Last night RIM announced the firings of longstanding CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsille. Now that they are out of the game, COO Thorsten Heins will take charge at the Canadian-based organization; Lazaridis will become Vice Chair of the Board, and Heins will remain a RIM board member and director of the company.
This change seemed likely; the downward spiraling of the company has shown through lack of market share in the past couple of years, network blackouts, and failed market promotions (did anyone buy the PlayBook when it was reduced to $199?) foreshadowed some sort of change for RIM, and it was likely the two CEOs would be replaced.
The way the market is shaping up, RIM is in desperate need of something fresh, and we beg that they don’t circle into another BlackBerry standard – we want to hear the term CrackBerry come alive again.
Our main question: what will that something be?
It has been reported that RIM might follow through with licensing the BlackBerry 10 to other manufacturers, and they are “open to the idea,” but no official plans have been made. A PlayBook “revamp” is also in store.
Slashgear reports Heins said this morning, “If we continue doing what we’re doing, [...] I see no problems with us being in the top three players worldwide in the next years of wireless.”
Heins also said there will be no dividing the company into parts. RIM seems pretty confident they are able to remain in the game, but as iOS, Android, and Windows Phone evolve, we’re questioning the likelihood of BlackBerry succeeding, unless they show some drastic, significant change.
(via The Wall Street Journal and Slashgear; photo via f3v3r)
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