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Beleaguered RIM to lay off 2,000 employees, 11% of workforce - Page 2

post #41 of 79
7/25/11 at 9:16am
Quote:
Originally Posted by lkrupp View Post

Steve Jobs did it. Why not these guys?

Vision1
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post #42 of 79
7/25/11 at 9:18am
Quote:
Originally Posted by cloudgazer View Post

There isn't really a good alternative word though. You could say 'beset' but that normally comes with a qualification, 'beset by falling sales'. They could say 'beseiged' but it sounds too military, 'troubled' sounds too teenager. How else would you describe a firm that's in a very tough but still conceivably survivable situation?

UTTAIA - Up To Their Ass In Alligators
"So at the end of the presentation, Steve came up to me and said: Is the iPhone worth criticizing? And I said: Make the screen five inches by eight inches, and you’ll rule the world."
– Alan Kay –
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post #43 of 79
7/25/11 at 9:49am
Research in Motion (RIM) has licensed a trove of more than 30,000 patents from a company founded by former Microsoft veterans.

And yes MS veterans aren't known for identifying a threat until too late.
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post #44 of 79
7/25/11 at 10:01am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rot'nApple View Post

Again???
How 'bout laying off just two!
Guess who!!!

Yeah, Dr. Lizardo and the Basilisk need to take their Smallberries and move on.

(Apologies to Buckaroo Banzai.)

On a more serious note, I wonder which is the better analogy, one-trick pony or dinosaur?

RIM illustrates the problem of a company that creates a very successful product for a niche market (the Blackberry for Corporate use) and then sits on it. The Blackberry does what it does very well, and did it first. RIMs leaders decided that was enough, just keep on improving the basic product. The one-trick pony.

After all, regular people liked the email functionality, so it seemed they were expanding their market. When the environment changed, the Blackberry like the dinosaur (also a very successful "product") didn't adapt and was overtaken by a company that was lighter on its feet and had a long record of innovating and changing.
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post #45 of 79
7/25/11 at 10:08am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul94544 View Post

Research in Motion (RIM) has licensed a trove of more than 30,000 patents from a company founded by former Microsoft veterans.

If they OWN the patents, that is one thing.
If they LICENSE those 30,000 patents, how does that create any value for RIM?
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post #46 of 79
7/25/11 at 10:49am
I always hate to see hard workers and good people axed because of the bad management decisions from those on top. The co-CEO's which have made the most ridiculous public statements in past and haven't strategically innovated to keep their market share, should summarily dismiss themselves.
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post #47 of 79
7/25/11 at 11:11am
Quote:
Originally Posted by jragosta View Post

It's amazing how few people realize how utterly amazing Apple's performance has been over the past 15 years. It's hard to imagine that anyone else could have done what Jobs did.

Agreed. I remember when the first iMac came out. All the PC fan-trolls around me were laughing their collective butts off. They said "what a ridiculous looking plastic computer - nobody's going to buy that." Never mind that the ugly beige monitor on their desk was made of plastic.

I said to them "I don't know, it doesn't appeal to the geek, but a lot of people are tired of beige plastic boxes, and it's much easier to get on the Internet with this thing than a PC. Which is what most people want to do with a computer anyway." They continued to laugh for about six more months until it was revealed it was the best selling model of computer ever, and an online video appeared showing an 8 year old getting it on the Internet faster than an expert could with a new Dell PC. Not to mention that the translucent white an blue peripherals, toasters, kettles, and everything else were appearing on store shelves everywhere.

Only Steve Jobs had the vision and discipline to say no to the beige box market and continue to product products with style as well as functionality.
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post #48 of 79
7/25/11 at 11:20am
Quote:
Originally Posted by cloudgazer View Post

As a Theoretical Physicist manqué ...

I can honestly say that I've seen anyone refer to themselves as a "Theoretical Physicist manqué", so I award you novelty points.

