estimated to have 5,000 units) was stolen from an Indiana truck stop while the driver was busy eating and taking a shower. With no tracking device on the vehicle, there's little word on the thieves or where they're headed, although a local police spokesman has named Miami as a popular destination for stolen goods. The police believe that up to five suspects may be involved, and say they might have...
RIM: no BlackBerry 10 phones until late 2012
RIM's full name may be Research in Motion, but that motion's looking pretty slow right about now. The company's conference call to discuss the earnings it reported today included the devastating news that there won't be any BlackBerry 10 phones until late 2012. You'll recall that the BlackBerry London device that leaked out last month was also rumored to be launching in Q3 2012, so this new statement from RIM is an official confirmation of that speculative roadmap. More specifically, the...
RIM reports fiscal Q3 earnings: profits down 71 percent on $5.17 billion revenue
RIM announced its third-quarter earnings today, and it's not a pretty picture. The company reported earnings of $265 million — 51 cents per share — for the quarter, down 71 percent from $911 million from the same quarter a year ago. The number isn't all about declining smartphone sales, though — it includes the $485 million hit the company took thanks to unsold PlayBooks, as well as a $54 million charge from the worldwide outage it suffered this fall. There is one small bright spot:...
BBX is now BlackBerry 10, likely due to BASIS lawsuit
If you were to choose a name of an important, new mobile operating system upon which you were pinning the future hopes of your beleaguered company, you would probably make sure you chose one that wouldn't become the target of a lawsuit that could require you to change the name. You also wouldn't be RIM, as its official @BlackBerryDev Twitter account has announced that the "BBX" name has been replaced by "BlackBerry 10."
The move comes tonight in the wake of a US court decision in Albuquerque,...
BlackBerry
Analyst: BlackBerry Playbook is an 'albatross'
Analysts are starting to respond to RIM's $485m loss on the BlackBerry Playbook, and the outlook is not positive. Bloomberg Businessweek outlines a compelling theory of the burden the Playbook places on RIM: it's a necessary evil that RIM can't afford to simply kill (like HP did with the TouchPad) because it's the only device RIM offers that runs its next-generation BBX OS. At the same time, massive price cuts mean that RIM is losing significant money on every Playbook it does manage to sell....
Basis sues RIM over BBX trademark infringement
RIM's next-gen operating system, BBX, hasn't had a very good run so far: co-CEO Mike Laziridius failed to give many details during BlackBerry DevCon, the PlayBook 2.0 OS on which it is based has been delayed until 2012, and now RIM is facing a lawsuit over the name itself.
The lawsuit comes from Basis International, which has used the "BBx" name to describe its own operating system since 1985 and also holds a trademark on the name. Three days after Basis complained directly to RIM about the...
BlackBerry
BlackBerry Tablet OS 2.0 delayed to February 2012, won't include BBM
There might be a light at the end of the tunnel for RIM, but the BlackBerry PlayBook won't see so much as a shadow this year. The company just announced that the new BlackBerry Tablet OS 2.0 won't arrive until February 2012, much less the firm's high-flying next-gen operating system, BBX. What's more, this revision of the Tablet OS — currently in developer beta — still won't have native BBM messaging on board, leaving the slate somewhat crippled without a paired BlackBerry smartphone...
BlackBerry
RIM faces legal complaint over 'BBX' operating system name
Last week at BlackBerry DevCon, RIM unveiled the new name for its next-generation operating system, BBX. The very next day, it faced a potential lawsuit over the name from Basis, International — which has its own, trademarked operating system called "BBx." Basis has sent a cease and desist letter to RIM asking the BlackBerry maker to stop using the name. In a press release, Basis CEO Nico Spence called attention to the fact that its BBx OS works on multiple platforms and is therefore...
BlackBerry
BlackBerry service down in parts of Europe and Africa
As if RIM hasn't had enough problems on its hands, BlackBerry users across the world are reporting complete BIS (BlackBerry Internet Service) outages. The issues seems to be isolated to Europe, including the UK and Ireland, and Africa, with hundreds of users reporting no email, BBM, and web connectivity. (The US saw a similar outage in September, but it was confined to just BBM service.) RIM 's UK team has confirmed the outage with a tweet stating that they are investigating the issue. We'll...
BlackBerry
BlackBerry PlayBook WiMAX release canceled for Sprint (update: LTE PlayBook still coming)
After announcing it for a summer release early this year, Sprint has now shelved the WiMAX version of RIM's BlackBerry Playbook, saying that "it’s an interesting concept, it just hasn’t caught on with business customers as much as [RIM] would like." Indeed, PlayBook sales haven't been overwhelming by any measure -- and without a clear show of consumer support, it doesn't seem like a wise business decision for carriers to be devoting resources to launching additional versions of the same...
RIM to lay off 2,000 employees, shuffle executives
RIM said it would lay off some employees last month after announcing disappointing Q1 sales and earnings, and it looks like judgement day is here: the company says it's axing some 2,000 jobs around the world. That's slightly more than analysts expected, and it'll bring RIM's employee count down to about 17,000 total -- something Waterloo says is a "prudent and necessary step" after having experienced an "extended period of rapid growth." That's the polite way of saying the company's gotten...
BlackBerry
RIM staves off shareholder revolt, forms 'independent committee' to examine executive structure
Waterloo continues to be a font of corporate strangeness today, as RIM announced that they're forming a "committee of independent directors" whose mandate will be to study RIM's executive structure -- specifically looking into the powerful roles that Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis play as both CEOs and board members. The move was designed to fend off a motion from Northwest & Ethical Investments L.P. to demand RIM change the co-CEO structure it defended so vehemently earlier this month. The...
RIM responds to purported open letter from 'high level' employee
Earlier today BGR published a letter purportedly from a "high-level RIM employee" written to co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie. The anonymous letter went through a litany of problems plaguing the company, from software missteps to managerial issues to a fundamental failure to put the consumer experience ahead of engineering concerns. In all, the points sounded quite a bit like our own concerns over a strategy that feels like it's a year too late. BGR says that they've verified the...
RIM doth protest too much: the earnings call breakdown
We just listened in to RIM's quarterly earnings call to see what co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis had to say about the their disappointing financial numbers, product delays, and layoffs coming later this year. The feisty CEOs mentioned several times that people "on the outside" might not really understand what's going on inside RIM, so they laid it all out for us, citing a very familiar-sounding "transition period." Sounding more than ever like the Palm of yesteryear, they defended...
RIM's latest earnings call: 500K PlayBooks shipped, layoffs coming
The press release for RIM's fiscal Q1 2012 earnings call just hit the wires; by all appearances, there's not a lot to celebrate. The top question on everyone's mind is the PlayBook's retail performance, of course, and it's nothing to write home about: RIM is claiming 500,000 units shipped in the quarter -- the model's first quarter of retail availability. Again, that's the number shipped, not sold, and considering the number of PlayBooks I regularly see on store shelves, I would imagine that...
BlackBerry World: Now Wait for Last Year
Earlier this week, Research In Motion held its annual, major event -- BlackBerry World -- and made a handful of announcements about where the company was headed. The first wasn't entirely a surprise; RIM introduced the latest in a line of handsome -- if utilitarian -- smartphones, dubbed the Bold 9900. The device is an attractive, powerful handset that puts the classic BlackBerry QWERTY keyboard alongside a high-res capacitive touchscreen. The Canadian phonemaker also brought Microsoft's...
