In response to Research in Motion's ugly quarterly earnings report, newly minted CEO Thorsten Heins is shaking up the executive team.
Not only has Jim Balsilli -- RIM's co-CEO until January -- resigned from the board of directors, but the COO and CTO are gone too. The company continues to search for a new CMO. This is all part of Heins's plan to turn RIM around.
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But is it enough? Probably not. Heins comments on Thursday's earnings call, suggest the company needs more than new blood. It needs a new understanding of its market.
True, a real change in leadership needed to happen for the company to move forward, as I noted when I sized up RIM's faltering position four months ago.
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And during the call Heins seemed to recognize the vast struggles his company faces. RIM continues to lose ground in the United States -- and even on its home ground, Canada. The markets where RIM is seeing growth are not as profitable for BlackBerry services.
The enterprise, once RIM's area of strength, is quickly shifting to Android and iOS devices. Why? As Heins pointed out on the call, the "Bring Your Own Device" (BYOD) movement -- where employees bring their own smartphones and tablets into the office in lieu of a company-issued BlackBerry -- has left RIM at a disadvantage.
In the last year, we've seen even larger corporate entities (entities that are historically slower to adopt new changes to their technology stacks) adopt a more BYOD-friendly approach. It's a cost saving measure and it's also more convenient for employees.
Focusing on Enterprise Alone: a Losing Battle
So Heins acknowledged that RIM is struggling to convince customers to bring a BlackBerry device to work, and that this is a growing problem for BlackBerry going forward. But his solution -- double down on enterprise and stop focusing so much on the consumer -- makes no sense.
Heins acknowledges that BlackBerry is starting to falter in the enterprise because no one wants to use a BlackBerry at home and bring it to work.
So his solution to this problem is to ignore the consumer market? Really?
Rather than focusing on a product that makes consumers like it so much they want to use it at home and at work, Heins seems to want to focus on getting enterprise teams and IT departments excited about adopting BlackBerry device management software (software that will also manage iPhone and Android devices) and pushing the benefits of BlackBerry 7.
Keep in mind, BlackBerry 7 devices (such as the PlayBook tablet) are such a failure that RIM had to take a huge inventory write-down this quarter -- and isn't even going to give guidance on sales in the coming quarters.
Heins seems to believe the BlackBerry is still a desirable product amongst the executive elite and the high-market consumer. It's not.
BlackBerry 10 Will Make or Break the Company
What RIM needs is an excellent device. One that will win back users because of it's great user interface, solid features and winning design.
With the BlackBerry 10 operating system, RIM hopes to achieve those goals. Its previews have been positive, and the underlying ecosystem at the heart of BlackBerry 10 is promising. Still, no devices based on it have been announced yet.
Is the OS enough? The Windows Phone platform is incredible from a user point of view; many of the phones are fantastic to use. Still, Microsoft has struggled to overcome objections from users who have been burned by other versions of Windows, and to gain ground with developers.
The difference between RIM and Microsoft is this: Microsoft has the resources and the time to be in this fight for the long haul. It can take a slow growth approach. Indeed, Microsoft is using Metro as its springboard for its new UI across devices.
RIM is not so lucky. The company is still profitable -- but with average selling price and average units sold decreasing every quarter, something has to give.
The BlackBerry maker is starting to look a lot like Palm looked before it was acquired. Palm's last hurrah was the Pre and webOS. For RIM it will be the PlayBook and BlackBerry 10.
How would you rescue RIM from the hole it's in? Let us know in the comments.
This story originally published on Mashable here.
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