Quote:
Originally Posted by cloudgazer View Post

There isn't really a good alternative word though. You could say 'beset' but that normally comes with a qualification, 'beset by falling sales'. They could say 'beseiged' but it sounds too military, 'troubled' sounds too teenager. How else would you describe a firm that's in a very tough but still conceivably survivable situation?

I would go with "wandering about as if recently struck in the head with a two by four" but I suppose that's a bit wordy. How about "disoriented"? Better yet: "dazed and confused."
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post #49 of 79
7/25/11 at 12:14pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gustav View Post

Agreed. I remember when the first iMac came out.

They continued to laugh for about six more months until it was revealed it was the best selling model of computer ever, and an online video appeared showing an 8 year old getting it on the Internet faster than an expert could with a new Dell PC.

..."there is no step three."
"So at the end of the presentation, Steve came up to me and said: Is the iPhone worth criticizing? And I said: Make the screen five inches by eight inches, and you’ll rule the world."
– Alan Kay –
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"So at the end of the presentation, Steve came up to me and said: Is the iPhone worth criticizing? And I said: Make the screen five inches by eight inches, and you’ll rule the world."
– Alan Kay –
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post #50 of 79
7/25/11 at 12:21pm
Apple is throwing RIM down the Palm staircase. I see the same pattern developing:

- CEO(s) announce(s) great quarter
- Company spends time and money on a new non-smartphone product
- The non-smartphone product fails (or is not even released)
- Company lays off employees

The difference? A bigger company (HP) decided that Palm was worth buying.
I wonder if anybody would want to buy RIM. Is there any vestigial potential left?

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post #51 of 79
7/25/11 at 12:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by SockRolid View Post

Apple is throwing RIM down the Palm staircase. I see the same pattern developing:

- CEO(s) announce(s) great quarter
- Company spends time and money on a new non-smartphone product
- The non-smartphone product fails (or is not even released)
- Company lays off employees

The difference? A bigger company (HP) decided that Palm was worth buying.
I wonder if anybody would want to buy RIM. Is there any vestigial potential left?

Nokia is going to abandon M$ and buy RIM...
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post #52 of 79
7/25/11 at 12:35pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Curmudgeon View Post

Beleaguered? Was this article written by Paul Thurrott? One of his favorite adjectives.

Your handle is curmudgeon and you're complaining about the use of the word, beleaguered?
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post #53 of 79
7/25/11 at 12:41pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer View Post

Your handle is curmudgeon and you're complaining about the use of the word, beleaguered?

A Curmudgeon's job is to complain about everything...
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post #54 of 79
7/25/11 at 1:34pm
Not only that, but HTC's Chief Innovation Officer was fired.

I can just assume because all this person did was COPY APPLE and now they are being sued.

http://www.bgr.com/2011/07/25/htcs-c...sonal-reasons/

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post #55 of 79
7/25/11 at 3:18pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by digitalclips View Post

Then there is Microsoft ....

I don't think Microsoft has problems of the scale that RIM and Nokia have. Moreover, it's a predominantly software company, so a comparison seems out of place.
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post #56 of 79
7/25/11 at 4:05pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Apple ][ View Post

This is shocking and totally unexpected. I am so sad.

These CEO's with their big, ignorant mouths should be looking for new jobs as janitors somewhere, as that profession seems to be what they are best qualified for, since there is a lot of garbage coming out of their mouths.

Traditionally the role of janitors is to clean up garbage, not to spew garbage. Your analogy therefore doesn't make sense. No matter how many smiley faces you put after it.
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post #57 of 79
7/25/11 at 4:36pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by SockRolid View Post

I wonder if anybody would want to buy RIM. Is there any vestigial potential left?

There is vestigial value, but the problem is that there aren't a lot of companies that could use it. The other players in mobile are mostly screwed themselves. RIM is also a lot more expensive than Palm was, if it was a couple of BN then you might see a player like Dell try to use it to get scale in the handset business. At 14BN it's hard to imagine.
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post #58 of 79
7/25/11 at 5:01pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by addabox View Post

I can honestly say that I've seen anyone refer to themselves as a "Theoretical Physicist manqué", so I award you novelty points.

