Ex-RIM CEO sought to transform company into network provider before ouster
Balsillie's "radical" plan, detailed by two sources who spoke with Reuters, would have let existing carriers offer cheaper data plans limited to social media and instant messaging. The idea was the service would entice users of traditional cellphones to upgrade to smartphones without having to pay for a costly data plan.
The strategy would have been a major shift for the company, which currently only offers its BlackBerry Messenger service on RIM-made BlackBerry devices, much like Apple's iMessages are only available on Apple hardware. Through the package, users would have been able to use BlackBerry Messenger on non-BlackBerry devices, and also would have had "limited" access to Twitter, Facebook and other social networks.
Services would have been provided to handsets through existing carriers in North America and Europe. But traffic for the limited services would have been routed through RIM's proprietary network.
But RIM's own networks, restricted solely to BlackBerry users, saw serious outages last October and November, preventing users from accessing Messenger chats and e-mails around the world.
Balsillie's plan got as far as early discussions with carriers, but Wednesday's report said the talks "led to discord at the highest levels" of RIM. He stepped down as CEO in January, and ultimately left the company entirely in March.
This week it was revealed that RIM is looking to hire a financial adviser to assist the company in weighing strategic options going forward. The struggling smartphone maker is hoping to turn around its plummeting business by either licensing the BlackBerry operating system to third-party hardware makers, or taking strategic investments in the company from outside backers.
RIM's struggles have become so pronounced that the company is even being outsoldin its home country of Canada by Apple's iPhone. Last year, Apple shipped 2.85 million iPhones in Canada, while RIM shipped just 2.08 million BlackBerrys.
20 Comments
I have had to use BB for years because all of my customers had BB.
I upgraded to a torch a year and half ago because I had to stay on BB.
I do not have one customer left on BB and I am stuck with the torch till November.
I know iPhone has been extremely popular for several years but I am amazed how quickly BB died in less than a year in the business world.
All but for three of my customers are now using iPhone with 2 on Windows/Nokia and one on Samsung/Android.
Just goes to show you are never to big to fail...
I've been posting this for months now, and blogged about it on iSights a couple of weeks ago, albeit with a twist. To survive, RIM must...
1) Hire a team of crack iOS, Android, and Windows developers.
2) Use them to create a set of RIM messaging apps based on their existing Enterprise platform.
3) Then sell their customers on having a truly secure cross-platform system for their sensitive corporate communications.
Best of all, you wouldn't have to convince anyone to give up their existing iPhone or Android phone. Or their Blackberry, for that matter. Such a services strategy would have given the hardware platform a bit more breathing room, if not subsidized it outright.
It could also have introduced, through Message, a whole new set of users to the RIM platform. Which could best be accessed -- of course -- on a Blackberry device.
Problem is, RIM thinks they're in the mobile phone business. They're not. They think they're in the handset business. They're not.
They're in the communications business.
http://www.iSights.org/2012/04/note-...re-stupid.html
Sounds to me like RIM is struggling to come up with "Plan B"
I have had to use BB for years because all of my customers had BB.
I upgraded to a torch a year and half ago because I had to stay on BB.
I do not have one customer left on BB and I am stuck with the torch till November.
I know iPhone has been extremely popular for several years but I am amazed how quickly BB died in less than a year in the business world.
All but for three of my customers are now using iPhone with 2 on Windows/Nokia and one on Samsung/Android.
Just goes to show you are never to big to fail...
True, the fall was surprisingly quick.
An even better example is how quickly Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6 OS, which had millions of users in 2007, cratered. And Steve Ballmer famously guffawed at the thought of the iPhone...
Bs idea from the now dismissed CEO.
I hope rim finds a way to survive, a future with iPhone windows phones and androids is very poor. Eventually they ll be a backlash against the iPhone, mobile phones are ways people identify themselves and the iPhone will at some point dilute its brand. I hope rim sticks around to regain some market as I d hate to see it go to android.
What an awful and misguided idea the playbook was btw, couldn't they have waited a bit to see how the market played out, what with having no content provider behind them and no real purpose or hardware advantage for th device. That was one collosal idiocy to release the playbook..