

More letters to RIM; employees rally alongside anonymous exec - zacharye
http://www.bgr.com/2011/07/01/more-letters-to-rim-employees-rally-alongside-anonymous-exec/

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m104
RIM is now a textbook case of Jerry Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy
(<http://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html>) in action. Group
one, the goal seekers, have been or are being forced out or converted to
members of group two, the organization supporters. Those anonymous letters
coming from the current and former employees? Just desperate attempts from
group one employees to be heard over the crushing silence of the group two
management structure.

Don't expect RIM's fortunes to turn around any time soon. Only a catastrophic
business failure is going to shake up the management structure. With RIM's
financials and market position, it could be years before that event comes to
pass. Even then, there's no guarantee that RIM would really make a recovery.
Most likely RIM will be absorbed by a larger competitor (and the current RIM
top brass removed) before anything like real business failure can occur.

It's so painful to watch this. RIM has really made some great products and
services.

~~~
Steko
"Most likely RIM will be absorbed by a larger competitor (and the current RIM
top brass removed) before anything like real business failure can occur."

I think the most likely outcome is RIM stockholders will force some big
changes after a few more quarters of getting drilled by Android and Apple's
holiday lineup. Then 6-8 months later we'll see RIM starting to ship consumer
Android devices with a Blackberry security/messaging ui layer alongside their
other products. It will stabilize their fortunes and they could go on to be
the leading Android vendor with their strong brand and messaging focus.

edit: you could even argue that they can't really do that now and couldn't do
it last year. Everyone would say they're crazy to kill the golden egg and go
make lower margin phones. They needed to have disaster quarters, failed
products and tanking market share in order to make these decisions.

~~~
dvdhsu
> Then 6-8 months later we'll see RIM starting to ship consumer Android
> devices with a Blackberry security/messaging ui layer alongside their other
> products. It will stabilize their fortunes and they could go on to be the
> leading Android vendor with their strong brand and messaging focus.

I have a feeling that even if they go down that route, they won't be the
leading Android vendor.

If RIM is unable to innovate for a few more quarters, then their brand will be
worth less. The longer they hold out, the less their brand is worth. If they
switch to Android after their brand has taken hits, they will not do so well.
Samsung and HTC are firmly entrenched in the Android market, and I doubt a
weakened RIM would be able to overtake them.

~~~
evangineer
Agreed, not just Samsung and HTC but also the likes of LG and Sony are better
positioned to wind up as Android top dog.

------
blackboxxx
I know a RIM exec personally (and leave it at that) and he mocked my iPhone
for several years, calling it "fragile" and a "toy for children".

It's been only in the past month or so that he muttered something about the
competition getting tough lately.

It just seems RIM leadership is extremely arrogant and proud. They see the
train coming right at them, but are too afraid to make the radical blue ocean
product that's required to save them.

~~~
canistr
An executive of one company isn't likely going to complement another company.
They're going to do everything in their power to downgrade products of their
competition. I really don't think it makes a difference whether your friend
worked for RIM, Google, Microsoft, Nokia, or HP because all of Apple's
competitors followed this exact train of thought for several years.

~~~
fossuser
With the notable exception being Google who immediately changed the direction
android was going to account for the innovations Apple had developed. RIM and
Microsoft laughed the iPhone off and now wonder why Google and Apple are so
far ahead.

~~~
canistr
I think it's more that Google was hovering around from the start with the G1.
So the improvements they made were incremental on that brand new platform but
Microsoft and RIM would need a revolution to be able to catch up to the iPhone
and G1 at that point in the game.

The problem is that all the old players were left in the dust because they had
too much momentum on their old platforms. It's like hitting the breaks when
you are going 100 mph. For Google and Apple, they were going 0-60 pretty
quickly and then just slowly came up and surpassed the incumbents.

~~~
killerswan
IIRC Android was in development at a company Google bought even before the
iPhone launched. Early prototypes looked like a Blackberry, not like an
Android: they adjusted dramatically.

~~~
Steko
You could say Google was just smarter and they probably were but I think their
main advantage here was having no established product bringing in billions.
This freed executives to look at the market objectively and pick the future
winners.

There's a Steve Jobs quote about what happens when the sales guy starts
running the show at tech companies that's relevant here. Even if it's not the
CEO, too much of a company's top brass can get wedded to yesterday's products.