I'm a unique kinda guy.

Quote:
I would go with "wandering about as if recently struck in the head with a two by four" but I suppose that's a bit wordy. How about "disoriented"? Better yet: "dazed and confused."

Problem with 'disoriented' is that it implies that if they could just get their bearings they'd be all sorted. I think RIM knows where they are, unfortunately where they are is really really bad.

'Pining for the Fjords' perhaps?
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post #59 of 79
7/25/11 at 6:39pm
With nearly 60 comments so far it's remarkable how different this thread is compared to previous threads about RIM. There's nary a single apologist for RIM, its products or its management.

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post #60 of 79
7/25/11 at 6:44pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kibitzer View Post

With nearly 60 comments so far it's remarkable how different this thread is compared to previous threads about RIM. There's nary a single apologist for RIM, its products or its management.

I think the same thing now happens with Nokia threads. I do hope both these companies can figure out how to be real players again.
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post #61 of 79
7/25/11 at 6:49pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by island hermit View Post

I remember another tech company that, in the mid 90s, had a much worse balance sheet and less market share than RIM...

yeah, but that company regained their singular founder and industry visionary.

Can they recover? Sure - anything, no mater how improbable, is possible.

Is it probable? Not bloody likely - especially given their current level of cluelessness and denial
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post #62 of 79
7/25/11 at 8:05pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by MuncyWeb View Post

To-big-to-fail-alert! Bailout needed!! LOL

Not as outrageous as it sounds. I bet you the Canadian government is monitoring this closely.

Quote:
Originally Posted by DocNo42 View Post

yeah, but that company regained their singular founder and industry visionary.

Can they recover? Sure - anything, no mater how improbable, is possible.

Is it probable? Not bloody likely - especially given their current level of cluelessness and denial

It's pretty much all downhill from here. That said, if they can surpass Android or Apple within a few year's time it will be a highly, highly notable comeback story.
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post #63 of 79
7/25/11 at 8:08pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by cloudgazer View Post

I'm a unique kinda guy...

We're all unique here. I won a essay competition when I was in elementary school and won a year's worth of free burgers from A&W (The root beer restaurant chain thingy).
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post #64 of 79
7/25/11 at 8:25pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by nvidia2008 View Post

We're all unique here. I won a essay competition when I was in elementary school and won a year's worth of free burgers from A&W (The root beer restaurant chain thingy).

Not a year's free root beer?
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post #65 of 79
7/25/11 at 8:26pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by nvidia2008 View Post

Not as outrageous as it sounds. I bet you the Canadian government is monitoring this closely.

That kind of thing only happens with big industrials like car-makers - even Europeans have given up trying to save computer makers and cell-phone companies.
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post #66 of 79
7/25/11 at 8:39pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by nvidia2008 View Post

Not as outrageous as it sounds. I bet you the Canadian government is monitoring this closely.

The Canadian government is watching this situation very closely. This is a totally different scenario than Nortel which had tons of debt and absolutely no hope of recovery. RIM's situation is not entirely hopeless but it would take a Jobsian level of intervention to keep RIM's engine churning. If RIM came up with a solid plan within the next few months I can very much see the gov loaning them the money necessary for an about shift... as MS did for Apple/Jobs in the late 90s.
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post #67 of 79
7/25/11 at 9:05pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by island hermit View Post

The Canadian government is watching this situation very closely. This is a totally different scenario than Nortel which had tons of debt and absolutely no hope of recovery. RIM's situation is not entirely hopeless but it would take a Jobsian level of intervention to keep RIM's engine churning. If RIM came up with a solid plan within the next few months I can very much see the gov loaning them the money necessary for an about shift... as MS did for Apple/Jobs in the late 90s.

