“BlackBerry” was a verb long before “Google” was. But, sadly, it really is time to retire a legend.
Let me begin by saying that it pains me deeply to write this one. I’m not a BlackBerry user, but my history with Research in Motion goes way, way back, all the way, in fact, to the legendary 850/950 and 857/957 models that were initially compared (very favorably, I might add) to pagers, not phones. RIM is one of the truly pioneering firms in subscriber units for wide-area mobility, but, just like Palm and Motorola and HandSpring and so many others, it’s not likely they will be with us very much longer.
I have written a good number of columns on RIM over the years, and I’ve I outlined some steps that the company might have taken to solve – or, rather, partially address – their problems. But I must admit with the benefit of hindsight that even those likely would have been too little and too late. The company’s problems remain deep-seated, and related to two key issues – a failure to maintain relevance, currency, and buzz, and the BYOD tsunami that’s destined to render the corporate handset obsolete in all but a few cases.
With respect to the former, sure, BBOS is way behind the curve, but until quite recently no one got up in the morning to buy a particular OS. Consumers tend to buy what their friends and the pundits recommend, and marketing is more important than ever in establishing and maintaining product and market leadership. RIM has had no momentum here at all in recent years – their handsets look dated, the OS certainly is, they once had a great app strategy but never pushed it, and if you want a handset with a physical keyboard (and with it, a much better and larger display), there are alternatives. And there are alternatives to BES as well. In short, RIM really doesn’t have a contemporary or competitive product set today, and the new OS doesn’t appear to have anything that will have customers lining up to buy a new handset whenever it finally ships.
Enterprise users don’t care about all of this, of course; it’s all about function. But as BYOD becomes the norm, it’s hard to imagine, again, end-users piling into cellular shops demanding a new BlackBerry. “Oldschool” doesn’t really describe the situation here; obsolete does.
Add to this screwups at the board level, like promoting the engineering manager who couldn’t make a schedule to CEO, and waiting far too long to undertake the big, strategic housecleaning required. Even more layoffs are now in the offing, and, again, even if the current customer bases isn’t concerned about all of this (and for the most part, they needn’t be), new customers will be hard to find.
There’s an old saying in product-driven companies: if you don’t eat your children, somebody else will. Add in fix it before it breaks (if it ain’t broke don’t fix it is similarly oldschool), and you have the disaster that we see today at RIM. RIM has hired investment-banking help to figure out what to do next; the obvious answer is to try to find a buyer, but I think such will be difficult even at the current stock price. While there is still value in the brand in some offshore markets, who would want technology that is clearly obsolete? The company is likely worth its current cash position plus something (but not much) for goodwill.
There are big lessons here that have been taught many times before. To be fair, anyone can make these mistakes. But it’s unlikely, just for example, say, that Apple will. Google, well, that’s another story…
