They're dead in the water. Even when BB10 comes out, why would app developers want to support an OS that is most likely going to disappear.
I wonder if they will pay out each of those 5000 employees with severance packages similar to the millions they gave their idiot CEOs who ran it into the ground
It will cost them $330 million. Much, if not most of that, is for severance.
They should partner with LinkedIn in order to build a BB community. They should bring services tied to the owenership of a BB so that employees must use the BB in the companies.
I think they are missing the reason that RIM is screwed: They survived the past five years by going after the consumer market, and the BES "value proposition" kept eroding their high margin enterprise software business. So, all they can do now is really make handsets. There is no margin in that.
About all they could do is sell off the BES business to a Google or Apple so they can fix their mess of a calendaring and synchronization system. There really isn't much benefit any more in any RIM OS, so they can just switch to Android with the same benefits as migrating to BB10 at a much lower cost.
$2.2B in the bank, and a rumoured $1B in devices sitting in storage while burning cash waiting for BB10 and next-gen devices to be completed. I have $50 ready for the Playbook fire-sale, you know you'll have to do it eventually RIM.
$2.2B in the bank, and a rumoured $1B in devices sitting in storage while burning cash waiting for BB10 and next-gen devices to be completed. I have $50 ready for the Playbook fire-sale, you know you'll have to do it eventually RIM.
At this stage RIM would have to pay me $500 to even touch a Playbook.
I think they are missing the reason that RIM is screwed: They survived the past five years by going after the consumer market, and the BES "value proposition" kept eroding their high margin enterprise software business. So, all they can do now is really make handsets. There is no margin in that.
About all they could do is sell off the BES business to a Google or Apple so they can fix their mess of a calendaring and synchronization system. There really isn't much benefit any more in any RIM OS, so they can just switch to Android with the same benefits as migrating to BB10 at a much lower cost.
What nobody seems to talk about is how the BES value proposition eroded. At first everybody was like, oh, can't use iPhone, corporate email security is lousy. Then, a few years ago, the wheels totally came off the BES stuff, suddenly iPhone was everywhere in corporate.
....My ^sstard elitism aside, I did feel sadness for him. Like I do for Bill Gates now.
I actually feel worse for BG's kids. I wonder if they still use a Zune. (I recall an interview with his wife a while ago, where she said that no Apple products are allowed in her household.)
I know business friends that have been "forced" to use BB's for their company phones because of - well they seem to suggest it's because of their email server. One person in particular was blown away when I showed her the first iPhone. How email messages looked like they were supposed to - how you could zoom if you couldn't read or see something properly, how web pages were the real thing, not some botched up micro mess on a tiny BB screen.
The company I used to work for, a creative retail chain with lots of 20 something staff who are clearly iPhone (and Mac) users, is filled with senior management (from the private equity world) who for the most part are anything but creative, are also still using BB's - because it's what people in private equity (and to a bigger extent Wall Street) do. To me, companies that have policies that have continued to support RIM are almost as dumb as RIM itself.
I saw a guy in a suit on the train with a BB. My ^sstard elitism aside, I did feel sadness for him. Like I do for Bill Gates now. At least in the tech world, it is sad to see a giant like that now be so, so very lost.
Feel sadness for Bill Gates? The work he is doing well may be the greatest humanitarian work ever done. We should feel proud of him, not sad for him. And I don't think Gates is lost in any sense of the word.
RIM is in that endangered species mode now... And unlike American Auto Industry, no one in Canada or in the Tech world thinks it's worth saving.
Self-inflicted. Yes. Very much so... There is that transition from being a market leader, to being unaware the market had fundamentally changed around them.
- It's an Apps (don't force a requirement into the existing limitations, drive the limitations out by putting intelligence into both ends of the com structure) based world now.
- 140 characters is not the avg piece of 'information' produced on a mobile device.
- Color is communications dimension.
- Making an keyboard that small was a feat of magic, but once people wanted to watch youtube in their hand, permanently dedicating that real estate was an anchor.
These were apparent in 1997 (Palm), and the technology caught up in 2007.