RIM has $3B in cash and no debt, they have no need for a government cash infusion to rescue them. By the time they have burned through that cash they will be well beyond any such rescue.

MS invested 150million in Apple in late 1997, it was a) not a loan and b) not money that Apple needed to survive - it was more symbolic than anything. At the time that the investment occurred Apple had around a billion in free cash and had reduced operating losses to 40mil per quarter. MS' investment made it clear to the market that the two firms were no longer at war, but the investment in MS Office was far more significant than the 150million.
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post #68 of 79
7/25/11 at 10:10pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by cloudgazer View Post

There isn't really a good alternative word though. You could say 'beset' but that normally comes with a qualification, 'beset by falling sales'. They could say 'beseiged' but it sounds too military, 'troubled' sounds too teenager. How else would you describe a firm that's in a very tough but still conceivably survivable situation?

Bewildered?
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post #69 of 79
7/25/11 at 10:12pm
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Originally Posted by Realistic View Post

Bewildered?

Maybe Addled.
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post #70 of 79
7/26/11 at 4:49am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Apple ][ View Post

This is shocking and totally unexpected. I am so sad.

One of the RIM CEO's said that the playbook was "way ahead" of the iPad and that it was setting the bar higher.

And one of the CEO's slammed Apple for it's "distortion field".

"For those of us who live outside of Apple's distortion field, we know that 7" tablets will actually be a big portion of the market," Balsillie wrote. He argued that RIM's support for Adobe Flash and an approach to developers that is more open than Apple's will give RIM an edge.


These CEO's with their big, ignorant mouths should be looking for new jobs as janitors somewhere, as that profession seems to be what they are best qualified for, since there is a lot of garbage coming out of their mouths.


Have you noticed lately that Adobe is not even pushing flash like they used to? They even announced today they are shutting down their app stores for flex and air apps.
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post #71 of 79
7/26/11 at 5:07am
Quote:
Originally Posted by cloudgazer View Post

There is vestigial value, but the problem is that there aren't a lot of companies that could use it. The other players in mobile are mostly screwed themselves. RIM is also a lot more expensive than Palm was, if it was a couple of BN then you might see a player like Dell try to use it to get scale in the handset business. At 14BN it's hard to imagine.

but at the rate it is going a few more quarters and there may be a fire sale.

There is a lot of core technology (and existing customer deployments of BBES) that would dovetail with Microsoft's business interests. The phone hardware and even OS itself is pretty useless but if Windows Phone can clean up its act and get back to business before companies totally exile their blackberry investments it may allow an upgrade path for them that keeps IT guys happy and puts a new touchscreen phone in the hands of employees that lets them do all the things they want like work on documents, post on Facebook and install custom apps and games on a keyboard-less (or keyboarded if they so choose) device.
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post #72 of 79
7/26/11 at 5:15am
Quote:
Originally Posted by cloudgazer View Post

I'm a unique kinda guy.



Problem with 'disoriented' is that it implies that if they could just get their bearings they'd be all sorted. I think RIM knows where they are, unfortunately where they are is really really bad.

'Pining for the Fjords' perhaps?


They are in open water without a boat or land in sight. The sharks are circling. There is only one thing they can do that will get them out alive and even that has a high risk of failure. They need to pick a direction and put all effort into it. To paraphrase Jobs - The smartphone war has been won. They should pick the next big thing and get busy working on that.
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post #73 of 79
7/26/11 at 5:58am
Quote:
Originally Posted by eswinson View Post

They are in open water without a boat or land in sight. The sharks are circling. There is only one thing they can do that will get them out alive and even that has a high risk of failure. They need to pick a direction and put all effort into it. To paraphrase Jobs - The smartphone war has been won. They should pick the next big thing and get busy working on that.

That's a bit long for a headline though (maybe you missed the previous posts but the post you were replying to was part of a sub-discussion about the use of the word 'beleaguered'
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post #74 of 79
7/26/11 at 6:04am
Quote:
Originally Posted by eswinson View Post

but at the rate it is going a few more quarters and there may be a fire sale.

