{"id":14209,"date":"2012-04-03T18:06:31","date_gmt":"2012-04-03T18:06:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coyote.ca\/wp\/?p=14209"},"modified":"2017-05-30T18:46:50","modified_gmt":"2017-05-30T18:46:50","slug":"what-rim-needs-to-do-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coyote.ca\/wp\/2012-04-03\/what-rim-needs-to-do-now\/","title":{"rendered":"WHAT RIM NEEDS TO DO NOW"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>My answer to this question started off as a tweet, but once again, the density of thought<\/i>\u00a0(see MW post DENSITY OF THOUGHT<\/a>) required by the twitter medium escaped me. Forgive me.<\/span><\/p>\n

First of all, some perspective. We should acknowledge that very successful companies often experience very difficult times in their history. Porsche, despite its decades of success and current position as the most profitable car company in the world, was in dire straits in 1992, when Wendelin Wiedeking became CEO. Apple, lest we forget, was 90 days away from bankruptcy\u200a[1]<\/sup> when it re-hired its founder, Steve Jobs, in 1997. I doubt I need to remind anyone that Apple is currently flirting with having the highest market value of any company on the planet.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>And although RIM started in 1984, it didn\u2019t launch the Blackberry until 2001. From that point, annual revenue rose from less than $100M to more than $18B today, making its growth rate more meteoric than Apple\u2019s over the same period. I don\u2019t think any company in recent history has maintained that kind of growth for more than 10 years. But that\u2019s exactly what the memory-challenged stock market expects\u2014no wait\u2014demands<\/i>, every quarter. By the books, RIM is not in nearly as bad of shape as both Apple and Porsche have been. So let\u2019s allow there may be hope for RIM yet.<\/span><\/p>\n

Comparing RIM to Apple isn\u2019t exactly Apple-to-Apple, or even relevant, except in one key area: smart phones. Apple has evolved from being a computer company to a technology\/entertainment\/publishing\/smart phone conglomerate. The majority of revenue and profit no longer comes from computers, and hasn\u2019t for a while. In many ways, RIM is still the smart phone company it was in 2001, with a tablet introduced for what appear to be misguided and reactive competitive reasons, rather than brand-building reasons.<\/span><\/p>\n

I would argue that Apple\u2019s success now comes not so much from its technology as its brand power. All in, and for market segments that matter most, iPhone isn\u2019t beating Blackberry on engineering technology, it\u2019s winning on vastly superior holistic branding.<\/span><\/p>\n

RIM\u2019s problems aren\u2019t a matter of intelligence. RIM had plenty of that in Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, and they have plenty of intelligence still within the confines of their Waterloo-based campus. There\u2019s no reason (yet) to believe RIM\u2019s new CEO, Thorston Heins, isn\u2019t as brilliant his predecessors. What RIM needs is the right leadership for the present & future, something they had at an earlier stage of development in the former co-chairmen.<\/span><\/p>\n

What I mean by the right leadership for the time<\/i> is better illustrated by the Porsche example than the Apple example. There are some interesting parallels between Dr Wiedeking and Mr Heins in this context:<\/span><\/p>\n