There are lots of 'lucky' people in business, and there are even more 'one trick ponies.' It's well documented that there were few smart decisions since 2006, so we have to assume their 'business intelligence' was poor. So, they were lucky to develop a technology to migrate two-way pagers into email at a time when deals required instant communications between CxOs, driving their technology top down into an organization (PCs were bottom up). They rode that pony hard. But they felt they were competing against phones with buttons, or phones trying to run versions of MSoffice, and a crufty browser at 2G broadband speeds was their competition.
iPhone appears and they don't know what happens.
Their momentum seems to validate their business plan... but in fact, their horse was dying underneath them.
When it's apparent the winds are shifting, they try to do a Microsoft, and promise everything to everybody (Java, Flash, Web, Apps, Android compatibility, ponies and unicorns), and ship crap, while marketing it as 'new and improved, and bound to get better next year' in a world when 2 year cycles are now the norm.
Now they basically are a old fat animal... living off their fat, to survive the winter, loping off vital organs in the hope that their immature offspring will grow and pull them to the fertile pasture. I've seen enough Nat Geo's to know that that doesn't happen. The vultures will swirl, and eat both the old horse and the young foal, or the foal will pulled into another herd, and the old nag left to die.
Feel sadness for Bill Gates? The work he is doing well may be the greatest humanitarian work ever done. We should feel proud of him, not sad for him. And I don't think Gates is lost in any sense of the word.
I wonder if they will pay out each of those 5000 employees with severance packages similar to the millions they gave their idiot CEOs who ran it into the ground
$330 million / 5000 layoffs = $66,000 per layoff. Given what their employees likely make, that's an average of less than one year's salary per employee. That sounds pretty typical for severance...
I hope RIM finds its way back up. It would be a remarkable story and also good for the industry.
I hope so for all the employees at RIM.
But they would have to be imaginative and try to think outside the box.
But all I see when I think about RIM in conservativism and sticking to old scemes.
So, no I don't expect them to realize the turnaround.
Comments
It will cost them $330 million. Much, if not most of that, is for severance.
They should partner with LinkedIn in order to build a BB community. They should bring services tied to the owenership of a BB so that employees must use the BB in the companies.
No more BYOD. Business status to have a BB.
About all they could do is sell off the BES business to a Google or Apple so they can fix their mess of a calendaring and synchronization system. There really isn't much benefit any more in any RIM OS, so they can just switch to Android with the same benefits as migrating to BB10 at a much lower cost.
$2.2B in the bank, and a rumoured $1B in devices sitting in storage while burning cash waiting for BB10 and next-gen devices to be completed. I have $50 ready for the Playbook fire-sale, you know you'll have to do it eventually RIM.
At this stage RIM would have to pay me $500 to even touch a Playbook.
What nobody seems to talk about is how the BES value proposition eroded. At first everybody was like, oh, can't use iPhone, corporate email security is lousy. Then, a few years ago, the wheels totally came off the BES stuff, suddenly iPhone was everywhere in corporate.
Why has RIM not addressed this fundamental issue?
Quote:
Originally Posted by uguysrnuts
At this rate, it will be more like RIP.
Research in Peace?
Quote:
Originally Posted by sr2012
....My ^sstard elitism aside, I did feel sadness for him. Like I do for Bill Gates now.
I actually feel worse for BG's kids. I wonder if they still use a Zune. (I recall an interview with his wife a while ago, where she said that no Apple products are allowed in her household.)
Can you imagine how uncool they must feel.
I know business friends that have been "forced" to use BB's for their company phones because of - well they seem to suggest it's because of their email server. One person in particular was blown away when I showed her the first iPhone. How email messages looked like they were supposed to - how you could zoom if you couldn't read or see something properly, how web pages were the real thing, not some botched up micro mess on a tiny BB screen.
The company I used to work for, a creative retail chain with lots of 20 something staff who are clearly iPhone (and Mac) users, is filled with senior management (from the private equity world) who for the most part are anything but creative, are also still using BB's - because it's what people in private equity (and to a bigger extent Wall Street) do. To me, companies that have policies that have continued to support RIM are almost as dumb as RIM itself.
And now this . . .
http://www.neowin.net/news/google-design-head-says-he-wants-to-work-with-rim
And a little more on that previous rumour:
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2188219/rim-reportedly-mulls-windows-phone-future-blackberry-handsets
Whenever a company like this has so many problems, there are stories like that. It's all wishful thinking, and of no use.
