Remember back in the day (last week) when RIM’s Vice President of Developer Relations Alec Saunders said the company was removing sideloading from the PlayBook.
Surprise, no they’re not.
RIM
Two more execs leave RIM
Alan Brenner, a senior vice president for the BlackBerry platform, will leave after a transition period, and Alistair Mitchell, a vice president for the BlackBerry Messenger instant messaging product, has already left, RIM spokeswoman Tenille Kennedy said in an email on Friday.
It just keeps getting worse.
RIM launches software to accommodate Apple users
Research In Motion on Tuesday launched software that enables its large “enterprise” customers to manage Apple and other rival devices through the same servers as they use for the BlackBerry smartphone and Playbook tablet.
Translation: You win.
Oh balls
Matt Burns and his article “It’s Time To Believe In RIM And The BlackBerry Again”:
RIM is beaten and laying on the floor. Together, Apple and Google knocked out the champ. Since then, they’ve started fighting each other, seemingly ignoring RIM as regains his strength. He might take another blow from time to time, but with a renewed focus he should stay on his feet from here on out. After years of savage beatings, he’s like the honey badger now and just doesn’t care.
At best, this article is misguided.
RIM’s future
Jean-Louis Gassée:
The trouble for RIM is simply stated: Too little too late, while the money runs out. If only the cure were as easily put.
Could have said it better myself.
RIM is now not exiting the consumer market
Patrick Spence, its managing director of global sales and regional marketing, told British news site Pocket-Lint that “The claim that RIM has said it will withdraw from the consumer market is wholly inaccurate.” He says that the company will still go after “targeted consumer segments” but may seek partners for stuff such as media-consumption apps.
Come on RIM, seriously?
RIM’s fourth quarter financial train wreck
RIM reported its financial results today and it doesn’t look good. Here are some highlights: […]
RIM delays analysts’ meeting
“We decided to make BlackBerry World more focused on customers, developers and partners,” RIM spokeswoman Tenille Kennedy said on Tuesday. “We will hold a separate session targeted at the interests of the investment community later this year, once BlackBerry 10 is launched.”
Translation: We’re so screwed right now and we want to have something — anything — to show analysts.
RIM may pre-announce poor Q4 results
Reuters:
Blackberry maker Research in Motion Ltd (RIM) is likely to preannounce poor February quarter results and forecast a “very weak” May quarter on lower sales of its phones, according to Jefferies & Co analysts.
I kind of feel bad.
PlayBook gets email, but it’s still a piece of shit
Roger Cheng: While RIM touts the ability to get e-mail, it’s actually using Exchange ActiveSync, and not the company’s own secure BlackBerry Enterprise Server. Without RIM’s secure network, the PlayBook’s e-mail access isn’t any better than what can already be … Continued
RIM director scoffs at BlackBerry critics
RIM director Roger Martin speaking to the Globe and Mail:
I laugh at the vast majority of critics when they say ‘Oh, you should have made this CEO transition, like, four years ago.’ Yeah, right – like, to who?
I guess the co-CEOs aren’t the only ones that need to go.
Apple is worth 56 RIMs
Using today’s market cap numbers, Apple is worth $459.2 billion and RIM is worth $8.2. And RIM said in 2007 that the iPhone wouldn’t impact their business. Good call RIM.
RIM’s comic hero saviors
Good to see the new RIM CEO isn’t wasting his time on things that won’t make a difference.
RIM’s co-CEOs resigning
Priceless cartoon.
[Via DF]
New CEO: RIM needs better focus
Peter Kafka for AllThingsD: Research In Motion isn’t broken, so no need to break it up. But it needs better internal focus, and better external focus, too. That’s the takeaway from new RIM CEO Thorsten Heins, who told analysts this … Continued
11 things RIM did right in 2011
Yeah, that was ambitious. I got nothing, sorry.
Seven habits of spectacularly unsuccessful executives
This has RIM written all over it.
RIM faces legal challenge over ‘BBM’
Reuters: Research In Motion, still smarting over having to change the name of its yet-to-come operating system, faces a similar trademark challenge to its popular instant-messaging service BlackBerry Messenger. Because things are going so well for RIM, they just needed … Continued
BlackBerry 10 doesn’t have email, BBM
BGR:
In what is something of a serious allegation, our source told us that Mike Lazaridis was lying when he said the company’s new lineup was delayed for that reason. ”RIM is simply pushing this out as long as they can for one reason, they don’t have a working product yet,” we were told.
