Dean Howell
This breaking news is not at all surprising. The Wall Street Journal reports this evening that co-CEO’s Make Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie have stepped down, presumably– and almost certainly– due to increasing pressure from stock-holders and RIM’s board of directors. The duo will be replaced by COO Dave Foley Thorsten Heins. Barbara Stymiest, who also serves on the board will take their places as chairman(s) of the board. The former tag-team powerhouse will remain on the board, though this move to retain them is likely to be political one to save face. We’ve learned from Apple that when you fire board members completely, they come back ten years later and revitalize your company. We wouldn’t want that now would we RIM? Bloomberg reports that their new positions will be “without any operational role”.
It seems that RIM can’t catch a break. First, another tag-team executive duo had an awesome party on a plane– not Ric Flair and Scott Hall– then the delay of Blackberry “10″. The company has failed to catch even a marginal amount of mind-share with the Blackberry playbook and the market for candybar style qwerty devices is non-existent. Like Hallmark, their customers are dying…
A candle that burns twice as bright burns twice as fast. It’s all a matter of scale really. RIM, once a mighty monolith of mobile technology, failed to catch on with the average consumer as the smartphone proliferated. RIM, I have the answer to your problems. Assimilate with Android or die.
Source: The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg
