RIM announced on Monday that co-CEOs Lazaridis and Balsillie would be stepping down in favor of Thorston Heins. Heins, formerly the company’s Chief Operating Officer (COO) is the handpicked successor of Lazaridis and Balsillie. Heins has already announced that he’s interested in exploring licensing opportunities but has worried investors with his relentless optimismregarding RIM’s current market position.
Research in Motion needs a way to differentiate itself from Android and iOS, and it needs to do so in a way that investors and shareholders will trust. That means relying on the company’s core strengths while simultaneously conveying the idea that the company has changed its game plan.
The company’s best chance to do that? The so-called “consumerization” of IT. RIM has already dipped a toe in this market with its BlackBerry Mobile Fusion software — an initiative that now ought to be extended. There’s no way to halt the movement of consumer devices into business IT, but RIM could use its own position to build a bridge between the two, thereby giving IT departments devices they feel they can trust and consumers an option that they actually want to use.
Playing to its strength
Even after network outages late last year, RIM is a company that IT departments and businesses feel they can trust. It’s clearly not a strong enough advantage to stem the tide of company losses, but it’s a powerful asset the company should leverage while its still in a position to do so. Nailing down the business side of the equation means delivering a BlackBerry 10 OS that’s at least as capable as the company’s current BlackBerry. Data/settings migration and server synchronization both need to be simple and robust. Security is also paramount — RIM can survive if the OS is a bit rough around the edges, but a major security breach on its flagship phone could sink the company.
The consumer side is trickier. Users are wary of buying a phone without any apps, while developers aren’t interested in developing apps for a phone no one is buying. RIM may technically be in third place as far as its mobile market share, (disregarding the corpse of Symbian), but as far as mindshare and trust are concerned, it’s a distant fourth. Microsoft’s deep pockets, strong developer relations, and partnership with Nokia are a rock-solid anchor for the software giant. If Windows Phone 7 doesn’t succeed, Microsoft will roll with Windows Phone 8. If BB10 doesn’t take off, RIM’s handset business will roll over and die.
Application markets take time to organically develop — there’s no way around that — but RIM could supercharge the process with targeted projects that focus on the features that current BlackBerry customers want most. Rather than building everything from scratch, the company should approach current iOS, Android, and even WP7 developers and discuss working with them to port existing apps, while also ensuring that big-name web services like YouTube, Netflix, Google+, and Facebook all have native apps ready for launch day.
Focusing on the wants and needs of current BlackBerry users at launch makes sense for two reasons. First, it gives the BB10 development teams a more concrete target than “build the best mobile OS available.” It’s a goal that relies on data that RIM should already have access to or be able to get its hands on. Second, it rewards the group of people who are most likely to purchase another BlackBerry. True, RIM needs to gain customers long-term, but the company needs to staunch its wounds and rebuild investor confidence first.
Grim tidings
The chance that RIM is actually going to turn the tide is unfortunately minimal. Speaking to reporters yesterday, the new CEO struck out at the idea that RIM needed to change anything about its current direction, fairly bristling at the concept: “People ask about change,” Heins said. “We’ve made a lot of changes in the past 18 months… I’ve trained a lot of other people in the last four years.” “We didn’t stand still in the last 18 months, we did our homework. And I think we will complete our homework soon.”
The problem with this strategy is that RIM’s next-generation BlackBerry London (pictured above) needs to be a great device — but even an insanely great phone isn’t going to single-handedly reverse the company’s downward slide. Similarly, it needs BlackBerry OS 10 to be amazing — but an amazing OS debut won’t do the trick, either. Palm’s WebOS debut is ample proof of what happens when a critically acclaimed OS and decent smartphone launch. What RIM desperately needs is a cohesive strategy that blends the two together. What does Heins offer? Business as usual.