There is a lot of core technology (and existing customer deployments of BBES) that would dovetail with Microsoft's business interests. The phone hardware and even OS itself is pretty useless but if Windows Phone can clean up its act and get back to business before companies totally exile their blackberry investments it may allow an upgrade path for them that keeps IT guys happy and puts a new touchscreen phone in the hands of employees that lets them do all the things they want like work on documents, post on Facebook and install custom apps and games on a keyboard-less (or keyboarded if they so choose) device.

BBES isn't worth more than a few hundred million, if MS really wanted a product that did that they could buy Good for much less than RIM and besides MS already has a corporate mail system - exchange. MS has picked Nokia for its partner this time round, so it won't buy RIM till that runs its course.

It's pretty much the same with any partner you can think of. They're either too poor to afford RIM, too wrapped up in their own problems to handle RIM or just flat out don't need RIM.
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post #75 of 79
7/26/11 at 10:42am
Quote:
Originally Posted by solipsism View Post

So all that yammering a few months about about how well the company was doing was complete BS instead of mostly BS.

The only people who believed it was RIM.

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post #76 of 79
7/27/11 at 12:08am
Quote:
Originally Posted by solipsism View Post

So all that yammering a few months about about how well the company was doing was complete BS instead of mostly BS.

Most (or all) of the stuff coming from the co-CEOs was gibberish anyway. Maybe to protect themselves from any legal fallout when the sh1t hit the fan like it's doing now.

What they were spouting was so unintelligible there's no way anyone could claim they made misleading statements... because no one could figure out what in the world they were saying anyways.

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Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum View Post

UTTAIA - Up To Their Ass In Alligators

Or "Up the creek with a paddle up their ass"

Quote:
Originally Posted by cloudgazer View Post

That kind of thing only happens with big industrials like car-makers - even Europeans have given up trying to save computer makers and cell-phone companies.

Quote:
Originally Posted by island hermit View Post

The Canadian government is watching this situation very closely. This is a totally different scenario than Nortel which had tons of debt and absolutely no hope of recovery. RIM's situation is not entirely hopeless but it would take a Jobsian level of intervention to keep RIM's engine churning. If RIM came up with a solid plan within the next few months I can very much see the gov loaning them the money necessary for an about shift... as MS did for Apple/Jobs in the late 90s.

The Canadian government came under fire a few times for what people deemed to be more than one "bailout" of Nortel. I agree with Island Hermit, the Canadian government may very well have to intervene but if I were a Canadian taxpayer I may not want them to. The chances of a decent turnaround of RIM is getting slimmer by the day.
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post #77 of 79
7/27/11 at 12:13am
Quote:
Originally Posted by eswinson View Post

Have you noticed lately that Adobe is not even pushing flash like they used to? They even announced today they are shutting down their app stores for flex and air apps.

I don't think Adobe knows what the heck they are doing with Flash. Shutting down Flex and Air app stores sounds like a bad omen.
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post #78 of 79
7/27/11 at 12:17am
Quote:
Originally Posted by cloudgazer View Post

Not a year's free root beer?

Can't remember if it was a free burger and root beer per day or just a free burger per day. Ah, back in the days when childhood obesity wasn't an epidemic...
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post #79 of 79
7/27/11 at 8:18pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Robin Huber View Post

On a more serious note, I wonder which is the better analogy, one-trick pony or dinosaur?

RIM illustrates the problem of a company that creates a very successful product for a niche market (the Blackberry for Corporate use) and then sits on it. The Blackberry does what it does very well, and did it first. RIMs leaders decided that was enough, just keep on improving the basic product. The one-trick pony.

After all, regular people liked the email functionality, so it seemed they were expanding their market. When the environment changed, the Blackberry like the dinosaur (also a very successful "product") didn't adapt and was overtaken by a company that was lighter on its feet and had a long record of innovating and changing.

How about a one-trick dinosaur?
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