BlackBerry bosses are reportedly considering a game of musical chairmen to reverse a disastrous year for the Canadian smart phones.
The board of BlackBerry manufacturer Research in Motion is rethinking the company's leadership after a terrible 2011 of failed tablets, BBM outages and poor performance, Canada's Financial Post reports.
The board is reportedly considering jettisoning chairmen Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie and replacing them with independent director Barbara Stymiest. We imagine that'll involve pushing a button so the two failed board members chairs' self-destruct, SPECTRE-style.
Outspoken BlackBerryBoss Mike Lazaridis hit the headlines early last year when he walked out of a BBC interview over questions about security in the Middle East and India.
It's clear something has to change at RIM, after a shocker of a year. The mere talk of a RIM regime change has boosted the share price today, and things can only get better after a string of disasters during 2011.
The BlackBerry PlayBook was a disappointment -- but then so have been most tablets that aren't iPads, in sales at least -- and the prices have been slashed in the new year. Then there was the spectacular week-long BlackBerry outage in October.
As if that wasn't enough, RIM was embarrassed by a forced name change for its great white hope, the QNX-based next generation of BlackBerry software originally called BBX, now rechristened BlackBerry 10. And all this against a background of general disappointing sales and delays for new phones.
Whether a new head wearing the crown will turn things around in 2012 remains to be seen: a couple of cracking new BlackBerry 10 phones would be a grand start. That said, we're not naive enough to imagine it's just about the products -- customer perception is also important, and BlackBerry needs to address the problem that the iPhone and Android smart phones are sexier, and also increasingly viewed as efficacious and secure for business use.
RIM could also make more of an effort to cater to its massive audience of younger users who are hooked on BlackBerry Messenger. The innovative social music service BlackBerry Music -- in which more mates means more music -- should appeal to the kids, and the next move should be to make the phones themselves less, well, dorky.
Could this be the start of a RIM resurgence? What does BlackBerry need to do to have a better 2012? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below, or on our Facebook page.
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anonymous 5 January, 2012 12:31
'That said, we're not naive enough to imagine it's just about the products -- customer perception is also important'
I have yet to see a tech website that isnt slating RIM at the moment. The playbook was doomed to failure because everyone jumped on the 'it has no apps' bandwagon at launch. Now this isnt exactly going to spur delevlopers on is it? A fairer crticism would be 'lack of apps at launch but qnx platform is compatibility with a host of programming languages which makes the future of this tablet quite exiting'.
Android had very few apps at launch too, and although RIM were late to the party they deserve huge applause for bringing the best mobile operating system to a tablet. It just begs to be developed for!
Im an android guy, on my phone at least but I still think that tablets arent as well thought out as they could be. Simply upscaling your OS from 3.5 to 10 inches may have worked with apple but it just doesnt work with android. its buggy, slow no matter what hardware its running on, and for me, 5 homescreens on a 10 inch tablet is just too much wasted space. QNX is a triumph becasue it is an apps list with gestures for switching and closing apps. its fantastically simple and smooth. Hope RIM can turn it around with bb10, cause if its the same app store as the playbook I can see devs flocking to it.
anonymous 6 January, 2012 02:19
make the menus more sippler and the options not scattered everywhere o had a blackberry for 1 day sent it back could not get used how the menus/options were not were u would expect them to be. very confusing handset. blackberry need to make there phones more user freindly ie when setting up the phone to ure personal preferences. features were spot on. but chngin the settings havin to go to different menus for just 1 feature. not having the menus where u would expect them to be very frustratin. havin to fiddle about with the phone to figure out where everything is. not my thing i expect phones to be full of feature with latest tech but at the upmost to be user friendly