Of course RIM has denied what BGR’s source said. But then again, I don’t believe much of what RIM says these days.
They also said the PlayBook would deliver an amazing tablet experience. Amazingly bad.
Microsoft and Nokia look at buying RIM
Networkworld:
The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that Microsoft and Nokia have toyed with the idea of making a bid for RIM, whose stock has plummeted (from about $59 to start the year to about $14 in mid-December) and whose management team has been under fire from investors. The Journal reports that the status of any talks between Microsoft, Nokia and RIM are unclear. Other scuttlebutt is that RIM executives have hit up Samsung and HTC about possible licensing deals.
I may buy RIM with the spare change in my car.
RIM employees tell their stories on RateMyEmployer
Some of the comments are pretty brutal, but you can definitely see some common threads as you read through.
RIM’s burning platform moment
Matt Hartley:
After much consideration, he concluded that his company’s only hope was to abandon its long-held strategy, to acknowledge its shortcomings and embark on a radical new strategy. He ditched the company’s sputtering software business. He put teams to work developing new devices and he cut a billion-dollar software deal with one of the most powerful technology companies on the planet.Unfortunately for the shareholders of Research In Motion Ltd., the Canadian smartphone executive’s name was not Jim Balsillie or Mike Lazaridis. It was Stephen Elop, the Hamilton-born chief executive of Finnish mobile giant Nokia Corp.
I don’t think RIM can do it. They need to fire the co-CEOs and bring in someone with some imagination to clean house and get the company back on track.
Robbers steal $1.7 million worth of PlayBooks
Police are searching for someone who stole a semtrailer filled with $1.7 million worth of BlackBerry PlayBooks.
These are either the stupidest robbers ever, or more likely, RIM’s co-CEOs took a road trip. It is interesting to note that the truck was headed back to RIM’s headquarters in Ontario. Sounds like a truckload of returns to me.
RIM co-CEOs cut salary to $1
Globe and Mail: Research In Motion Ltd.’s top executives cut their salaries to $1 as they delivered yet more dismal news to investors, telling the world the product that was supposed to save the company will come out almost a … Continued
Why RIM needs to fire its co-CEOs
Tom Krazit for paidContent.org: As they tried once again Thursday evening to urge financial analysts to look ahead to a brighter future while once again delaying the release of a crucial product, Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis failed to give … Continued
RIM ships 150k PlayBooks
The numbers are in and they don’t look good. According to the company, they shipped 14.1 million BlackBerrys and 150,000 PlayBooks. Keep in mind, those are shipped numbers, not sold.
I would like to thank RIM’s co-CEOs for their incompetence
The holidays are approaching fast. It’s the time of the year where we take stock of the good (and bad) things that happened over the last 12 months, and figure out goals for the next year.
I would like to personally thank RIM’s co-CEOs for their complete and total incompetence in 2011. Without your lack of attention to the market and the details that would make a great product, my year wouldn’t have been so successful.
RIM screws up again
John Paczkowski talking about the four things RIM had to deliver to Indonesia, including a regional data server:
RIM delivered on all four. But evidently it didn’t carry out the fourth in quite the way the BRTI wanted. It put the data center in Singapore, which is not geographically all that far, but a different country and not nearly as “regional” as the BRTI would like. Aggravating matters further, Indonesia has been asking for a local server for nearly three years.
Now Indonesia is threatening to shutdown RIM’s operations. Seriously folks, I could not make this stuff up.
Drunk RIM execs chewed through restraints on the plane
CBC:
New details are emerging about the rowdy behaviour of two Research In Motion executives who were fired for disrupting an intercontinental flight — including that they managed to chew their way out of restraints after being handcuffed by crew members.
Clearly these two worked on the PlayBook. What else could possibly account for such frustration.
RIM loses BBX trademark fight
Research In Motion (RIM), maker of BlackBerry smartphones and PlayBook tablets, has been prevented from using “BBX” to describe its next-generation BlackBerry operating system. The word comes from a press release posted by BASIS International, a business software developer which … Continued