------
corin_
One thing that struck me as interesting is in the second letter, section 6:

 _There is so much secrecy in the company, no one knows anything about new
things until we see it on the news. That means we’re not able to tell our
friends and family anything about new things, and that reflects badly on RIM._

Is the reason it works for Apple so well and not for RIM because people
anticipate Apple products more (i.e. the products are better), or because
Apple are better at showbusiness, or both of the above, or something else?

I for one, despite being a huge Blackberry fan, never even realised there was
any secrecy ahead of launches, I've never anticipated new product
announcements or put much thought into what they would be.

~~~
digamber_kamat
Actually I feel all the opposite. RIM talks too much about its upcoming
products that people dont feel like buying whats on offer right now.

~~~
bane
The interesting part is that nobody really is interested in buying the
upcoming things they're talking about either. If their goal is to feel the
market out by revealing upcoming projects, then it's not really working for
them.

------
SoftwareMaven
Side thought: I've watched a lot of companies become horrible places to work
because of process strangulation. The problem is a small, vocal group saying
how much better life would be with one more piece of information...

The way I combat that is by documenting what is working right and determining
what I don't want to change. Your process requirements then become
"Learn/Enable/Etc this" and "Leave that unaffected".

It becomes surprisingly good at checking rampant process growth because you
have an anchor.

~~~
peterwwillis
The thing I love to see is how badly 'process' is implemented. _In theory_ you
should be able to get everyone who's approval you need in one room at one
time, take 10 minutes to explain your requirements and answer questions, then
have them all rubber stamp whatever it is you need and get going with doing
your work. In practice people do exactly the opposite, trying to add distance
to slow down the process. I'm wondering if what we all need is a more human
communication method to speed up resolution of problems and process.

~~~
fleitz
Almost all process is poorly implemented. Just bypass it. If you're a good
coder you should be able to contort your programs around the process.

------
ltamake
This internal drama is blowing my mind.

Here's what's wrong, RIM: you're not presenting your products right. Your
business audience doesn't care that the PlayBook has true multitasking, nor do
they care that there's Flash on-board. They want a device to manage their
emails and make running their business easier.

And the BlackBerry is really sad to see in my eyes. You buy this nice software
company and their HTML5 browser, and then put it in a crappy phone that has
half the specs of the competition? You have so much potential, I can see it
and feel it... but you're not utilising your resources properly. Study the
iPhone and Android and see why they're popular.

BGR's original leaked letter mentioned that RIM was advertising its products
wrong. I agree completely. Whenever I see a RIM ad, I just shake my head. They
really aren't advertising the right things. They're putting good things like
BBM aside.

I don't have a RIM device, but almost all of my co-workers do. I like my
iPhone, and I'm not trying to sound like an idiotic fanboy, but RIM: I used to
respect you a lot. You ran your business very well, and your devices could
have been considered revolutionary. Get your shit together.

~~~
mbesto
These are the only things I've ever heard from people who swear by their BB's:

1\. Keyboard

2\. BBM

3\. E-mail

I'm surprised RIM hasn't figured this out by now and put on their
advertisements "BlackBerry XXXX whatever - types easier, instantly communicate
better, and e-mail faster" (btw - whether or not these are really true is up
to debate, but IMO they are the only selling points)

I see ads all of the time for BB's that talk about Facebook/Twitter. I haven't
heard a single good thing about the facebook/twitter apps for BB or any BB app
for that matter.

~~~
rahoulb
In the UK they've been running an ad about BBM - getting your friends
together, meeting people in a nightclub etc.

When I first saw it I thought "about time, that's what they need to do -
capitalise on the fact that BBM is selling phones to teenagers/young people".

And then it ends with a guy in a suit checking his bank details with a message
about online security.

Totally destroys the message that the advert was, until then, successfully
portraying.

------
Osiris
The fact employees and even senior management have to resort to posting their
thoughts about the company _anonymously_ to another website rather than being
able to talk freely within the company speaks volumes about the serious
problems they have.

In my opinion, a company can only function well if there's open and honest
communication.

------
Shenglong
The funny (and sad) thing is, RIM is currently limited in its options. If it
responds again to these new letters, they'll just have _more_ letters flying
out. It was a huge mistake to respond to the first letter, no matter what they
could have said.

