
New Delays at RIM to Be Questioned by Shareholders - aaronbrethorst
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/09/technology/new-delays-at-blackberry-maker-to-be-questioned-by-shareholders.html?_r=1&hp&pagewanted=all
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jsz0
The delay is not good but these shareholders have to understand this is RIM's
last shot. Rushing something out before it's finished isn't going to save
them.

~~~
elithrar
Absolutely. They need to get this right: they can't afford a traditional
"v1.0" release when they are up against very mature competitors (iOS; Android;
WP7/8). The Playbook was an example of their rushing to market, and the device
lacked email, calendaring (basic features; especially for RIM) and relied on a
BlackBerry for a full feature-set.

The shareholders are no doubt frustrated at RIM's financial performance over
the last several quarters, but things will only get worse if they put out an
unfinished product. As they say: short term pains, (hopefully) long term
gains.

~~~
Belgica
I'm using WP7.5 at the moment on a Lumia 800, my previous phone being a Bold
9700. I don't think of Windows Phone as mature... Next one will be a Bold
9900, I was waiting for BB10, but I think their current models are excellent.

~~~
pedalpete
Are you outside North America Belgica? The reason I ask, is I'm Canadian, but
have been living in South America and now Australia for almost a year. I'm
amazed at how many Blackberry users I still see. I keep hearing all this talk
about the ship going down, and I think to myself that the Blackberries I'm
seeing are no more than 9 months old on average. How can things be so bad?

At the same time, there is a serious perception in North America that iPhone
is the only phone, and is trumping everybody.

It's amazing how perception is such a big part of this market.

I've got an iPhone, an android (Sony Experia S) and a Windows (Samsung Focus),
and I think the iPhone is way behind both the experience on Android and
iPhone. But it all just goes to show the market is big enough for multiple
players.

~~~
potatolicious
> _"How can things be so bad?"_

It's not so simple.

Blackberries expanded aggressively into developing markets, as well as low-end
markets in developed countries, by offering lower rate plans compared to
traditional smartphones.

This created a temporary lull where the gigantic market share losses being
taken in North America and Europe were being absorbed by sales increases in
developing markets - lower-margin sales, mind you, on products targeted at the
lowest end of the segment as opposed to BB's upmarket positioning during its
heyday.

So, to recap: high-margin, high-end sales being completely _decimated_
everywhere, but countered by expansion into low-margin, low-end markets at
high-volume.

And now, of course, the low-margin, low-end markets are being eaten alive by
Android. So BlackBerry's time is truly up. This is reflected now in RIM's
publicly available finances - the fiscal reality simply lagged behind market
sentiment by a couple of years, that's all.

I will make a wager: in 3 years you should go back to South America and
Australia - I'm willing to bet that RIM's market share in those countries will
resemble Blackberry's market share in North America today.

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mdkess
I hate RIM because they represent everything that is wrong with the Canadian
software scene in my mind. At the same time, they've put Canada on the map for
technology, and done a ton of good for the community (the Accelerator Centre,
donations to the university, etc), so it's sad to see that they've turned into
such an abject failure. My thoughts (a rant in five parts):

1\. RIM is a Canadian company, and from my experience (as a Canadian who went
to school in Waterloo), Canadian companies like management - they are
incredibly top heavy. This is especially true in the case of RIM - my friends
there tell horror stories of how hard it is to make changes or even coordinate
between teams. In contrast, I've found American companies err almost too far
on the other side - not enough management to give some structure. So you have
a lot of people who delegate, and not many people to actually do things, and
nobody to organize the mess. Three bosses? I think yes.

2\. They also don't pay very well. Out of school, my offer from RIM as a
software developer was just over half of the offers I got from Microsoft,
Amazon and co. So they're not getting the A team, or the B team, or really
even the C team. To be fair, Waterloo is not nearly as expensive as Seattle or
San Francisco, but still, as a whole they end up with the developers who are
either unambitious (this is the best case, because many of these people are
very smart), or just not very hard working. There are a lot of "retirees" too
- people who want the 9-5 to raise a family (which is not itself bad, but you
can't have an entire company made up of people like that). So basically, a
whole lot of apathy.

3\. There's a culture there of yes men. Look at how Laz ran the show -
basically, it was a culture of denial that the iPhone even existed (look up
some quotes from him about the iPhone from 2007 - 2009). Their product cycle
has always been twice as long as the rest of the industry (and when they do,
it's often incredibly half baked). While I think that Heins is really smart,
and I certainly wouldn't want his job, he's stepped into a really broken
culture. Their heads have been in the sand for ages.

4\. If their public APIs/development chain are indicative of their internal
workings, it's a mess over there - no wonder they can't ship anything. No
documentation, poorly build APIs, and an awful, awful simulator (although to
be fair, the last time I worked with BlackBerry's APIs was right after the
iPhone came out, so they may have improved). It's a mess.

5\. The ship is sinking! Anyone who can get a job elsewhere is going to get
out as soon as they can. And why would people crunch to get the project out
the door, if they think that they are going to get laid off anyway in six
months? Nobody's getting raises, nobody's getting bonuses.

I would love for RIM to succeed, but it's much more than the market that is
holding them back.

~~~
bishnu
RIM is simply one of many companies that just got utterly smoked by the
iPhone, and I wish people would stop equating its failure with the intrinsic
problems of the Canadian software industry - which are real and numerous (and
your point #2 is bang on) but I feel are their own separate issue.

~~~
mdkess
I don't think that's true. They certainly knew about the iPhone before the
public did, and so they had a ton of time and money to position themselves for
it. Certainly the iPhone was a game changer, but there is absolutely no reason
that a better managed RIM shouldn't have come out ahead. Look up some of the
stuff that Lazaridis said about the iPhone.

I mean, read this: [http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jun/29/rim-
chiefs-...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jun/29/rim-chiefs-best-
quotes) . The iPhone didn't kill RIM, it was hubris and complacency.

~~~
bishnu
Hubris and complacency wasn't limited to RIM. The iPhone smoked Nokia, Palm,
Sony's cell phone division, Microsoft, etc. To look at RIM's failure as
symptomatic of the Canadian tech sector is inaccurate.