So of course someone from Google would like to see a RIM Android phone. What else is new? Will it happen? No.
Windows phone? No.
I hope RIM finds its way back up. It would be a remarkable story and also good for the industry.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sr2012
I saw a guy in a suit on the train with a BB. My ^sstard elitism aside, I did feel sadness for him. Like I do for Bill Gates now. At least in the tech world, it is sad to see a giant like that now be so, so very lost.
Feel sadness for Bill Gates? The work he is doing well may be the greatest humanitarian work ever done. We should feel proud of him, not sad for him. And I don't think Gates is lost in any sense of the word.
RIP RIM
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
Whenever a company like this has so many problems, there are stories like that. It's all wishful thinking, and of no use.
So of course someone from Google would like to see a RIM Android phone. What else is new? Will it happen? No.
Windows phone? No.
Good point. We've heard the same stories thrown around about WebOS.
RIM is in that endangered species mode now... And unlike American Auto Industry, no one in Canada or in the Tech world thinks it's worth saving.
Self-inflicted. Yes. Very much so... There is that transition from being a market leader, to being unaware the market had fundamentally changed around them.
- It's an Apps (don't force a requirement into the existing limitations, drive the limitations out by putting intelligence into both ends of the com structure) based world now.
- 140 characters is not the avg piece of 'information' produced on a mobile device.
- Color is communications dimension.
- Making an keyboard that small was a feat of magic, but once people wanted to watch youtube in their hand, permanently dedicating that real estate was an anchor.
These were apparent in 1997 (Palm), and the technology caught up in 2007.
There are lots of 'lucky' people in business, and there are even more 'one trick ponies.' It's well documented that there were few smart decisions since 2006, so we have to assume their 'business intelligence' was poor. So, they were lucky to develop a technology to migrate two-way pagers into email at a time when deals required instant communications between CxOs, driving their technology top down into an organization (PCs were bottom up). They rode that pony hard. But they felt they were competing against phones with buttons, or phones trying to run versions of MSoffice, and a crufty browser at 2G broadband speeds was their competition.
iPhone appears and they don't know what happens.
Their momentum seems to validate their business plan... but in fact, their horse was dying underneath them.
When it's apparent the winds are shifting, they try to do a Microsoft, and promise everything to everybody (Java, Flash, Web, Apps, Android compatibility, ponies and unicorns), and ship crap, while marketing it as 'new and improved, and bound to get better next year' in a world when 2 year cycles are now the norm.
Now they basically are a old fat animal... living off their fat, to survive the winter, loping off vital organs in the hope that their immature offspring will grow and pull them to the fertile pasture. I've seen enough Nat Geo's to know that that doesn't happen. The vultures will swirl, and eat both the old horse and the young foal, or the foal will pulled into another herd, and the old nag left to die.
I'm not sad... I'm all for gene cleansing;-)
Quote:
Originally Posted by ankleskater
Feel sadness for Bill Gates? The work he is doing well may be the greatest humanitarian work ever done. We should feel proud of him, not sad for him. And I don't think Gates is lost in any sense of the word.
Ballmer on the other hand....
Quote:
Originally Posted by GadgetCanada
I wonder if they will pay out each of those 5000 employees with severance packages similar to the millions they gave their idiot CEOs who ran it into the ground
$330 million / 5000 layoffs = $66,000 per layoff. Given what their employees likely make, that's an average of less than one year's salary per employee. That sounds pretty typical for severance...
Quote:
Originally Posted by ankleskater
I hope RIM finds its way back up. It would be a remarkable story and also good for the industry.
Apple wrote that story already...
And given where RIM is at... There is no 'insanely great' savior in the wings.
When I look at RIM, their story more parallels AOL, but with worse management.
Nokia... now... they could/should make a comeback worthy of a story and be great for the mobile industry.
But they would have to be imaginative and try to think outside the box.
But all I see when I think about RIM in conservativism and sticking to old scemes.
So, no I don't expect them to realize the turnaround.
Sad.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Quadra 610
http://www.neowin.net/news/rumor-microsoft-wants-alliance-with-rim
Mmmm... Maybe MS has another VP that they want to outsource ala Elop.
I suspect that Sinofsky might be a prime candidate!