Interestingly, I would hope the RIM employees who've written this letter (and
the guy who wrote the first letter) would've started shorting stock. If RIM
responds again, I'm sure as hell doing it.

<http://www.google.com/finance?q=rim>

~~~
masklinn
> It was a huge mistake to respond to the first letter, no matter what they
> could have said.

And even more so because their response utterly blew.

------
lorax
I bet there are a lot of people out there that see parallels between RIM and
the companies they work for. Sadly, I don't think RIM is in any way unique and
is more the norm than the exception.

------
Uchikoma
RIM makes excellent business phones. My BB is tougher than most and the
keyboard is excellent. Exchange integration works. As a private iPhone user I
want apps. As a corporate BB user I just want something that is tough and
works.

They should not try to be a better Apple than Apple.

Focus on their market.

~~~
DanLivesHere
Blackberries should:

(a) Be awesome at email (and therefore have keyboards.)

(b) Take phone calls.

(c) Integrate with your calendar.

(d) Have awesome instant messaging (BBM?).

(e) Be able to survive a 20 foot drop.

(f) Have excellent battery life.

(g) Be much cheaper than the iPhone/Android.

If you're a business, you want to be able to give everyone this type of device
on their first day of work, all set up with everything. There should be no
expectation of personal use and there should be every expectation that
everyone in the company has and uses one.

------
Maro
Sounds like business as usual at a BigCo (founded in 1984).

------
parfe
Does Angry Birds run on the Playbook? I bought a Gtablet (display sucks, but
otherwise a powerful device). First thing anyone does when they try it out is
to look for Angry Birds.

I'm getting the feeling the Playbook's selling point is "We don't need a
youtube app, you can just browse YouTube inline!"

~~~
SoftwareMaven
I don't watch YouTube much, but that feature of inline YouTube is surprisingly
valuable. I switched to a different browser on my iPad (iCab Mobile) that
supports it and the experience is markedly better.

However, listening to a singer repeat "Flash" over and over does absolutely
nothing to make me want a Playbook. I run into flash problems one a week at
most; I'll glady trade it for battery life, performance, and stability.

~~~
chrisb
"A singer"?

That's not just "a singer".

It's Freddie Mercury himself.

~~~
shaggyfrog
That's the subtly bad part about the music. The commercial is so ineffective
and off-target that RIM is managing to drag down one of the legends of rock
with another kind of rock: the Playbook.

------
zabraxias
The comments to this can almost be titled "Strategies for Effective
Leadership". Whether I agree with all of them or not the discussion is quite
thought-provoking and makes me wonder what lessons can be learned to apply at
my current company.

------
omouse
A more democratic company structure would probably help with these issues. It
seems that a dictatorial structure allows the top execs to ignore all the
underlings, to ignore the little people who actually do much of the work.

~~~
Maro
That's a terrible idea. A company is not a democracy. The only solution is to
have good leaders.

~~~
staktrace
Agreed. Generally speaking companies should be meritocracies, allowing the
good leaders to rise up. The people at the bottom may do all the work, but
probably can't make overall strategic decisions nearly as well.

~~~
pradocchia
People at the top only need to make a few big strategic decisions a year. Some
of them, purely through dumb luck, will make the rights one and continue to
rise. This is not meritocracy, it's a crap shoot.

People at the bottom make lots of little decisions every day. They may get
lucky now and then, but over a year, the occasional bad luck will cancel that
out. So you have more meritocracy at the bottom, and less the higher up you
go.

In a large organization like RIM, the principle talent of senior management is
not strategic decision making, or management, but rent seeking: appropriating
the product of the lower ranks for their own glory. Other principle qualities:
fine grooming and dress, a firm hand shake, politics, public speaking, and
punctuality. These qualities are practiced _daily_. You can't fake it.
Strategic decision making? A few times a year.

Add a little random luck in strategic decisions, and you have the CEO. There
are enough contenders for his position that someone, somewhere will have a
string of good enough fortune to land them there, regardless of merit.

[hat tip to Taleb re: executives and strategic decision making]

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mdda
Revolution in Motion. (or as another comment has it Research in Mutiny).

------
ashishg
RIM forgot it's target market. Their ads are showing too many teens/family -
gotta focus on their business market, and be the best at that.

