More RIM Executives Head for the Exit

[Scorbing]

Source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2402844,00.asp

More executives are leaving struggling smartphone maker Research in Motion, the company confirmed Tuesday. Alistair Mitchell, former vice president of BBM Platform and Integrated Services, has already left RIM and Alan Brenner, senior vice president in charge of the BlackBerry Platform, will be leaving after a transitional period.

The new departures add to impression that RIM executives are fleeing for the exits. The BlackBerry maker has endured several disappointing financial quarters in a row as the company struggles to deal with the popularity of Apple's iPhone and smartphones based on Google's Android in the consumer market, even as those devices are increasingly invading the enterprise space once dominated by RIM.

In the most high profile departure, former co-CEO Jim Balsillie stepped down from his position on RIM's board of directors late last month. Balsillie and former co-CEO Mike Laziridis had stepped down in January to make way for newly minted president and chief executive Thorsten Heins, but Balsillie's decision to leave the company entirely was still surprising.

Last month, the company also parted ways with David Yach, its chief software technology officer, and Jim Rowan, chief operation officer for Global Operations.

And those were just the latest high-profile RIM employees to leave. The Motley Fool's Evan Niu this week offered up a pretty eye-opening list of executives who've left in the past year, starting with former chief marketing officer Keith Pardy in March 2011. All told, 11 C-level executives, senior directors, senior product managers, and vice presidents have bailed on RIM.

For his part, Heins is promising big changes at RIM in an effort to right the ship.

The BlackBerry maker plans to abandon efforts to penetrate certain consumer markets while refocusing on the enterprise and public sector segments where RIM maintains "a leading position," Heins said during a conference call with analysts to discuss the company's fourth-quarter and fiscal 2012 earnings.

RIM "was late to the 'bring your own device' movement," Heins said, explaining candidly that the company was caught off-guard under previous leadership by the growing presence of consumer-oriented smartphones like Apple's iPhone in managed IT environments once dominated by BlackBerry devices.

The company's future rests on its upcoming BlackBerry 10 (BB10) software platform for future handsets and tablets, he said, pledging that the new operating system was on schedule for release later this year and would be the foundation of RIM's business for years to come.

BlackBerry 10 is RIM's upcoming, QNX-based smartphone OS, which was originally supposed to be available early this year but has been delayed to the fall. In January, RIM said that BB10 will share developer tools and a screen aspect ratio with the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.

But if Heins promised a rosier future, he acknowledged that RIM's present troubles required "substantial change."

How bad is it? RIM posted a net loss of $125 million in its fiscal fourth quarter, with revenue of $4.2 billion slipping 19 percent from the third quarter and down 25 percent from the same period in the previous year. For the full year, RIM had sales of $18.4 billion, down 7 percent from the $19.9 billion in revenue it reported for its fiscal 2011.

[Boz]

Obviously these guys saw what a mess that new Blackberry 10 is and are running for the door before that thing actually sees the light of day...just a guess :)

[grik]

The ship is going down. Take your life vests and head for the exit.

On a serious aprouch I think BB are still capable of winning a niche market but they need to make better devices and perfect the OS.

They have keyboard phones a lot of people like those for texting while driving and they have better battery. So take those 2 big advantages and do something. Design is also nice.

[matt4pack]

Obviously these guys saw what a mess that new Blackberry 10 is and are running for the door before that thing actually sees the light of day...just a guess :)

It's already out in the public's hands on the playbook so it's not vaporware and it's actually pretty great. The multitasking blows iOS and Android away at least. Blackberry 10 is just a rebranding of the current playbook QNX OS.

It's sad most seem to be hoping for RIM to die.

[Boz]

It's already out in the public's hands on the playbook so it's not vaporware and it's actually pretty great. The multitasking blows iOS and Android away at least. Blackberry 10 is just a rebranding of the current playbook QNX OS.

It's sad most seem to be hoping for RIM to die.

I really don't. I would like to see RIM come back and create even more competition for iOS and Android. Unfortunately, I think they deserved everything they got. They rested on their laurels, didn't do anything for a loong time when they saw what was happening and then finally started working on trying to compete with Playbook (which didn't make sense at all when they didn't get their phones modernized properly) and they simply dropped the ball, released half finished products and it took them forever to get Blackberry phones to the new OS (they should have done Blackberry 10 like 3-4 years ago at the latest) and not wait and wait and then everyone started making fun of them, not taking them seriously, while their management was completely disconnected from the real state of things in the market. This smugness is what got them where they are.

[Rudy]

Who in their right mind wouldn't leave a sinking ship?