Inside RIM: The Rise And Fall Of The Company That Made Smartphones Smart

Research In Motion is in the midst of a major transition in every sense of the word. Publicly, the company is portraying a very defensive image — one that is very dismissive, as if RIM is profitable and class-leading, and the media is out of line to criticize its business, as are investors. Internally, however, there’s a different story to be told. It’s a story filled with attitude, cockiness, heated arguments among the executive team and Co-CEOs, and paranoia. We’ve spoken to multiple ex-RIM executives at length about their experiences with the company over the past few years. While most speak highly of RIM and their time in Waterloo, they also each left the company due mainly to RIM’s lack of vision and leadership. Read on for an exclusive inside look at a company teetering on the edge between greatness and collapse.

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See Also:

• RIM Isn't Making Any Money On The PlayBook
• RIM's Co-CEOs Have "Titanic" Arguments In Front Of Employees
• No, RIM Doesn't Need To Split Up -- It Needs To Travel Back In Time

Inside RIM: The Rise And Fall Of The Company That Made Smartphones Smart

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RIM Isn't Making Any Money On The PlayBook (RIMM)

Research in Motion was so confident it would sell millions of PlayBooks this year, it discounted the first 500,000 to wireless carriers.

The idea, according to BGR, is that when carriers saw that RIM was selling them at less than full margin, they would apply further discounts.The first batch would sell out quickly, and carriers would place orders for millions more.

It didn't work out that way. According to the report, the 500,000 PlayBooks that RIM shipped last quarter aren't sold yet, and further orders just aren't coming in yet. Because of the subsidies, RIM hasn't made any money on the PlayBook yet.

Worse, RIM apparently waited until the last minute to tell carriers about the most glaring flaw in the PlayBook -- you can't use it to get email from a BlackBerry-managed email system unless you also have a BlackBerry phone, and connect the PlayBook to the phone wirelessly. Apparently, carriers were expecting the PlayBook to be a giant BlackBerry and were shocked at the omission.

See also: The Real Reason There Was No Email On The PlayBook.

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See Also:

• RIM's Co-CEOs Have "Titanic" Arguments In Front Of Employees
• Death To The QR Code
• Amazon Put In An Order For 1.2 Million Tablets, More Than Any Other Company Besides Apple

RIM Isn't Making Any Money On The PlayBook (RIMM)

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RIM COO Leaving The Company (RIMM)

Research In Motion's COO Don Morrison is leaving the company for medical reasons, the WSJ reports.

He is expected to return in the fall.

Last week we heard from a source that Morrison was going to be leaving the company, but not for medical reasons.

Our source suggested that Morrison, who has been at the company for a decade was just ready to move on to the next thing in life.

(It's possible our source was misreading the situation and Morrison really is leaving for medical reasons.)

Morrison's departure is "not a big deal" according to our source. It will be played up as RIM being in turmoil, but it's not. The real problem for RIM is that it doesn't have a deep executive bench to replace Morrison. The company's executive ranks are thin.

That's why RIM, despite having two other COOs on staff, is bringing in Larry Conlee, a former RIM exec, to fill in as a special advisor.

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See Also:

• RIM Insider: "We Know Things Aren't Perfect, But We're All In For The Long Haul"
• CHART OF THE DAY: This Is What RIM Executives See When They Look At The Company
• SAICAST: Tim Cook And Scott Forstall Emerge As Steve Jobs' Successors

RIM COO Leaving The Company (RIMM)

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RIM Gives In To iPhone And Android In The Enterprise

Research In Motion seems to be admitting that corporate IT departments won't help it beat back the iPhone and Android.

This morning at BlackBerry World, RIM said it will release a cross-platform version of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES). It's acquiring a company called Ubitexx to provide the technology.

This is a profound shift, and could even prepare RIM for an eventual exit from the smartphone market if sales continue to plunge.

RIM's business has always been driven by IT departments. BES gives companies an easy way to do things like activate devices, manage passwords, push out software updates, and wipe lost or stolen devices clean.

But BES only worked with BlackBerrys.

Now it will provide all these features for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone and Nokia devices as well.

RIM is still reserving plenty of features for the BlackBerry only, including push e-mail and behind-the-firewall access to enterprise apps. Its position is simply that end-users are bringing competing devices itnto the enterprise anyway, so RIM might as well help IT departments manage them with the back-end software they already use to manage BlackBerry devices.

But it's also a smart hedge.

If predictions from IDC and others are correct, RIM's market share will continue its slow decline, coming in below 15% by 2015. If RIM continued to tie BES to the BlackBerry device, BES would become less and less interesting to corporate IT.

By opening up, at least RIM can continue to address 100% of the fast-growing smartphone market -- even if it's not with the product RIM would prefer to sell.

In time, RIM might find that managing phones is a better business than making them.

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See Also:

• Mobile Industry Is Turning Attention From RIM To Microsoft
• CHART OF THE DAY: Android's App Store Will Be The Same Size As Apple's This July
• Google Finally Releases A Native Android App For Google Docs

RIM Gives In To iPhone And Android In The Enterprise

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