At RIM’s BlackBerry DevCon in Amsterdam today, new CEO Thorsten Heins made a bit of a splash by throwing out some statistics on BlackBerry App World. According to Heins, RIM’s app ecosystem is not in such bad shape after all. The problem is that the numbers were presented in a way that allowed gross misinterpretation, and that’s just what happened. Let’s clear that up really fast.
Mike Lazaridis, the Greek Canadian businessman who founded Research In Motion (RIM) and recently stepped down as the company's co-Chief Executive Officer, is putting his money where his mouth is. Lazaridis wholeheartedly believes big things are in store for RIM, and while it might be easy to dismiss his outwardly optimism as mere lip service, his investment of an additional $50 million in company shares speaks louder than words, though he had a few of those to spend as well.
With the way things have been going lately, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world for Research In Motion if a company swooped in and scooped up the BlackBerry handset maker, especially if said company was Samsung. There's only one problem with that specific scenario: Samsung isn't interested. Never has been and probably never will be.
BlackBerry maker Research in Motion has been on the skids lately, and many observers point to its co-CEO management structure as a major cause. According to multiple sources, the company is preparing to shake things up by removing co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis from their additional roles as co-Chairmen of the board. They would remain as CEOs.
We're seriously starting to question the intelligence level of tablet makers, or at least their ability to predict consumer reactions to price cuts. Exhibit A is Hewlett-Packard's $99 TouchPad fire sale. HP's goal was to clear out existing inventory, and it did, but not before owning the world's most popular tablet, and arguably the hottest tech item around. What did Research In Motion learn from this?
We have all looked on in growing horror as BlackBerry maker RIM continues to self-destruct, but if a new report is to be believed, the worst is yet to come. BGR is renowned for its tight connections to RIM and frequent scoops regarding the Canadian company. According to one trusted source, the upcoming Blackberry 10 platform is dead in the water.
Research In Motion can't seem to get a grip on this whole tablet thing, figuratively or literally. Playing out like an episode of The Sopranos, thieves hijacked a truck carrying 22 pallets of BlackBerry PlayBooks from an Indiana truck stop while the driver was using the local facilities to shower and grab a bite to eat. It's estimated the truck was carrying 5,000 PlayBook devices worth around $1.7 million.
Poor Research in Motion. Even when they do good, they do bad. Case in point: Indonesia. RIM launched the Blackberry Bold 9790 there on November 25th, and over 5,000 interested Indonesians showed up to buy it. Good, right? Not quite. You see, RIM was offering the phone for 50 percent off to the first 1,000 customers, and those 5,000 people turned into a stampede as folks rushed to get the deal. Over ninety fainted, three were injured, the sale was canceled, and now, several RIM representatives – including RIM’s Indonesian CEO – are now being charged with criminal negligence.
As Black Friday approached, several retailers including Best Buy lowered the price of the much-maligned BlackBerry Playbook. After selling an undisclosed number of the device, Best buy has taken to cancelling orders. By some accounts, all outstanding online orders have been cancelled, and the device is no longer listed on the Best Buy site. Did we just see the PlayBook fire-sale?
Research In Motion wants to make it clear that it intends to keep supporting and developing Adobe Flash for its BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, even though Adobe itself is abandoning Flash on the mobile Web in order to "aggressively contribute to HTML5." Dan Dodge, President and CEO of RIM's QNX operations, announced RIM's continued commitment to Flash in a blog post.Connect with MaximumPC
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