RIM not leaving consumer market despite dismal earnings
After releasing a bleak quarterly earnings report, embattled BlackBerry maker Research in Motion on Friday clarified that it will not pull out of the consumer sector, and will continue its new strategy of targeting more specific audiences .
RIM Managing Director of Global Sales and Regional Marketing Patrick Spence responded to a number of media reports that claimed the company would be exiting the consumer space, telling Pocket-Lint that the assertions were "wholly inaccurate."
"While we announced plans to re-focus our efforts on our core strengths, and on our enterprise customer base, we were very explicit that we will continue to build on our strengths to go after targeted consumer segments," Spence said. "We listed BBM, as well as the security and manageability of our platform, among these strengths.”
Spence's comments came after a number of media outlets misinterpreted statements made on Thursday night by RIM's new President and CEO Thorsten Heins, who said "we believe that BlackBerry cannot succeed if we tried to be everybody's darling and all things to all people. Therefore, we plan to build on our strength."
While the company is looking to restructure its business model, cutting weight and re-focusing on core strengths instead of trying to battle industry heavyweights like Apple, it is reportedly not yet ready to abandon the consumer market.
As part of RIM's new direction, the company will "seek partnerships to deliver those consumer features and content that are not central to the BlackBerry value proposition, for example media consumption applications"
One such co-op product is the BlackBerry Mobile Fusion project which is expected to facilitate advanced management functions for iOS devices. It was reported earlier this month that RIM was hiring developers with iOS experience to work on Mobile Fusion, though a release date has yet to be announced.
RIM is also reportedly planning to push its current BlackBerry 7 smartphones ahead of the company's next-generation BlackBerry 10, which has already seen multiple delays. Sales of the handset line is suffering and was recently passed by Apple's iPhone on RIM's home turf.
RIM plans to aggressively market BlackBerry 7 to reach a wider audience.
Friday's announcement comes on the heels of RIM's quarter four 2011 earnings call which signaled the mass exodus of top executives including co-CEO Jim Balsillie, CTO David Yach and global COO Jim Rowan. Also announced was a huge revenue miss on substantial drops in shipments of BlackBerry handsets and PlayBook tablets.
RIM President and CEO Thorsten Heins takes the reins after top executives resign.
Heins said during the Thursday night conference call that the company would halt future guidance because of "continued pressure on revenue and earnings throughout fiscal 2013." He went on to note that the company plans "to refocus on the enterprise business and capitalize on [its] leading position in this segment."
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Comments
The screen is much too small for my taste. I'm not sure what they can really do at this point.
Who do they hire over there??
"The blackberry line of phones, and it's tech/OS, has nearly erased us from the cell phone market. The consumers are not responding to it anymore. So we need to build a completely new phone. Something that looks exactly like our old product line and uses the same OS. This will work my fellow stock holders!!!"
Who do they hire over there??
Only people who have absolutely no clue about the cellular landscape.
Spence's comments came after a number of media outlets misinterpreted statements made on Thursday night by RIM's new President and CEO Thorsten Heins, who said "we believe that BlackBerry cannot succeed if we tried to be everybody's darling and all things to all people. Therefore, we plan to build on our strength."
Hey, Thorsten . . . YOU DON'T HAVE ANY.
That's the point. Any "strength" your company had has already evaporated.
I don't know if things have change but I couldn't believe, I mean was absolutely shocked!! When I found out the phone couldn't sync my MS exchange account/contacts/mail/cal without an expensive BES subscription
Tbh if the Bold retailed for under $100 I'd probably get one as a second phone - for nights out or days on the beach etc when my proper phone could get damaged/lost
2) After horrible quarterly results there stock is up 7% today. For the life of me I can't figure out the market.
Also announced was a huge revenue miss on substantial drops in shipments of BlackBerry handsets and PlayBook tablets.
The drop in shipments of the BB phones makes sense, but RIM is GIVING away the tablets and they can't make people take them!
He went on to note that the company plans "to refocus on the enterprise business and capitalize on [its] leading position in this segment."
Maybe RIM management is too busy to read the newspapers, but when they do, they'll learn that someone else is leading in the enterprise business segment.
I owned a blackberry bold in the not so distant past.
I don't know if things have change but I couldn't believe, I mean was absolutely shocked!! When I found out the phone couldn't sync my MS exchange account/contacts/mail/cal without an expensive BES subscription
Tbh if the Bold retailed for under $100 I'd probably get one as a second phone - for nights out or days on the beach etc when my proper phone could get damaged/lost
There are two models of the iPhone for under $100 and they sync.
RIM's problem is that they fail to realize their phones weren't that great in the first place. They only seemed great because they could only be compared to other poor products.
RIM's glory days are gone. Even if they found the next Steve Jobs and started to work on the Next Big Thing, they'd be years away from having a competitive product to sell. And since there's no sign of RIM having that level of creative talent... their situation is pretty much hopeless. The best they can do is try to market their wares to companies so stuck in the past they don't know better. And that is not a long term strategy.
How could a company in such disarray even find great talent at this point? Who would take a RIM job? ...wait. I should probably rephrase that. Or not...
Maybe BBM and the Enterprise services.
The hardware, the software and the talent teams? Worthless. Some of the talent probably has some value if acq-hired into another team. But nobody needs RIM building phones for them.
Nobody.
RIM's glory days are gone. Even if they found the next Steve Jobs and started to work on the Next Big Thing, they'd be years away from having a competitive product to sell.
Fifteen years ago, Apple was being written off and was trading at $17 a share. If RIM found the next Steve Jobs, it would be years away but I'd love to see the innovative products they come up; we'd probably end up using them. The problem is RIM is not yet looking for the next Steve Jobs or even somebody that's willing to think outside the box.
Everyone knows this to be true.
Apple realised the cellphone was going to become a computer in your pocket, and as a computer company, they saw an opportunity. But what will the cellphone become next? A brain extension? Maybe the medical implant community will be the one to unseat Apple.
I don't know if RIM could quietly branch in to this field or not, they probably have no experience.
Fifteen years ago, Apple was being written off and was trading at $17 a share. If RIM found the next Steve Jobs, it would be years away but I'd love to see the innovative products they come up; we'd probably end up using them. The problem is RIM is not yet looking for the next Steve Jobs or even somebody that's willing to think outside the box.
They'd need to be thinking about a different box even then. This box is occupied by the greatest innovative company that has ever existed and RIM has snowball's chance in hell of getting back into this product area.
There is a way to beat Apple. Leapfrog them like they did with the traditional cellphone makers.
Apple realised the cellphone was going to become a computer in your pocket, and as a computer company, they saw an opportunity. But what will the cellphone become next? A brain extension? Maybe the medical implant community will be the one to unseat Apple.
I don't know if RIM could quietly branch in to this field or not, they probably have no experience.
For that to work Apple would have to cease innovating. Fat chance, I am sure Steve left a decade's worth of advances and even without those the team he left has to ability to keep going for decades to come. They have the money to educate their own. In fact I suspect half of them are Cylons already!