RIM was the dominant force in mobile devices for corporate users, and an early leader in smartphones in general – until iPhone and Android started eating their lunch… and breakfast… and dinner… and snacks… you get the picture. RIM has been steadily and consistently losing market share to the benefit of Apple’s iPhone and the Android Army. The recently launched PlayBook has been widely panned in reviews. They’ve pushed the Blackberry Bold 9900 back from the summer to the fall. They apparently cancelled the planned 10-inch PlayBook to speed up moving their phones from the legacy Blackberry OS to the QNX-based OS of the PlayBook. And employees have started publishing open letters critical of the company.
Boy Genius Report has an exclusive look inside RIM, which highlights the roots of their troubles. It sounds like the issue is really that Mike Lazaridis, one of the co-founders and co-CEO, while brilliant, doesn’t really understand the changes in the market and what consumers really want – and too much of the control of RIM rests solely with him. It is an interesting article, and it doesn’t paint a pretty picture of RIM’s future prospects. I recommend checking it out.
